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.