Thing #23- Reflection

Altogether, I had fun doing these exercises. I knew a bit about most of them, but ended up learning more. I found interesting tools and resources that I may be able to incorporate into my work in Special Collections or recommend to students, and I feel a bit more involved now in the current age of library work and professional activity. I probably won't start spending all my time browsing blogs and loading photos on Flickr, but I was glad to have an opportunity to learn how they work, at least. And it's nice to have these tools all listed together on one site for easier reference!

Thanks again for our wonderful Learning 2.0 Team for developing this program and supporting our library staff! ^__^

Thing #22- Web 2.0 Awards

These sites were pretty interesting- I saw several that we'd used for this exercise, as well as others that sounded promising. I rather liked Pandora for Music- it's fun to discover new artists, and they made some good suggestions. The travel sites were kind of cool, too.

All these new ideas and sites are innovative and interesting, and I'd love to have more time to explore them all completely. However, there are only so many hours in a day and so much energy left after a hectic day in the library *sigh* But they're good to know about!

Thing #21- Audio eBooks

I'd never looked into audio books before- I tend to read faster than the recorder of the audio book and don't have the patience to sit through an audio recording. With text, I can usually read a book *and* listen to music- my busy schedule necessitates as much efficiency as I can manage. But I enjoyed browsing these sites, esp. the Project Gutenberg one. Lots of interesting links, esp. the Librivox one. I can see how people would enjoy listening to books rather than reading them, esp. if they do other things like driving and working out that don't allow as much time to read text books. I found several titles that I might listen to later, for more practice in foreign language comprehension and listening- it was nice to hear actual voices reading a text, with normal inflections and emphases. The recordings that come with textbooks aren't as authentic sometimes. The iPod and Apple computer thing wasn't a big deal- I normally just use Windows computers. This would be an interesting idea to incorporate into a visiting class or an academic curriculum, as an alternative to reading tons of textual material.

Thing #20- Podcasts

This is something I've actually wanted to explore for a while. It seems similar to YouTube, but more productive, educational and helpful.

I searched each of the podcast search engines for the keywords "library" and "Japan". I wanted to see if there were any podcasts that would provide information on trends and practices in Japanese libraries today.

Podcast.net didn't turn up much. I did see our "UCSC Synergy Lecture Series " listed in the results, though.
The results from Podcastalley.com were much better. I found a nifty tour podcast about traveling through Japan and some general library podcasts. The other two didn't turn up anything relevant, either. I'll have to spend more time on this later and see what I can find, maybe refine or broaden my searches more.

Cataloging particulars

So I just finished a huge project that involved inventorying over 800 photos by Edward Weston. They were absolutely beautiful, so it was a fun job. I had to note down all the title, date and accession number information, exactly as it appeared on the print. This is a general cataloging practice as well as the best way to positively identify each print.

There was a small series of five that all had the title of “Wonderland of Rocks”. The parenthetical notes that followed the titles were as follows, though:

~~ Area later became Joshua Tree National Monument.
~~ Location now Joshua Tree National Monument.
~~ Later named Joshua Tree National Monument.
~~ Now, Joshua Tree National Monument.
~~ (none)

I was amused at the unnecessary albeit subtle diversity in these descriptive notes…. ^_^ They totally could have used one phrasing for all of them. But that’s my geeky cataloging side emerging, I guess.

Thing #19- YouTube

It's hard to believe YouTube has only been around for a year and a half- it seems like such an established part of modern popular culture these days.

I searched for "Japanese Calligraphy" on Yahoo!Video, MySpaceTV, MetaCafe, and Google Video, as well as YouTube. MetaCafe was disappointing- only two results, and one had nothing to do with shodo at all. Yahoo mainly contained more frivilous videos, rather than serious lessons or demonstrations. MySpace was surprisingly helpful- I found several good instructional videos there. Google and YouTube produced the best results, with mostly serious lessons on doing good Japanese Calligraphy.

The layouts for all the sites were pretty similar except Yahoo- the videos on that opened in a different window. MySpace had slightly "trendier" terms for rating videos, but for the most part, they all seemed to have the basic necessities.

I don't spend a lot of time looking at videos, but watching an occasional recommended one can be fun. And it's definitely a useful tool for talking about or sharing information on any topic!

Thing #18- Firefox Add-ons

Okay, adding the Cruzcat search engine was super easy. No problems there. I explored some other Firefox extensions and found a sort of interesting one called FoxLingo, a translating program that handles up to 60 different languages. So far, it works pretty well. This will come in handy when we're trying to catalog random things in Czech or Catalan or something!

more wiki editing

As a follow-up to last week's wiki exercise, I decided to test out my editing skills in Wikipedia. In the entry on John Cage, I added a small bit of content clarifying the location of his mycology collection and a link to the collection's finding aid. Not difficult at all, and now researchers will be able to find the mycology materials more quickly!

Thing #17- Online Applications

Creating the Zoho account and uploading documents was easy. However, my formatting didn't exactly import as I'd had it, and it was a little troublesome to edit my document. I may have to play around with that.

And I couldn't publish the document to my blog. It kept telling me my login and password were incorrect. I tried several times and carefully typed the correct info. So maybe this is a bug in the beta version?

Otherwise, this seems like a useful tool- it'd be easy for librarians and teachers to share documents with their students instead of emailing attachments!

Yay for Patti Smith!

Patti Smith is sooooooo awesome in concert! Just got back from a fantastic show downtown- really glad I've seen her live, now! She's got an amazing amount of energy, an absolutely magnetic stage presence, and one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard. It oscillates between low, husky and scratchy; strong, aggressive, powerful; and gentle, breathy, with a sweet tone. I really wish I could sing anywhere near that well!

She did lots of songs from her new album, which is all covers. They all suited her voice and personality so well: White Rabbit, Soul Kitchen, Perfect Day (encore), Smells Like Teen Spirit, Are You Experienced. She also sang a bunch of her own songs including two of my very favorites, Dancing Barefoot (1st song) and Because The Night. I'm really glad I noticed her name on the club sign one day- I'm usually out of the loop on cool concerts!

Just a random "fun things" post in between all the library exercises..... ^_^

Thing #16- Library 2.0

I agree with certain parts of all the perspectives on Library 2.0. From the more social, tech-savvy perspective, I do see the role of libraries and librarians changing and shifting to accommodate their patron base. There is a certain elite satisfaction in being THE source for information, as libraries once were, but the world has changed; the users have changed. The overall goal is now to at least get the users INTO the library and to use it for their research, and to do this, librarians should be flexible enough to adapt their teaching and techniques to the current resources and technologies available.

I also agree that we should do as much as we can to make resources available electronically, since that's where the world seems to be going. Improving online resources, as OCLC is doing, and increasing the amount and quality of metadata for items will be a crucial step in keeping libraries in the information loop.

I don't think "traditional" libraries will be replaced by virtual ones altogether. These are two groups of resources that can effectively augment each other, not entirely replace one another. Of course, this perspective may be ifluenced by my years of experience in a department that focuses on retaining and preserving original materials, items and collections, but archives aside, I think that people will always want to have "real" books around... with a slightly more modern packaging. ^_^

Thing #15- Custom Search Engines

This feature actually turned out to be more useful than I thought it would. I created a "Rare Books" search engine in Rollyo with a number of booksellers that I consult when trying to find specific titles. Instead of having to search for "The Winter of our Discontent" on eight separate sites, this search engine retrieved results from all of them with only one search. Of course, there may be some entries it missed that I could find by going to the ABAA site specifically, but in general, it seemed like a good start for a book search. This could be a useful tool for librarians or professors who want to quickly guide their students in the right direction. It can be frustrating to weed through tons of search results that have little relevance to the topic you're researching!

Thing #14- Online chatting

Just sent a message to the Library 2.0 team online. I've used IM programs before- they can be very effective and helpful if you want to quickly communicate with people. However, it's easy to get stuck online for a while, chatting and chatting.... so I prefer to send email. But a feature like this would be an excellent tool for reference staff!

Thing #13- Editing Wikis

Okay, I added a URL link to our Spec Coll page and edited the text a bit. Actually editing wikis is not difficult.
I think complications tend to arise more with content in general, such as images, copyright, permissions, etc.

Thing #12- Wikis

The library wikis cited were okay. I can see why these libraries set up wikis to track book recommendations and conference happenings- these are helpful entries for participants to edit. It was a slightly different wiki experience from a broader compilation of knowledge like Wikipedia, though. I didn't have as great a searching experinence in the library wikis- their contents are thus far a little too specific and limited for broad searching. It was easier to just browse categories and topics, which makes me wonder if these groups had considered establishing an online forum instead of a wiki?

I think bibliographic instruction is one area where wikis could be successfully applied in a library setting. Wikis dedicated to specific topics (medieval manuscripts, reference tips and tools, etc.) could neatly organize a large amount of information in one place for users to access and add to.

Thing #11: LibraryThing

Okay, this exercise was kind of fun. I actually like LibraryThing a lot, but I'm a library geek like that... ^_^ It's a good idea to have a program that lets you organize and catalog your own library without having to own technical MARC software or have the cataloging skills to enter items. I've found that personally, this program helps me organize my massive library at home and prevents me from buying duplicates of books. And I like that it draws information from LOTS of OPACs and union catalogs. And I really like that it has a "manual cataloging" feature for items that won't appear in any of those databases. So, yeah- LibraryThing is very cool.

I did a search for "Saint Maybe" by Anne Tyler. I love all of her work, but particularly this one- the characters are especially endearing to me for many reasons. I retrieved the following recommendation list- I've put the ones I've read in bold and the ones I've at least heard of in italics:

1. A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
2. Father Melancholy's Daughter by Gail Godwin
3. Object Lessons by Anna Quindlen
4. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
5. Searching for Caleb by Anne Tyler
6. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
7. Family Pictures : a novel by Sue Miller
8. The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
9. The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
10. Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman
11. Talk Before Sleep : a novel by Elizabeth Berg
12. The Good Husband by Gail Godwin
13. For Love by Sue Miller
14. Brief Lives by Anita Brookner
15. The Beet Queen : a novel by Louise Erdrich
16. Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg
17. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
18. Second Nature by Alice Hoffman
19. The All-true Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton : a novel by Jane Smiley
20. Couples by John Updike

This list didn't surprise me too much. Of the ones I've read or heard of, they mostly deal with the trials and inner workings of families, each teaching social and interpersonal lessons of sorts. Of the others, they seem to follow a similar path. Many of these books would be aimed at women, I think, especially ones who are attached to their families and/or understand how families can fall apart in an instant. It's a much more complete list of recommendations than those you get from Borders or Amazon online. And this list seems to take subjects, interests, and actual content into consideration, instead of basing recommendations on publication or sales information.

I like the abundance of information gathered on LibraryThing: editions, publication information, the opportunity to discuss books, the chance to see what other people are reading... it's actually a nice mixture between traditional academic cataloging and information organization and modern search techniques and technologies.

Thing #10b- Tagging

Okay, I totally forgot to check the pings the day I did them, so I'm doing it now. I didn't see a specific time on my Dead Sea Scrolls entry on Technorati, but it said logged 3 days ago, which sounds about right. Blog.Ask.com also found my entry on 8/3. I'm liking that site more as I look at it- someone else on the search list also attended the lecture that evening, so it was nice to read his review of it. It seems like pinging works and does its job.

Thing #10a- Tagging-Technorati

Okay, just wrote a post to ping and did the pinging for the two search engine groups . I guess I can see how pinging would be helpful if you had an informational or news blog you needed indexed on a regular basis, but this seems like an awful lot of work for a personal blog. Maybe I'm just lazy... >_<

Dead Sea Scrolls

Last week, I saw the Dead Sea Scrolls on exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It was a great exhibit, full of interesting information about the area where the scrolls were discovered, their archaelogical history, and how historians have preserved them. The exhibit talked about the Bedouins who initially disovered the scrolls and fragments in subterranean caves in the Israeli desert, then showed pictures of the "scrollery" where eight full-time scholars spent about a decade grouping and identifying over 40,000 fragments of documents. After reading about the scrolls upstairs, we got to go downstairs to view actual specimens. These included both biblical and non-religious texts, as well as documents in Greek. Some of the fragments were fairly clear and easy to read; others had darkened to a near black, making it impossible to see the script. There was even one scroll written on a sheet of copper! It was a fascinating exhibit, and makes me thankful that the worst I have to deal with in MY archival work is crumbling Victoriana and vinegared films. ^_^

Thing #9 Del.icio.us

I can see a lot of potential for use of Del.icio.us in classroom or library settings. It makes it easy to share many websites with a larger group of people all at once without setting up a mailing list or something. This is something I could easily incorporate into bibliographic instruction sessions I conduct. And the tags/comments features are useful, too, letting you see what other users think and how they might organize their information.

Thing #8- Second Life

I actually watched two videos. I watched the SJSU one because I was curious to see how my grad. school integrated Second Life into its curriculum. I can see the advantage for distance learners who may not have access to a traditional campus setting, or at least a large one like SJSU. The Info Island they showed was very pretty, and I can see how testing out some professional activities in a simulation setting might help graduate students make a smoother transition into the professional world.

I also watched the ACRL video because I wanted to see how a professional library organization interpreted the program. I wasn't as impressed. It was a pretty video that showed a traditionally boring set of professionals partying and displaying their more youthful side. I could see how something like this would help attract younger groups to the library profession. But the video seemed too superficial to me, and I couldn't help wondering how much actual work the presenters could have done with the time they spent creating the video.

I read the first article by Bell, Peters and Pope. It essentially suggested that in the modern world, libraries must offer services that their users will want in order to compete with other activities, and since many users now spend most of their time online, that's where libraries must go. I can see the logic in this idea, and it makes sense to offer a library component in a program that attracts a high number of participants. I can also see the value of Second Life as a sort of simulation program, to see if the library profession might be something you'd like to do, to test out the initial reception of a presentation or a paper.

However, I don't think I'll really be able to view Second Life as a serious tool for professional activity, at least not right now. It may be a generational difference or something, but to me, there is soooooo much to do right now in the first life that I cannot justify spending time in a virtual world. I'd be more inclined to go out into my immediate commnity and volunteer as a docent, offer reference services, work at an understaffed branch library, conduct instructional programs, and share research at conferences, since those actions would impact my immediate reality and therefore seem more productive.

Second Life seems like an interesting program, and it probably has many uses in educational and library settings that I haven't seen yet. It's not for me, but if modern librarians can promote their profession and develop their careers through it, excellent!

Thing #7: MySpace Page

Okay, set up a MySpace page under the display name Mitternacht39. As I was looking at the profile edit options, I noticed that all the choices under "networking" were pop culture and social activity types of things. No entries for things like education, libraries, literature...

Okay, off to lunch now.

LC chic...

A colleague sent me an interesting news article this morning. According to the New York Times, our profession is now trendy and cool!

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

Thing #6: Social Networking

I browsed through the social networking sites this morning. MySpace seems very similar to Friendster and seems to be the most useful, since it contains blogs, photos, personal info, and links to other friends. Facebook seemed okay, but pretty much the same concept. Ning was... unique- random bunches of people grouped together by inconsistently structured interests. They were all colorful and pretty easy to read and navigate.

I can see the general appeal of social networking- people who feel comfortable online may have more sucess finding friends, people to chat with, dating partners, etc. through a social network than in person. It was fun to see the different users and what they're into- some of them had really pretty layouts, others just had basic information.

I don't think online social networking is something that I'd do, though. I have *way* too much to do offline (work, calligraphy class, exercise, research, etc.) to spend my limited free time browsing through thousands of users that I don't know at all and will probably never have a substantial connection to. I tend to do my social networking with people I actually interact with- it's more useful for my life's activities and goals. And I'd rather meet new people through something more active, like travelling or attending a concert or watching a hockey game. For professional communication, I socialize with colleagues through listserves and forums that are specific to library work- I'm not really going to find serious opinions on the future of letterpress printing, best practices for building a digital archive, or new workshops on implementing DACS on MySpace! >_<

Thing #5b- More RSS

Tried out the RSS feed search sites. The Bloglines one was most useful- everything else just turned up either blogs I wouldn't want to mark, or really specific parts of larger sites. I think it's just easier to mark the RSS feed as you're looking at the website. So I added more feeds- enjoy! ^_^

Thing #5a- RSS feeds

Set up the bloglines account- very easy to do. Bookmarked several feeds, also very easy to do. RSS feeds do seem like a good, efficient way to consult several sources of information at once. This kind of technology would be very helpful to library departments that recommend research sites or require reading. I'm not sure if I'll use it much in the future- I already have the bookmarks in my browser organized in a similar way. But it certainly has possibilities. My public bloglines URL:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/mitternacht39

Thing #4- Flickr

Uploading photos to Flickr was pretty easy, though there were several more steps involved in getting them to the blog than I would have liked... But every online program is different- just a matter of getting things initially set up. So here are photos from a trip to Long Beach in May, and from the walk to FanimeCon over Memorial Day weekend.

Long Beach
Originally uploaded by mitternacht39

This is a picture of the CA coast at Long Beach. I love how blue the water is! The beaches are long and sandy there, much different from our rocky beaches up north. There's simply nothing like drinking cool iced tea and watching the calm waters of Southern California!

LB Museum of Art
Originally uploaded by mitternacht39

This is actually a shot of the restaurant next door to the LBMoA. Very swanky inside, nice outdoor patio. Interesting metal sculpture in the fountain... We didn't eat there, but wandered around after viewing the excellent exhibit of enamelwork in the museum.

San Jose
Originally uploaded by mitternacht39

One of the nicest things about FanimeCon is that it's local- no expensive airline tickets or hotels to worry about, unlike AX or Otakon. The walk from the train station to the convention center is particularly pleasant, about twenty minutes. This year, I looked into the river bed and saw a mama duck leading her seven little ducklings. Kawaii!!

Thing #3- More blogging- part 2

Sphere
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- Only 5 blogs with EAD, all searching that as a string of sequential letters in other words (head, lead, read). No results for Encoded Archival Description.

Edo Period history- One result that had *nothing* to do with Japanese history.

Isaac Israels- 0 results.

Blog.Ask.com
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- More green card and military blogs, but also a higher percentage of blogs that talk about the metadata scheme. The first result was extremely relevant: EAD 2002. Encoded Archival Description retrieved over 200 blogs about archival encoding, many of them relevant or informative. These would be blogs I’d check more frequently- lots of interesting articles, job ads, best practices.

Edo Period history- Fairly good results. Lots of blogs that talk about intellectual aspects of Japanese history between 1603-1867. These blogs talk about exhibits, artifacts, articles, etc. I could see some of them leading or contributing to more scholarly research, such as this blog on Japanese Territories.

Isaac Israels- Mostly references to Israels paintings sold at auction, but still interesting.

Altogether, I think Blog.Ask.com was the most appealing search engine for me. The blogs were more interesting and intellectual than those found through the other search engines. I generally don’t read blogs, though- too time-consuming. I maintain a personal one only as a way to keep in touch with a large group of friends all at once, since they live in different time zones and countries. For academic research, I usually use the library’s print and online resources, and follow links from web sites specific to my research inquiries. I do, however, see blogs as helpful tools for gathering information on a project or topic, like our McHenry construction blog.

Thing #3- More blogging- part 1

Okay, tested out the blog search engines with two academic terms and one non-academic one and found the following results:

Technorati
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- When I typed EAD into the "ALL" box, I got a variety of blogs that talked about green cards, distance teaching, and real estate. Many simply contained misspellings of "head" or "dead". In 20 pages of results, I only spotted a few blogs that talked about archiving. Same results when I entered EAD in the "EXACT" box. None of these entries would be things I’d really want to read. When I searched Encoded Archival Description, I retrieved many more blogs about archiving. This one seemed most interesting:

NYLA-Smart

Edo Period history- Not too bad. About 800 blogs on topics ranging from sushi and art to samurai and travel. Not much academic information here, but that’s to be expected. Found several fairly pretty sites, though: Japanese Culture

Isaac Israels- He’s one of my favorite artists, a semi-obscure Dutch Impressionist, so I was happy to pull up about 80 results. They were a mix between Jewish history/artist sites and artistic biography sites. Most were in Dutch, though several were in other languages. Happily, I found an image of my very favorite Israels painting on a Spanish Cultura Lesbiana blog~. The actual painting, which resides in the Kröller-Müller Museum is so incredibly rich in color, texture and dimension!

Blogscope
EAD/Encoded Archival Description- Results for EAD were similar to the Techn. ones. Fewer green card pages, more British dialect ones. Only a few new archival pages, mostly in Chinese. And NO search results for Encoded Archival Description! I did get the following message in my first search, though, which seems to limit the effectiveness of this site: “The public version of BlogScope allows only limited access, and results beyond 30 items can not be viewed. Please contact us if you would like to access the complete data.”

Edo Period history- So-so results. Several personal blogs that talked about visits to museums, sushi, samurai, etc. Mildly entertaining.

Isaac Israels- Mostly blogs talking about Israel, the country. This search engine seems to search strings of characters best, not conceptual phrases.

first post for Library 2.0- Things #1-2

*sigh* Never thought I'd end up with three of these things.... but it'll be easier for me to keep track of progress on this one project in a separate journal. At first, I didn't think I'd participate- I've already done most of these things before and feel fairly comfortable with new technologies. But I do believe in supporting library instruction, so I'm looking forward to the summer's tasks.