Mashups

Very interesting video to begin this lesson. I've been using the word mashup fairly loosely, and not quite correctly perhaps. Some of the things I've been calling a mashup were actually done "manually", eg the FOCOL assistant and I built a Google Map locating all of the members of Fox Cities Online and we added a link to the map to a Wiki we've been experimenting with on another site. Perhaps a more proper mashup if we take the time to actually display the map on the FOCOL homepage.

I did go to the Map Builder site and add a pointer for the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve. At first for some reason the site wanted to put Bubolz in the middle of Nebraska somewhere despite the fact that I think I gave it the correct address. But evenually it settled down in approximately the correct location.

I have more work to do before I will feel like I really understand mashups. But this exercise has helped some and at least broadened my perception of the topic and made me realize that I don't know as much about them as I thought I did.

Final Thoughts on this Semester of Project Play

I have had a wonderful time Playing this semester. I appreciate all of the time and effort that Beth and Stef and Joy have put into making this a true learning experience for all of us.

The Seth Godin video is wonderful. It is a slightly different expression of the meaning behind one of my favorite quotes. The version I like is a quote from recently departed wise man Arthur C. Clarke: "Bring me into the company of those who seek the truth and deliver me from those who have found it." I think that "those who seek the truth" are the curious and "those who have found it" are those whom Godin calls fundamentalists. I prefer the company of the curious, and strive to be one of them.

I think that one of the tools that I have found the most useful through Project Play has been del.icio.us When this started I had an account, but I didn't use it much and I didn't "grok" why I should. But I use so many diffenent computers that it has become my mobile link list. I use it all the time.

And I have come to really appreciate tags. I used to dismiss them as undisciplined and unprofessional. Perhaps they are. But they are also very useful. Last night Pete referred to the keywords we use on Fox Cities Online as tags, and although I never thought of them that way before they most certainly ARE. Now if we could only figure out a way to generate a tag cloud out of the FOCOL database...

As I contemplate a future some day where my computer tools will have to be completely self provided these things that I'm learning about will be very useful to me.

Here at APL we actually do use a wide variety of these tools to make our services work better and our internal communications more effective. But we haven't deployed many in publicly visible areas yet. That's an area we need to work more on.

YouTube

I've seen cool things done with YouTube, and I do use it to find things that I hear about on the web or in conversation. I missed Obama's speech on race, for instance, and intend to go out and watch it on YouTube. I have little doubt it will be there.

And you can certainly find pretty much anything you're looking for.


In another blog I wrote of the flock of starlings I saw around my yard last week. This is a video of another amazing flock.

Screencasting

There are probably many uses for this in libraryland. Sara, our webmaster, created a really nice screencast of instructions for people adding events to our new online calendar. I found several of the examples in this lesson to be pretty slow to load and the first one, CuePrompter, never really seemed to be able to keep up with itself. As Stef mentions in her podcast, there can and probably will be a variety of problems with using this technology for a wide audience.

Podcasting

I've really never liked the sound of my voice when I hear it recorded, so I'm not going to try to create my own podcast. But I do like to listen to NPR Science Friday on the way home from meetings in Madison, and since I don't go to Madison as often anymore, the podcast version is a way to catch it any time. I have been using my itunes software to capture that and other podcasts, including the Onion Radio News. I can set it to grab the latest episode whenever there is a new one, and keep only the most recent 5. That way I always have something, but I don't fill up all of the space on my device with old stuff I'll never get around to listening to. Sort of similar to the way I maintain my DVR to keep 2 episodes of the Colbert Report and the Daily Show always available.

I really liked the Denver Public Library use of podcasts to present readings of children's books. I can see a big audience for that among young parents, who could check out the book, and use it together with the podcast to take advantage of youngsters' seemingly "natural" inclination to pay more attention to media than to a person in the room. I'm sure that there is some significant amount of negotiation and rights management that would have to go into doing something like that, but it would likely be worthwhile. The teen podcasts from Boulder were less interesting IMHO. Seems if you're going to provide a context for teens to learn about the technology it would be worth doing a bit of curriculum development so what they create is more useful. (I know, only old fogies like me think things need to be "useful" to be good...)

Social Networking, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

I did most of this assignment quite some time ago, but really don't know what to write about. I'm ambivalent about libraries having Facebook or MySpace accounts, none of the examples seem to get much action from patrons. But I find some aspects of these sites quite interesting. I've been trying to hook up with old friends and acquaintances and have had little success. Pretty tough to find people I knew in College - there were over 30,000 people at UW Madison when I went there. And my old high school pals don't seem to have taken up this medium.

But I did find the Facebook account of one of my husband's nephews, and he actually agreed to be my "friend". I think I've talked more with him since then than everything else since he was about 6 years old.

I do like "simpsonizeme.com" and created the character at left. Fun and easy.

Week 3 Semester 2 - Jott and Remember the Milk

Well, I just don't know about these. They seem too "cute" to be very useful. I do use lists, but tend to do them on paper for very immediate, what do I have to accomplish this afternoon sorts of things. I can see how these tools can be integrated into other things, and wonder if Google may become the manager of my life some day, but for right now it is easier for me to use the well integrated workgroup software we have with Outlook for most things.

That may be the key to some of this: if you are on a well organized network, and most of your collaborations are done among people also on that network, then the tools there will be of more value to you. But if you work with people who are otherwise unconnected, and need to communicate and share tasks, etc. with people in many different places and on different networks, then these web based tools are great.

And I use my cell phone so little that I don't know if I would find Jott very useful at all. Again, maybe in the future...

Another pet peeve (or unfullfilled need) is that I'm getting tired of remembering all of the usernames and passwords that I have for these services. Some can be re-used of course, but it always seems that each service has its own requirements and/or already taken names. Trying to remember which variation I used on this or that service makes the use much less convenient than it should be. I would welcome the advice of others on how you manage all this stuff.

Google Docs

Yes, Google Docs is pretty neat. And useful in a library context too. We want to let our patrons do work on our catalog machines, but they are secured using the Public Web Browser shell. We can't really put any software on them, because that would require letting patrons out to Windows. And, in addition, it would be expensive - We have 17 catalog workstations. So, we will just add Google Docs to the list of allowed websites. That will let patrons do research in our databases, the resources we share with OWLSnet, InfoSoup, etc. and then use the results in a term paper, report, etc.

IMing, Meebo, and all that Jazz

I'm not sure that I really get IM. It seems that the demands of being right there all the time and responding immediately make IM more like the "old fashioned" telephone than the newer, more convenient, email environment. With email, you don't have to interrupt or be interrupted, but you can send off a message when it is fresh in your mind and the person you are sending to can reply at their convenience.

That being said, I can see how a Meebo gadget could very well be a useful service point for the library to offer its patrons during hours that we are staffed. Patrons who need an immediate answer may well appreciate this method - a little less personal than phone or in-person contact, but still right there.

I've embedded a meebo gadget into the Administration home page on our library Intranet. I'll be interested to see how long it is til someone finds it. Now all I have to do is remember to log in to Meebo every morning (and log out again when I leave...) The next tool I need is some sort of universal tool that logs me in to my network, my email, the supervisor's in/out board, Meebo, etc. all in one swoop. And then grabs me as I walk out of the door and makes sure that I log out of all of them. Ideas anyone?