Monday, October 13, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Week 14 - delicious
I have set up a delicious account and downloaded the bookmarlet thingy. I subscribed to a feed on toilet training. I had a good time investigating tags and seeing all the content that comes up under other people's tags. This was a lot of fun and I can see good reasons to get info this way.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Week 14 - Tagging, Social Bookmarking & Del.icio.us
Yes I have to say I find the idea of tagging unsettling. Having learned my library science at a time when computers (just the boxes, not all the stuff that goes with them) were brand new, I got steeped in abstracting and indexing traditions. In my job I have done a lot with indexing of news and magazine articles, and working from a controlled vocabulary list. It was (and is) my belief the mix of free text search and also a searchable field of "correct" terms can enhance retrievability.
But there is practically no way to have librarians set up all your retrieval terms, we're not living in that world. So tagging comes in handy. I can see for the first time the wisdom of the "herd" being a good pointer to content.
Will tags replace subject headings? I think not. It's still great to have Sears and LC to help us classify and arrange hundreds of thousands of items in a collection. That ain't broke and it doesn't need fixing. But tagging may well prove superior in getting people in to a catalog from outside, where they can then find good things, and link on the associated subject headings (or other internal tags), and maybe leave a tag of their own.
By the way I tried to get a Meebo account the other day and it got hung up on step 2. I will keep trying on that.
Now I will venture forth in search of tags....
But there is practically no way to have librarians set up all your retrieval terms, we're not living in that world. So tagging comes in handy. I can see for the first time the wisdom of the "herd" being a good pointer to content.
Will tags replace subject headings? I think not. It's still great to have Sears and LC to help us classify and arrange hundreds of thousands of items in a collection. That ain't broke and it doesn't need fixing. But tagging may well prove superior in getting people in to a catalog from outside, where they can then find good things, and link on the associated subject headings (or other internal tags), and maybe leave a tag of their own.
By the way I tried to get a Meebo account the other day and it got hung up on step 2. I will keep trying on that.
Now I will venture forth in search of tags....
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Week 13 - IM stuff
Of course I have been using Google Talk for almost a year, and it works well for work. Although I sent several messages for the purpose of this assignment and no one answered!
That points out that communication is a 2-way street!
I was and have been excited about the possibilities for reference and catalog help that were shown in some of the links.
In our catalog, we could put a persistent meebo widget (even on every page of our web site too) letting people know they could 1-chat and ask a question, 2-leave a message for reply to their email, or 3-get our phone number if they wish that.
What a way to say in every place "We're here - no we're really here - to help you!"
That points out that communication is a 2-way street!
I was and have been excited about the possibilities for reference and catalog help that were shown in some of the links.
In our catalog, we could put a persistent meebo widget (even on every page of our web site too) letting people know they could 1-chat and ask a question, 2-leave a message for reply to their email, or 3-get our phone number if they wish that.
What a way to say in every place "We're here - no we're really here - to help you!"
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
It's a Wrap - yum, I'll take Chicken!
I just erased my whole post, and it was great, and poetic and beautiful, and it's all gone! #@(^. Now you'll have to take what ever I can remember ...
It's been great working through this set of lessons. I think it has dragged us out of our comfortable armchairs, where we held our books and flipped the pages by hand ...
Not that I fear ever losing the "book experience". We used to worry about that (remember reading about Vannevar Bush?), but now we see this is about connections, and joining in with the race as it undergoes a social facelift.
I hope to use the flickr - my favorite site by far - and facebook, myspace and LT at a minimum. I can see YouTube also for library applications, and work/personal applications like poetry readings, which makes me think the process will probably blur the line for all of us.
Leaf falls, page turns, book opens ... we are seeing ourselves as part of a growing, protean organism - the world - and we are gestating. If we feed ourselves well, we will find a thousand ways to be born for our patrons and our communities, and ... our selves.
I will sign up for the second session. I think the process was great. I would only suggest, speak up on the podcasts a bit more. And I suggest putting more specific instructions for some of the sites, so we don't have to search for hours to find what we need.
Thanks for allowing me to take part in this process of building our future history.
For my incentive I choose the iTunes gift certificate for $25.
Looking forward to the second set of lessons!
It's been great working through this set of lessons. I think it has dragged us out of our comfortable armchairs, where we held our books and flipped the pages by hand ...
Not that I fear ever losing the "book experience". We used to worry about that (remember reading about Vannevar Bush?), but now we see this is about connections, and joining in with the race as it undergoes a social facelift.
I hope to use the flickr - my favorite site by far - and facebook, myspace and LT at a minimum. I can see YouTube also for library applications, and work/personal applications like poetry readings, which makes me think the process will probably blur the line for all of us.
Leaf falls, page turns, book opens ... we are seeing ourselves as part of a growing, protean organism - the world - and we are gestating. If we feed ourselves well, we will find a thousand ways to be born for our patrons and our communities, and ... our selves.
I will sign up for the second session. I think the process was great. I would only suggest, speak up on the podcasts a bit more. And I suggest putting more specific instructions for some of the sites, so we don't have to search for hours to find what we need.
Thanks for allowing me to take part in this process of building our future history.
For my incentive I choose the iTunes gift certificate for $25.
Looking forward to the second set of lessons!
The Library Thing that Ate Cleveland ... film at 11.
I give Library Thing 3 Trekking Poles. It was super easy to sign on, I am happy with the no-personal info requirements. I only don't like that there's a cost for over 200 titles. Although if there is going to be one, offering a lifetime option is good. (I have seen other "lifetime" offers collapse with time though - usually when someone else takes over the operation.)
I could not find the way to link until I did a search and figured out it was under widgets. I will try to paste in the code here and hope it comes out all right.
My link should show what titles I have listed. In addition, I am trying to find a title given by the suggester, but I get no tab or link saying suggester, and there is no page in the help for Suggester or Library Suggester. This is frustrating. I will try the link given in the AIT, but I don't see why that page isn't located somewhere when I am logged in. Something ain't right!
... OK, I couldn't make the Suggester work under tags. But the Unsuggester did respond. I got Kant - Pure Reason and Confession of Augustine, both of which I highly prize. But, however, I only had poetry books listed as a baseline to measure against. There was also one of the shopaholic books my wife might read but which are not of interest to me.
Here I am going to try to paste my link: (see you next week) :
Nope, didn't work...oh well...
I could not find the way to link until I did a search and figured out it was under widgets. I will try to paste in the code here and hope it comes out all right.
My link should show what titles I have listed. In addition, I am trying to find a title given by the suggester, but I get no tab or link saying suggester, and there is no page in the help for Suggester or Library Suggester. This is frustrating. I will try the link given in the AIT, but I don't see why that page isn't located somewhere when I am logged in. Something ain't right!
... OK, I couldn't make the Suggester work under tags. But the Unsuggester did respond. I got Kant - Pure Reason and Confession of Augustine, both of which I highly prize. But, however, I only had poetry books listed as a baseline to measure against. There was also one of the shopaholic books my wife might read but which are not of interest to me.
Here I am going to try to paste my link: (see you next week) :
Nope, didn't work...oh well...
Face the book, this is my space, dude!
This week gets 4 Trekking Poles for being absolutely new to me, yet getting me started on what will be an adventure lasting a lifetime.
Facebook was hard, MySpace was easy. That was my experience.
And after looking all over, trying help, searching google for advice, and exploring everything I could find, I could not find a credible, easy to understand way to put a link to my facebook page here. (So I feel it's not my fault after all that effort!)
But my MySpace link is:
http://www.myspace.com/johndey18
On to the next week!
Facebook was hard, MySpace was easy. That was my experience.
And after looking all over, trying help, searching google for advice, and exploring everything I could find, I could not find a credible, easy to understand way to put a link to my facebook page here. (So I feel it's not my fault after all that effort!)
But my MySpace link is:
http://www.myspace.com/johndey18
On to the next week!
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