Briggs Blog

Thing 46

2009-06-19T10:13:00.001-07:00

Joined WebJunction.

Thing 45

2009-06-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Didn't know it was called that. Not to be confused with cloud tags or results. UMM uses NetFiles for back-up

Thing 44

2009-06-19T10:03:00.001-07:00

Some useful tools I hadn't heard of.

Thing 43

2009-06-19T09:58:00.001-07:00

Hulu is cool. I like using it.

Thing 42

2009-06-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Alternatives to NPR and MPR!

Thing 41

2009-06-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

Digsby and Lifestream could be invaluable at organizing all our social tools.

Thing 40

2009-06-19T09:36:00.001-07:00

More mashups. More friviolity.

Thing 39

2009-06-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

I made a photo album on Snapfish. Scrapbooking online is the next wave.

Thing 38

2009-06-19T09:20:00.001-07:00

Looking forward to playing around with screencasting using one of the free tools. I'll need a mic which I can use for podasting too. I wonder which of the free screencasting tools allows you to edit?

Thing 37

2009-06-19T08:54:00.001-07:00

I have a Flickr account and a Snapfish account. I also use Phixr for fast and dirty photo fixing.

Thing 36

2009-06-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

So much fun so little time.

Thing 35

2009-06-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

Great articles and very interesting book review/reading/cataloging sites. As always, the sheer number of social book sites is a bit overwhelming, but it's good to be aware of them. Perhaps when the majority of reading is online (Kindle, etc) we can still have virtual bookshelves to show off.

Personally, I feel that the Internet does provide a more superficial and scattered experience that robs concentration even as it assists struggling readers and gives a more varied opinion and layered media stimulis.

Thing 34

2009-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Really cool articles on the future of reference. Concerning Internet answer sites...libraries have always been behind the curve and fairly isolated. Only recently have they really branched out in a coordinated effort. Wouldn't it be cool if WorldCat offered a reference service with participation from subscribing libraries? We have AskMN, why not AskALibrarian?

Thing 33

2009-06-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

More user feedback good. Need a filter, however.

Thing 32

2009-06-18T08:41:00.001-07:00

Would like to create a Google Map for independent bookstores someday.

Thing 31

2009-06-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly, a few interesting things about Twitter. The possible RSS applications were new and I downloaded Twhirl.

Thing 30

2009-06-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

I really appreciate the feed filters as well as the Delicious search options. Unfortunately, I rarely search Delicious, using it simply as a online bookmark site instead. I do have rss feeds, and look at them occasionally, but I can't think of terms that would be ideal for either exclusion or inclusion. It works better for me to scan and review manually.

Thing 29

2009-06-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Google Tools is a lot like a college student who graduates with 6 majors and then has no idea what to do. As cool as some of the ideas are I really wish Google would work on improving their admittedly good search engine instead of all these alpha/beta experimental thingees that don't always work the best. For every GoogleEarth there's a 1-800-GOOG-411. Great in theory (free info look-up service) but not so great in practice. I tried it, and it took me several times for the automated service to understand my city and state correctly.

Google Scholar is another bold venture that was begun and then just quietly languishes. How many years will it be in beta? Perhaps the best thing that could happen to Google is Bing, a pretty good search engine in its own right. Privacy concerns notwithstanding, good may not be good enough sooner than Google thinks.

Thing 28

2009-06-16T13:21:00.001-07:00

The trouble with iGoogle and the other customizable portal sites is that you can't always put EVERYTHING in them. Case in point. I have a university email and calendar that I can't drop and drop into iGoogle. These are probably the two most important tools I have on a daily basis. So what do I have in iGoogle? Lots of fun gadgets like Nature Pictures, clock, weather, even some RSS feeds with a library perspective. Others that don't. Which means I rarely use it. The university has a portal that does have my email and calebdar, among other things, I can add other tools as well. Truth be known, I haven't used it much either. But the interface is getting better so that may change.

So much of what we do is habit...

Thing 27

2009-06-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

I've been trying (really I have) to discern true useful applications of Twitter for myself in a academic environment. At it's heart, Twitter is a really easy way to let individuals know what you're doing on a minute-by-minute basis either through the Web, IM or texting. For example: I just scratched my nose. That would be an awesome Twitter entry and well below the 140 character limit per post. One of the 23 Things videos explained that your friend wouldn't have to need to know that you're mowing the lawn, but then went on to say that others might like to follow what you're doing? My immediate reaction is why? Who has the time to post about trivial matters or read about them? To me, Twitter undermines concentration, focus and deep thinking and puts in its place scattered tidbits of gossip. Think of a bird, fluttering its wings and darting here and there. That's what Twitter does a thousand times over.

I do see a use for it as another means of querying a certain group on a question or problem. Instead of inanely posting gibberish it could be used as a means to get answers. Twittering conferences, is fine I suppose, but wouldn't it be better to summarize the speaker and then blog about it?

The reference applications of Twitter deserve further consideration. Right now, our online reference tools don't get that much use, but if our users start using Twitter then we need to be there as well. I've already begun discussions on setting up a library Twitter account for publicity purposes.

Thing 26

2009-06-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

I had already joined Ning, but I posted a query and also did a search, joining Ning for the NLLN region of which I'm a part. One thing I've noticed is that most of the conversations happening on these library Nings revolve around Ning itself, rather than some separate library question or issue. It's akin to sitting in a car and debating the merits or drawbacks of the vehicle in question instead of actually going someplace.

I understand that Ning like many of the Web 2.0 social sites is quite new and there is bound to be discussion about it. I'm just hoping that the best sites will survive and we can move on to actually using them for professional communication and growth.

Thing 25

2009-06-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

Widgets, widgets, and more widgets. Oh yes, and some gadgets too!

What time is it?

What's the meaning of life? (Search here)

Picture Perfect

Blinkx Video Wallgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Feed Me!

Library Land

iLibrariangreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Tennis Time

2009-06-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Avatar of Aces?

Okay, I'm no Roger Federer, but I like to play tennis whenever I can. Lately I've been hearing a lot of talk concerning who the best tennis player ever is. Blame The Fed. Since winning his 14th Grand Slam title at the French Open he's officially tied Pete Sampras. At only 27 years-old he has a good shot at beating it too. But is he the best? Hmm. I would suggest another possibility and the answer might just surprise you.

Thing 24

2009-06-11T08:04:00.001-07:00

Well, it's good to be back. I added a gadget (a picture of me in Librarian on the Loose mode), edited my profile and changed the template design of the blog. Most of the students are gone for the summer and it's quiet. Real quiet. Lots of time to work on special projects, take webinars and blog a bit, but I always have a hard time transitioning from the hustle and bustle of the academic year to this more relaxed atmosphere.

One of the things I miss is getting out of the librarian more as part of my Librarian on the Loose initiative. Basically, I take a laptop and set up a temporary reference desk somewhere on campus nearly every day. I bring a "quiz" that matches a monthly theme I pick and students who take it are automatically entered into a drawing for a nifty little prize. Along the way I make a pitch about Briggs Library reference services answer any research questions they might have. It's been a great way to meet and get to know students who don't come into the library very much. It also makes the library more approachable.

All for now. Bring on Thing 25!

Thing 23

2009-06-11T07:44:00.001-07:00

I finally made it! Thanks for making this learning tool possible. I learned so much that I wouldn't have otherwise. Now on to More Things on a Stick...

Thing 22

2009-06-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

I really should make it a habit to read at least one library blog every day. LibraryBytes, The Shifted Librarian, Free Range Librarian, and others, are all possibilities. I'm still looking for one consistently good library-related blog that I can read daily.

Thing 21

2009-06-10T07:32:00.000-07:00

Visit 23 Things on a Stick

I call the Ning icon above my badge of courage. There are a lot of social sites out there, and only the VERY brave librarian with lots of time dare venture. Gather at first turned me off because I thought it was just another social site, albeit for adults. Then I learned of its book focus and I'm hooked! Ning is quite interesting and I especially enjoy its groups that delve into library topics. WebJunction is a classic.

Briggs 20

2009-06-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

I've been on Facebook for a while now. It's more of a personal communication device rather than a professional outlet, but utilizing the technology on a regular bais in beneficial. I haven;t used MySpace. Briggs Library has a new Facebook page and I am a co-administrator. We hope to use our Facebook page as a way to "push" events and news out to our fans. We already have a news RSS feed on our main webpage, but Facebook offers us the chance to reach a wider and perhaps deeper audience.

Besides Facebook, I'm interested in using LinkedIn, the new professional social network. I have a Twitter account, but I don't use it that much. The character limit seems a bit silly and I don't quite get the advantage of having to communicate in yet another outlet. Still, I'm advocating the library set up a Twitter account and it will be fun to see how that goes.

Since 23 Things was started middle-aged individuals, many of them women, have eclipsed college students and teens as the fastest growing population in Facebook. Eventually the young will have to find a new cool place to go. Will librarians be ready?

Thing 19

2009-06-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Podcasts are something I've wanted to try out for a while. A couple of years ago I began listening to NPR programs on my iPod, but lately I've reverted to just listening to the live audio stream from my computer. I'm now signed up to several podcast feeds through iTunes as well as Podcast.com and look forward to listening on a regular basis. One of the drawbacks for me is having to go to several different places to get my news and entertainment. Hopefully media will continue to converge so all our podcats, facebook socializing, tweating, emails, chating, etc will be in one central location, rather than scattered around the far-flung corners of the Internet. Remembering all of those passwords is giving me a headache!

I also downloaded audacity and will explore this more. It's not much use without a microphone, however, so I will attempt to borrow one from our Media Services. It would be fun to record and make available some of our special programming at Briggs Library, perhaps via iTunes U as well as own website.

Thing 18

2009-06-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Star Wars made quite an impression on me as a twelve-year-old. This YouTube video is one of my favorites.

Briggs Library is working with several UMM students to create a short library video that can be used for orientation. Once completed I'll post here!

Thing 17

2009-06-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

I'm very familiar with the resources available through ELM. That will all change, of course, with the new additions to ELM just announced and taking effect this July. I was lucky enough to take part in the selection process and am awed by the wide array of databases that will be available to individuals in Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. My lone lament is the sorry fact that many people including students and school teachers are unaware of ELM and what it can provide. Until we mandate that ALL schools have media specialists information literacy and education in general will continue to suffer.

The search alert function in many of the databases and I can see my faculty at UMM making use of it. I set one up myself in Academic Search Premier. The "Create Web Page" function is less useful in my opinion and seems to be a lot of work for little benefit. The "Note" function is interesting. I played around with it a bit. Since UMM has a site license to EndNote writing Notes in individual database items is unnecessary (and a bit cumbersome).

RSS feeds have always been a bit of a frustration for me. If they can be delivered as an email in a separate folder I am happy to receive them. Otherwise it's just one MORE place I have to go to retrieve information or communicate.

Thing 16

2009-05-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

University of Minnesota, Morris has had Assignment Calculator on our Student Services webpage for over two years now, and we have been very pleased with it. I try to keep it current and list local resources whenever possible. I hadn't heard of the Research Project Calculator, but I was a bit disappointed in it. The information and resources listed were fairly sparse. Much worse, however, there was no Research Paper choice in the assignment drop-down menu. Are students at the high school no longer expected to do research or write papers?

Thing 15

2009-04-13T11:52:00.001-07:00

The virtual world is quite fascinating and I'm quite excited to try out Puzzle Pirates, and especially SecondLife after watching the tour of InfoIsland. As always, time is a constraint, but I really want to immerse myself in these environments to get a better understanding of what they're about. The info on gaming was good, but a little one-sided. Evidently, there are no detrimental effects of gaming. If I hear one more gaming expert spout how great reading is in a virtual environment I will roll my 20-sided dice and hope fervently that I fumble. All in all, though, very cool! Oh, and GaiaOnline looks neat as well.

Thing 14

2008-10-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

LibraryThing...I think I love you! I set up an account last year, but haven't used it a lot. This was a good excuse to play around with it again. Briggs Library also utilizes LibraryThing for our BestSeller collection. The random display is cool, but it doesn't allow much precision. I would think most libraries would rather utilize RSS or good ole' HTML to display newly added items to the collection. I've been trying to get a workable New Items List for UMM, but so far haven't been able to find a robust enough system that allows for the excluding of certain titles in Aleph.

Thing 13

2008-10-13T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. I guess that's what buying a house does! I looked through many of the productivity tools. I already have a iGoogle page and a online calendar through UMM. Stickynotes and tada list sound promising and I've set up accounts. They both could help cut down on the multiple post-it notes that are taking over my office like tribbles! I'm really excited about the free PDF converter. Can't wait to try that out!

Thing 12

2008-08-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Digg, Reddit, Newswire, Mixx and the like are the news and Intertainment (Get it? It's entertainment on the Internet) equivalent of Wikipedia. Like the online encyclopedia content is largely managed by the populations that use them. I don't have a problem using Wikipedia for background information or as a starting point. I do have little interest with these collective news sites. Most of them are a mess and amount to little more than popularity contests. Vote for a news story indeed. Why would I want my content managed by the whims of others even more distracted than I am? Post my own story? Blog about my reading? Allow others to track it? Time wasters all. I certainly see some marginal benefit in the ability to share what's important to me and see what others are interested in. It's fun to explore for a few minutes, but I don't want to live my life that way and I certainly wouldn't design an entire site around it.

The argument for social sites such as these is that it puts the power in the hands of the people and promotes sharing of information. And to a certain extent it does. But it is largely trivial and inconsequential activity, no better than the old model of "someone out there" providing content. What I'm interested in is a system that allows me to pick sites and topics that I'M interested in and then be able to access that info in a convenient manner. de.lic.ious is a step in that direction. If I want to blog about it and send my thoughts out into the vast Internet ocean I can do that too. Maybe someone would even read it.

Of the four social news sites Newsvine was the most usable to me, mostly because its interface was less chaotic. I can't see using any of them professionally or personally, except on a lark or perhaps to search for some unusual topic. They are all productivity wasters. The underlying framework, namely social-sharing and wikis, could be utilized in a library environment. A more specific focus would help.

Thing #11

2008-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Time sure flies. I just noticed that it's been a month since my last post. As an aside, my trip to Wimbledon and Edinburgh was delightful, helping to recharge and inspire. Now back to business.

Tagging and del.icio.us was fun. I've had a del.icio.us account for a while now. At first it was a adjustment. I really wanted to simply bookmark my sites, and had to force myself to tag instead. Now it's second-nature. While not a perfect system or interface, the benefits are real. Since it's web-based I can access my sites from everywhere, and the fact that I can choose to have sites displayed alphabetically or under more than one subject is very handy. I still don't quite have a handle on tag mechanics, though. It seems as if tags of more than one word, such as Star Wars, only work if you smoosh the keywords together as in StarWars. When I try just with commas I don't see my tags.

Looking at some of the other social bookmarking options was cool. Furl seemed a step backward, in my opinion. The interface seemed a bit cruder and less functional. PageKeeper was much better, however. I liked the clean look and nifty subject categories. I could see social bookmarking sites springing up that specialize in certain subjects.

I know some libraries allow patrons to tag catalog items. I think this is great, and I think we would do it here if demand warranted it, and if it was technically feasible. Sometimes tagging just seems like a big mess to me, especially when a myriad of different tags from countless individuals come together. Yet I suppose that is also its advantage; creating uniqueness out of chaos, and then sharing it. One aspect of social labeling I do like, perhaps more in the public library level, is book comments by users. It may be useful for Briggs Library to create special del.icio.us subject directories for users. Then again, we already have directories of websites created for patrons through our ResearchQuickStart module.

Thing #10

2008-06-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

Much of the wiki basics was old-hat to me, but it was still enjoyable learning about what others are doing with wikis. I was a bit surprised at some of the examples, however. To me, the strength of a wiki is the collaborative nature it fosters. When I see institutions putting all their policies or even service information in the form of a wiki I don't get it. Creating web pages and policies with a wiki between colleagues makes a lot sense and I hope to utilize that aspect in the future. But using a wiki to maintain that content only seems reasonable if there is no one on-site trained in basic HTML.

Because my university has a variety of in-house tools such as Moodle, NetFiles and U-Think blogs I don't use the free ones like blogspot or pbwiki very much. The technology is the same, though. I do find myself pausing to consider what tool to use for a given project. Our library is co-sponsoring a campus book read, my wife and I are leading a theatre trip to Dublin and there will be a banned books event this fall. All of these activities could benefit from a Web 2.0 tool. But which one? Blog, wiki, discussion/learning forum? I'll have to investigate some more.

Thing 9

2008-06-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

It was a lot of fun editing the Declaration of Independence and I can some really useful applications for tools such as these. I preferred Google Docs primarily because I couldn't access the document to be edited in Zoho. I'm also more familiar with Google aps.

The University of Minnesota, Morris along with the rest of the campus system, utilizes a file sharing program called NetFiles. Because of this Google Docs won't see too much use from me, at least in terms of file sharing and Web storage.

Here's a spreadsheet from Google Docs I created last year when we were trying out different IM options for the reference desk.

IM Spreadsheet

Thing #8

2008-05-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

I spent a lot of time checking out some of the Share Your Creations sites. Because I work in an academic environment I found that many of these applications were not suitable to our environment. I was impressed with Zoho (which I had seen before, but forgotten) and Slideshare. I created a Flickr badge and will attempt to upload it to my blog. I did not see a way to grab the code.

As I go through these Things I keep reminding myself to turn off my critical eye that wonders 'How can that be useful?' and instead just explore and have fun.

Thing 7

2008-05-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Gosh, at this rate I'll be done with my 23 Things in the year 2323! Luckily for me this wonderful initiative has been brought back for a second (2.o) time.

My library and or me is already doing many of the things mentioned in Thing #7. We've used email for years, of course, through our Ask A Librarian reference service and I recently added an IM component. This is through Pidgin and Meebo. The latter is utilized only as a means for patrons to contact us with research questions without having to have or to connect to their IM accounts. Personally, I don't IM much. Most of our librarian staff have IM accounts, but because we're so small we do most of our conversation face-to-face or send an email so we have a copy.

If you knew you'd know that I don't text message much. My cell phone location is often a mystery to me and even if I have it with me I often forget to turn it on. In the library world in terms of reference service texting is big and will get much bigger. As librarians we struggle to keep up with our users use of technology only to find that they have already moved on. IM would be a good example of technology that while not passe' is certainly in danger of being overtaken by texting. Our library and campus hasn't seriously looked at texting for communication or reference. The one exception is emergency communication. I wasn't aware of Google SMS and will certainly look into it. In order to fully take advantage of mobile technology our website would have to be reconfigured. Perhaps in the future the library could incorporate a Librarian Reference Blackberry or the equivalent to at least handle texting calls.

I have taken myriad number of webinars and enjoyed them very much. They have all been through the phone, though, and I wonder if VOIP would be less hassle and cheaper. I haven't presented a webinar as of yet.

Twitter is a funny little application. I'll register and check it out. I do admit to skepticism. Not every technology works for every library setting, and I think there would be better choices for some of our upcoming projects (community book read, banned books event) such as a wiki or blog.

All for now.

-Peter

Thing 6

2008-04-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

No doubt about it, online image generators are cool. I suppose they could fill a limited niche by supplying some custom modifications to websites, but all-in-all they're just something fun to play with. And play I did. My favorite among many strange applications was this quotation generator featuring one of my favorite writers.

Thing #4 & #5

2008-04-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been playing around a bit with the Mash elements from Flickr. Very cool I suppose, but not very practical. I've set up my office Flickr account (I already had one at home) and look forward to spending some time populating it with pictures. My wife and I are going to England this summer to take in Wimbledon, some theatre and Scotland so we'll have plenty of new shots!

Thing #3

2008-03-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

I've signed up for Bloglines and Google Reader and will compare the two for functionality before deciding which to go with. When I subscribed to content through RSS a year or two ago I remember being overwhelmed by the content. On a good day I can just barely read my emails and do my reference duties. With that in mind I will only subscribe to 2-3 feeds, and then see how that works.

I'm looking forward to playing around with RSS. Our library page currently has RSS generated news, although folks can't subscribe to the content. Perhaps I should revisit that...

Thing 2

2008-03-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

Very interesting articles on Library 2.0. Some of the stuff I've read before, but there were lots of new perspectives as well. It's all about staying current, relevant, and in the information stream!

Thing 1

2008-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I set up my blog so that's Thing #1. I'll set up my avatar soon!

Blog Beginnings

2008-02-20T06:29:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to playing around with Library 2.0 things. Some of them will be review, a few will be new and all of them will be cool!