The Digital Me

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Monday, November 19, 2007

Week 9, Thing 23

I've finally reached the finish line, and it's been a long tough trip. I have learned quite a bit, been frustrated a number of times, and had to try really hard to find the extra time to work on this project. In spite of the title of this post, I think I'm actually well past week 12 (16?!).

The one thing that I found truly useful for the way I live and work is RSS. It would be at its most useful if tied into a web browser that is RSS friendly and not through Bloglines, but I still like the concept of having content pulled to me instead of my searching for it (or even visiting multiple sites to get it).

As for the experience as a whole, while I learned plenty and consider this to have been a useful exercise, it was very difficult to find the time to do the work. Part of the problem is my strong need for a formal structure (I'd never pursue online degree work), which is just exacerbated by my busy work schedule. Quite a bit of the work I did while at the branch was actually after my shift ended. I would have to think strongly before volunteering to take part in a similarly structured training opportunity.

In spite of my difficulty with the program, I know a umber of folks who flourish with just such a program (a few have completed degrees online). Because of this, I would never dismiss the concept. It just has to do with learning styles and scheduling.

Week 9, Thing 22

Overdrive is a great service for libraries to offer. Although the circulation of books on CD and, to a lesser extent, books on tape are still high, digital audio formats are slated to replace them. Like we did in moving from LPs to cassettes to CDs, we need to continue to migrate to the media that are dominant and used. Otherwise we should just get out of the way. This is a solid use of technology that libraries can adopt (and obviously many already have).

I was very pleased to find a BBC full-cast performance of a Wodehouse Jeeves title! I'd definitely be interested in downloading this, as well as the other traditional narrated Wodehouse audio books.

Week, 9, Thing 21

I have listened to a small number of podcasts before, but never used a podcast directory; I've always known where to find the podcasts in which I am interested (i.e. podcasts of shows I regularly listen to). These directories definitely open up a wider world; my searches brought back hundreds of results. Not all were on target, or things I'd be interested in, but still I did find some gems.

In keeping with the name of my blog, I searched for opera podcasts, selected and listened to an extract of a Puccini opera ("La Boheme" with Pavarotti and Freni), but could not find an RSS feed. Because I knew that "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me", an NPR show, has an RSS feed, I subscribed to it.

Week 9, Thing 20

I've looked a YouTube a few times when someone has suggested I check out a video or two. It's interesting, but mindlessly so. There may be a good use for it, but much of it is just pointless and silly, not that there is not a need for such things (God knows we need more levity in this world). I do find it intriguing, however, that folks can share things so readily, especially across oceans!

YouTube and its ilk are a good creative outlet for folk with that bug. They make it much easier and cheaper to produce and share videos. I can see it helping musicians to get their music out their without having to rely on the traditional method of convincing someone at a record company to take a chance on them. Although I can't think of an example, I know there are bands who have taken this route and actually become successful as a result.

Week 8, Thing 19

I Checked out Yahoo's Upcoming, which provides events listings for a location you specify. You can also search by band, type of event, etc...

It was okay, a good place to start if you have the time to explore. It's big weakness is that it does not allow you to filter by type of event or even musical genre; you just get it all. When I searched by a musical genre for the Baltimore area (opera, of course), it brought up operas, but also events taking place at the Lyric Opera House that were far from opera. It obviously uses a very simple keyword searching. I would also like to see at least basic details about each performance. It is still necessary to go to the venue's website to get even a basic idea of what the event is if you've never heard of the band or play, etc... Sad to say, this was the first place winner in its category. Still more work to do folks!

Week 8, Thing 18

I found Zoho to be interesting, and quite intuitive based on my experience with Word and Wordperfect. I can see a use for people who do not always work in the same spot, especially if they are working on collaborative projects. If one is working independently, I'd think that a laptop would answer most needs as far as taking work documents along on the trip, but it does not facilitate easy collaboration. E-mail attachments are all well and fine, but have their limitations in a truly collaborative, back-and-forth, working relationship.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Week 7, Thing 17

I had some difficulty with the Sandbox, specifically with the "Point and Click" edit feature. It didn't work, so I had to revert to the classic mode. I was able to limp along, although I have no knowledge of HTML. I basically just copied the code from previous postings, and it seemed to work. No room for creativity on my part, however.

If things had worked as advertises, I would have probably completed the exercise much quicker than I did. The floundering wasted a bit of time.

Week 7, Thing 16

Although I was somewhat dubious when I began this exercise, after looking at a few wikis I am convinced that they can play a good role in libraries. SJCPL's Subject Guides, Princeton's Book Lovers, and Meredith Farkas' Library Successes wikis all showed me a specific situation in which wikis can play a useful role.

SJCPL's wiki seems to me to be a good instance of applying a team approach to maintaining a library's website. While BCPL takes this approach to it's Intranet-based policy file, with a wiki, it could do the same with its subject pages, like SJCPL does. This would allow for quicker, rolling updates to the site, and take pressure off of the webmasters, allowing them to concentrate on major site changes rather than content changes.

Princeton's wiki provides a great way to get customer actively involved in the Readers' Advisory process. While many libraries have a place within branches for people to contribute recommendations of their own (i.e. a bulletin board, notebook, or table), this web-based approach allows customer to do the same thing from the comfort of their homes.

Library Successes applies the collaborative/best practices concept in a much wider scope, beyond local meetings or associations. At least in theory, it allows librarians worldwide to contribute and learn form each other.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Week 6, Thing 15

I enjoyed Michael Stephens' short essay regarding his conception of Library and Librarian 2.0. I fully agree that Libraries and Librarians must be in tune with what is going on around them, not just within the profession. The world is indeed a big place and seemingly going at a faster and faster pace. If we ever had the luxury of slow paced planning and decision making, we no longer do. Technology has encouraged folks to expect, even damand, quicker response times, and many times the expectation is legitimate, not just the result of impatience.

It is also refreshing to see the opinion that technology is not the end all and be all definition of progress or accomplishment. As with all customer services, technology decisions must be made based on the needs of customers and of the staff who work to meet those needs. Low tech can still work and many times might be a better solution than just buying the latest hot gadget. The primary question is, "Will this help us to better serve our customers?"

Technology for technology's sake is out, the thoughtful application of technology is very in (and always should be).

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Week 6, Thing 14

I found Technorati to be quite intriguing, not because it can be used to search blogs (although that it interesting), but because of at least one concept borrowed from academia and the parallels with searching an OPAC. The concept of authority is taken directly from the world of academics, i.e. the more folks cite you work in theirs, the more important you are within that field of study. At Technorati it's the number of blogs that link to yours that count, the more the better.

As far as searching is concerned, searching by tags will, of course, provide a much more focused and relevant results list. Essentially, tags searching and post searching have the same relation as subject and keyword searching in OPACs. I realise that this will be no revelation to any librarian, but I find it interesting how some ideas from librarianship have leaked into the rest of the world somewhat in disguise. I'm not sure what that proves, if anything, but it is worth remarking on. Maybe we are having some sort of impact, albeit a quiet one.

Week 6, Thing 13

Del.icio.us just doesn't work for me or for the way that I approach things. Like other things I've blogged about, I can see how other folks may find it of use, but I'm just not online enough (outside of work) for it to be useful in my life. The social aspect also leaves me very cold; I'm afraid my social life tends to revolve around actual people in close proximity to me. Very old-fashioned, I know, but it works for me. Heck, I never was even interested in having a pen pal when such things were "in" and up-to-date!

In spite of the fact that I might never use Del.icio.us, I am glad to have learned about it. At the bare minimum it keeps me in touch with what is going on in the world of Internet-based technology, which is critical in librarianship. Sort of the electronic parallel to knowing the titles of best-sellers whether or not you've read them.

Week 5, Thing 12

I checked out Rollyo and created a searchroll about the arts in Baltimore and DC (http://rollyo.com/rmaranto/baltimore-d.c._arts/). With all of arts happening in both towns, it can be quite daunting to figure out what is happening where. My searchroll searches the Kennedy Center, the Baltimore Opera, An Die Musik, the BMA, the Walters, Center Stage, and the Washington Perfoming Arts Society websites. Like man of the tings I've done as part of the Maryland 23 Things project, I found this quite easy and intuitive.

Although I liked Rollyo, I prefer RSS because it actually sends the information to you. With Rollyo, it is obviously still necessary to do a search, even though it is much easier than visiting each of the sites seperately. Sometimes technology can actually make life a bit easier, and searchrolls are a good example!

Week 5, Thing 11

Although I doubt I will maintain my LibraryThing account, it is an interesting concept. I can understand the attraction to folks who are Internet and blog focused. Overall, it is rather intuitive and I had to check the help files only once (although I did not actually find an answer to my question). The one weakness I see in LibraryThing is that you are not always guarenteed to find the edition of a title that you actually have in your collection. (Maybe with a bit more searching on my part, it would have been possible. Who knows?) This is probably not a big deal for someone who is looking for a casual way to share their book shelves with the world, but it would not serve the needs of a serious collector (I'm not one). Maybe that is asking too much, but I couldn't help noticing.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Week 5, Thing 10



Seeing as I jumped ahead of myself with my last posting by having created an avatar, I decided to checkout some of the other image generators. Because I have no digital photos of my own to use, I decided to use Glassgiant.com's cereal box generator. It actually gave me a chance to combine my love of opera and my twisted sense of humor; I hope I haven't offended.

Week 4 , Thing 9

Well, I've used the RSS search tools, and was not really impressed with them. In my brief experience, the results lists seem to be too large and packed with too much junk to be really considered useful. I'm just not one of those cutting-edge techies, not that I'm worried about that!

I explored Merlin, which I had seen before; a great idea with much potential. Through Merlin, I linked over to Meez.com, and created an avatar. I really enjoyed doing this, and figured out how to post the avatar to my blog; quite easy! Anyone who knows me will admit that I didn't actually go wild in designing my avatar. It probably looks a lot like I actually look in real life; boring, I know.