I usually like to complain about things but I have to admit that my only problem with 23 Things was in finding the time to work on it. Other than that, I had a ball.
I would highly recommend that other programs of this sort be developed and implemented. Our staffs are all over the map when it comes to technology - from technophobes to propeller heads. With 23 Things, I believe, we were presented with something useful and approachable to both extremes.
I could write several pages to address the other questions in exercise number 23. However, if you glance down the list of the blog postings that I've made, you will notice that I already have. So I'll wrap it up here. Thank you very much.
Friday, November 2, 2007
#22 Downloadable Audiobooks
I established accounts to Overdrive and NetLibrary/Recorded Books a couple of years ago and have actually done online selection for Overdrive on several occasions. In 2005 I also bought myself an MP3 player and switched from listening to audiobooks on CD Rom to downloadable audiobooks when I bought it. So I'm the rare instance of someone who has a lot of experience with these things.
Actually, I think in five or ten years, downloadable audiobooks will entirely replace books on CD. It will take some time, though. The technology works but it is still clunky and confusing.
Actually, I think in five or ten years, downloadable audiobooks will entirely replace books on CD. It will take some time, though. The technology works but it is still clunky and confusing.
#21 Podcasts
I looked at the podcast directories and selected an RSS feed from the PodcastAlley.com directory - their top 10 podcasts feed. I then subscribed to it via Bloglines.
However sometimes the way you respond to the, " What did you find that was most useful here?" kind of question is to say that you learned that something might not necessarily be very useful.
For library purposes I'm a bit dubious about podcasts. Audio visual production is not really our business and (except for the occasional director's message type podcast on our website) I doubt we could do it well without taking too much in the way of time and resources from things that have a higher priority.
However, I'd love to find an outside vendor that would (at a reasonable price) produce these things for libraries and let libraries brand them as their own. Booktalk podcasts, storytime podcasts, tutorial podcasts, etc. all could be enormously useful if we could subscribe to a service that would produce them for libraries.
However sometimes the way you respond to the, " What did you find that was most useful here?" kind of question is to say that you learned that something might not necessarily be very useful.
For library purposes I'm a bit dubious about podcasts. Audio visual production is not really our business and (except for the occasional director's message type podcast on our website) I doubt we could do it well without taking too much in the way of time and resources from things that have a higher priority.
However, I'd love to find an outside vendor that would (at a reasonable price) produce these things for libraries and let libraries brand them as their own. Booktalk podcasts, storytime podcasts, tutorial podcasts, etc. all could be enormously useful if we could subscribe to a service that would produce them for libraries.
#20 YouTube
I LOVE YouTube. Last year I was buying opera DVDs and was able to use it to look over operas (though not particular performances) to see if they were good enough to be worth buying. I do have to admit that I often found myself doing more looking than buying.
I've included two clips below. They're from the Russian version of War and Peace. This film was made about forty years ago but it still looks spectacular. The clips I've included are two parts of one battle - a rearguard action fought in 1805, shortly before the great French victory at Austerlitz.
As for library uses just for starters tutorials come to mind, along with book talks.
I've included two clips below. They're from the Russian version of War and Peace. This film was made about forty years ago but it still looks spectacular. The clips I've included are two parts of one battle - a rearguard action fought in 1805, shortly before the great French victory at Austerlitz.
As for library uses just for starters tutorials come to mind, along with book talks.
#19 The Web 2.9 Awards List
This was a dangerous question. I could spend something like the next year playing with this stuff.
Just to move things along, though, I got arbitrary and looked at a service called www.yelp.com. This site is billed as "the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great -and not so great- in your area."
Well, not my area. It's a new service and it is clearly based in California. How can I tell?
The service gives you a hint. Something like 75 California cities are profiled compared to one (Baltimore) in Maryland. So, if you want to find information about Albany, it better be the Albany that's in California. The Albany in New York is nowhere to be found.
On the other hand, I was in Albany, New York, a few years back. I had pneumonia at the time and had to drive about seven hours to get there. Looking around when I arrived at my destination, I realized that having pneumonia would probably be the high point of the trip.
Anyway, to get back to what I'm supposed to be talking about, yelp looks like a fairly good piece of directory software. It arrests all the usual suspects - restaurants, hotels, shopping, etc. - plus some less usual (but still common enough) suspects such as education. Unfortunately I didn't see libraries listed in the education category but I was able to do a search in the directory's search window. When I did, Enoch Pratt popped up pretty quickly.
The role of a service like yelp as far as libraries are concerned is, at the very least, to make sure they are included in the local yelp directory. Also, though, if yelp ever decided that (even though it isn't in California) Howard County is worth a directory, this could be an extremely useful source of local directory information. Of course, the big search engines are already pretty good at providing local directory information but, as they say, the more the merrier.
Just to move things along, though, I got arbitrary and looked at a service called www.yelp.com. This site is billed as "the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great -and not so great- in your area."
Well, not my area. It's a new service and it is clearly based in California. How can I tell?
The service gives you a hint. Something like 75 California cities are profiled compared to one (Baltimore) in Maryland. So, if you want to find information about Albany, it better be the Albany that's in California. The Albany in New York is nowhere to be found.
On the other hand, I was in Albany, New York, a few years back. I had pneumonia at the time and had to drive about seven hours to get there. Looking around when I arrived at my destination, I realized that having pneumonia would probably be the high point of the trip.
Anyway, to get back to what I'm supposed to be talking about, yelp looks like a fairly good piece of directory software. It arrests all the usual suspects - restaurants, hotels, shopping, etc. - plus some less usual (but still common enough) suspects such as education. Unfortunately I didn't see libraries listed in the education category but I was able to do a search in the directory's search window. When I did, Enoch Pratt popped up pretty quickly.
The role of a service like yelp as far as libraries are concerned is, at the very least, to make sure they are included in the local yelp directory. Also, though, if yelp ever decided that (even though it isn't in California) Howard County is worth a directory, this could be an extremely useful source of local directory information. Of course, the big search engines are already pretty good at providing local directory information but, as they say, the more the merrier.
# 18 Online Productivity Tools
I could just as easily write this blog post directly onto my blog. Just for form's sake, though, I'm going to write it in Zoho Writer. I'm not going to be stupid about it, though. Since I want to finish 23 Things sometime in the current century, I'm just going to write it in Zoho and then cut and paste it into my blog (Note - I tried this after finishing this and it didn't work too well. Turned out that I needed to export what I had written and then cut and paste it.)
The above wasn't a complaint about 23 Things, by the way. The program is an absolute blast. I do have other things that need doing, though, and need some time to devote to them.
So anyway, just in case I don't have enough accounts in enough web based services, I established a Zoho writer account and started writing this missive.
In the course of writing I fiddled with a few of the program's features. It all seems pretty straightforward. Still, I'd be reluctant to use this program if I had any other options. Web services can be absolutely wonderful but they have a bad habit of being here today and gone tomorrow. Who needs to wake up some day in November of the year 2017 and discover that ten years of correspondence has just disappeared?
The above wasn't a complaint about 23 Things, by the way. The program is an absolute blast. I do have other things that need doing, though, and need some time to devote to them.
So anyway, just in case I don't have enough accounts in enough web based services, I established a Zoho writer account and started writing this missive.
In the course of writing I fiddled with a few of the program's features. It all seems pretty straightforward. Still, I'd be reluctant to use this program if I had any other options. Web services can be absolutely wonderful but they have a bad habit of being here today and gone tomorrow. Who needs to wake up some day in November of the year 2017 and discover that ten years of correspondence has just disappeared?
#17 Add an entry to the Sandbox Wiki
First I did what I was told and created an account in the Sandbox Wiki. Does anybody have any notion of how many accounts to how many services this 23 Things program has caused us to establish?
Then I added my blog to the "favorite blogs" list, which seems kind of dishonest since it absolutely is not one of my favorite blogs. Orders is orders, though.
Then I added my blog to the "favorite blogs" list, which seems kind of dishonest since it absolutely is not one of my favorite blogs. Orders is orders, though.
# 16 Wikis
I love Wikipedia and use it all the time. That's not to say that it doesn't need to be used with a good deal of care. It is to say that for a lot of routine information it is a useful, reliable, and (most important) massively comprehensive resource.
Other wikis I've seen also have their uses, even library wikis. For instance, I could easily see the Howard County Library and the Howard County Historical Society collaborating on a wiki that focuses on the history of Howard County.
However, there is a catch.
Anybody who sets up a wiki has to look beyond how cool the end product can be and take a cold hard look at how much work is involved in creating and maintaining a wiki.
A good rule of thumb is to set up wikis when you're going to have to do the work anyway. For instance most libraries need a staff procedures manual. Since you need this anyway a wiki is a good way to create it. Once created, it is also much easier to update and disseminate than a paper manual could ever hope to be.
Another catch, though. Make sure you always keep and disseminate a paper based manual that will tell you what to do when the computers go down.
Other wikis I've seen also have their uses, even library wikis. For instance, I could easily see the Howard County Library and the Howard County Historical Society collaborating on a wiki that focuses on the history of Howard County.
However, there is a catch.
Anybody who sets up a wiki has to look beyond how cool the end product can be and take a cold hard look at how much work is involved in creating and maintaining a wiki.
A good rule of thumb is to set up wikis when you're going to have to do the work anyway. For instance most libraries need a staff procedures manual. Since you need this anyway a wiki is a good way to create it. Once created, it is also much easier to update and disseminate than a paper manual could ever hope to be.
Another catch, though. Make sure you always keep and disseminate a paper based manual that will tell you what to do when the computers go down.
#15 Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0...
I read Away from the “icebergs” and Into a new world of librarianship and took a quick glance at the others.
They're all about what Web 2.0 is, what this new iteration of the web will mean and how librarians need to adapt to the changes we see around us.
As far as it goes, this is all very good. The catch is that we are now in the very early stages of what will probably be the wildest professional roller coaster ride of our lifetimes.
Each of the writings in this group of writings tries to nudge in the "right" direction. The observations they make and the advice they give are useful. The catch is that none of us knows our ultimate destination - including the writers of these articles, You cannot really know "the way" unless you know where you are planning to go. Still, you've got to start somewhere and these articles are helpful as far as they go.
The web, including Web 2.0 is a profoundly transformative technology. It's up there with the invention of printing and the development of the steam engine. Can you imagine that, when people were tinkering with the earliest steam engines back in the 18th Century, they had any way of imagining a civilization run by electricity that is generated by steam turbines?
They hadn't a clue - and neither do we.
Transformative technologies create new industries and institutions. They also destroy old ones. Will libraries as we know them survive what's coming? Not a chance. Will libraries, vastly changed by the new technologies, survive at all? Interesting question.
They're all about what Web 2.0 is, what this new iteration of the web will mean and how librarians need to adapt to the changes we see around us.
As far as it goes, this is all very good. The catch is that we are now in the very early stages of what will probably be the wildest professional roller coaster ride of our lifetimes.
Each of the writings in this group of writings tries to nudge in the "right" direction. The observations they make and the advice they give are useful. The catch is that none of us knows our ultimate destination - including the writers of these articles, You cannot really know "the way" unless you know where you are planning to go. Still, you've got to start somewhere and these articles are helpful as far as they go.
The web, including Web 2.0 is a profoundly transformative technology. It's up there with the invention of printing and the development of the steam engine. Can you imagine that, when people were tinkering with the earliest steam engines back in the 18th Century, they had any way of imagining a civilization run by electricity that is generated by steam turbines?
They hadn't a clue - and neither do we.
Transformative technologies create new industries and institutions. They also destroy old ones. Will libraries as we know them survive what's coming? Not a chance. Will libraries, vastly changed by the new technologies, survive at all? Interesting question.
#14 Discover Technorati
I started my search for Learning 2.0 with the typical boneheaded Google approach. I put Learning 2.0 in the search window. Bad idea. I got well over 5,000 hits. Though a scattering of them were on target I pulled up more junk than I wanted.
Then I put Learning 2.0 in quotations marks. The results were much better - only 400 plus hits - and many of them mentioned (and even linked to) Learning 2.0. Finally I added the word "Maryland." My results here were actually too narrowly focused, since I only located a few blogs that contained links to Learning 2.0.
I then went into the Advanced Search mode and put Learning 2.0 into the Tag Search Box. I got about 625 hits. I did pick up a fair amount of junk. On the other hand, I also picked up a bunch of videos which (I am sure) I would never have located without tags.
A Blog Directory search raised the number of hits to nearly 750, though the quality of the hits was erratic.
When I went on to look at the Top Favorited Blogs, it was interesting to note that intellectual navel contemplating seemed to be a common thread running through them. Most seemed to address the interests of techno dweebs.
Looking at Top Searches, I found that few of them interested me. That's not surprising, actually. The whole thrust of the web is to satisfy the interests and needs of countless millions of people niche audience by niche audience. So a top search can be a top search without needing the ratings of a top network television show.
As for Top Blogs, some are favorites of mine and have been for a long time. Most I've never heard of.
Then I put Learning 2.0 in quotations marks. The results were much better - only 400 plus hits - and many of them mentioned (and even linked to) Learning 2.0. Finally I added the word "Maryland." My results here were actually too narrowly focused, since I only located a few blogs that contained links to Learning 2.0.
I then went into the Advanced Search mode and put Learning 2.0 into the Tag Search Box. I got about 625 hits. I did pick up a fair amount of junk. On the other hand, I also picked up a bunch of videos which (I am sure) I would never have located without tags.
A Blog Directory search raised the number of hits to nearly 750, though the quality of the hits was erratic.
When I went on to look at the Top Favorited Blogs, it was interesting to note that intellectual navel contemplating seemed to be a common thread running through them. Most seemed to address the interests of techno dweebs.
Looking at Top Searches, I found that few of them interested me. That's not surprising, actually. The whole thrust of the web is to satisfy the interests and needs of countless millions of people niche audience by niche audience. So a top search can be a top search without needing the ratings of a top network television show.
As for Top Blogs, some are favorites of mine and have been for a long time. Most I've never heard of.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
#13 del.icio.us
I started to set up an account with this tool but (breaking the rules) I did this exercise from home and wanted to go through the button setup phase on my work machine rather than my home machine. Some of these programs only let you do a setup in one place. So it is best to do the setup in the place where it will be most needed.
Anyway, this is a tool that I SERIOUSLY LIKE.
Is this why:
"Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?"
To a point, you bet! Having all your bookmarks at your fingertips is a little bit more than "just an easy way...." For instance, this tool gives you an easy way to get a new computer without risking the loss of all your bookmarks in the process of switching machines.
More important from the Howard County Library standpoint, each information desk in the system has a collection of bookmarks - relatively few of which are shared. Not only are they not shared from branch to branch. It can be iffy that they will even be shared by information desk machines that sit two feet away from each other. del.icio.us gives us a WONDERFUL way of making sure that all the nifty stuff a branch manager (or other august personage) wants his/her staff to have at their fingertips will actually be at their fingertips.
Anyway, this is a tool that I SERIOUSLY LIKE.
Is this why:
"Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?"
To a point, you bet! Having all your bookmarks at your fingertips is a little bit more than "just an easy way...." For instance, this tool gives you an easy way to get a new computer without risking the loss of all your bookmarks in the process of switching machines.
More important from the Howard County Library standpoint, each information desk in the system has a collection of bookmarks - relatively few of which are shared. Not only are they not shared from branch to branch. It can be iffy that they will even be shared by information desk machines that sit two feet away from each other. del.icio.us gives us a WONDERFUL way of making sure that all the nifty stuff a branch manager (or other august personage) wants his/her staff to have at their fingertips will actually be at their fingertips.
#12 - Rollyo
While I have known for years that institutions could make use of commercial search engines to search their own web sites, this one was a new one for me.
It should be extremely useful. At work, I can use it (in some cases) to group vendors together and search their products. At home, I can search a group of my favorite cabinetry sites all at the same time. This is the Rollyo search roll I created. It's called Wood Finishes Tools and is located at:
http://rollyo.com/mchughj/wood_finishes_tools/
It should be extremely useful. At work, I can use it (in some cases) to group vendors together and search their products. At home, I can search a group of my favorite cabinetry sites all at the same time. This is the Rollyo search roll I created. It's called Wood Finishes Tools and is located at:
http://rollyo.com/mchughj/wood_finishes_tools/
#11 Library Thing
I learned about the Library Thing this past spring. It's got it's uses. In particular I'd love to be able to see library users supplement our LC Subject Headings in the online catalog with tags. Hopefully, when Koha comes up they will be able to do this - eventually, if not immediately.
Anyway, I set up a Library Thing account and stuck the first five books I could think of into it, adding a bunch of tags for each. Here is the URL:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mchughj
Anyway, I set up a Library Thing account and stuck the first five books I could think of into it, adding a bunch of tags for each. Here is the URL:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mchughj
#10 - Image Generators
This was a new one on me. The only thing that puzzles me about it is why our employers ever let us see these things. Don't they ever want to get any work out of us?
Anyway, I played with the magazine cover image generator at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/magazine.php. What I generated was a magazine with myself and my wife Linda on the cover. It was taken at Evening in the Stacks - just last winter, I believe.
#9 Son of RSS Feeds
I started this section by playing around with the Bloglines feed search. I searched for feeds on the current rivalry between the Airbus A380 and the Boeing Dreamliner, found what I was looking for, and subscribed to them. I did the same for Feedster, Topix,Syndic8 (which seemed a bit cryptic for my tastes) and Technorati. Interestingly in most of them I found an interesting item titled, Airline bans A380 mile-high club and/or Singapore Airlines Forbids Passengers From Doing Hanky Panky In Their New A380 Planes Who says computers are dull?
Finally, I subscribed to the Merlin RSS feed. It was a piece of cake to do so.
Finally, I subscribed to the Merlin RSS feed. It was a piece of cake to do so.
# 8 - RSS feeds
I've dealt with RSS feeds before, when they became an AquaBrowser feature. They were useful for getting notification that one of my wife's favorite authors had just written a new book and that the library had placed it on order.
Once I set up my account I set up a feed with a political blog I rather like to look at. It's written by an old curmudgeon - in other words, a person I can identify with. I also set up feeds from three of my fellow staffers. These shall remain nameless.
As for the "select three from below" part of the assignment, I subscribed to the Unshelved Librarian feed, one graphic novel reviews feed from Library Journal and two graphic novels feeds (one adult and one teen) from the Reader's Club. Since I'm buying graphic novels these days, these should prove quite useful.
Once I set up my account I set up a feed with a political blog I rather like to look at. It's written by an old curmudgeon - in other words, a person I can identify with. I also set up feeds from three of my fellow staffers. These shall remain nameless.
As for the "select three from below" part of the assignment, I subscribed to the Unshelved Librarian feed, one graphic novel reviews feed from Library Journal and two graphic novels feeds (one adult and one teen) from the Reader's Club. Since I'm buying graphic novels these days, these should prove quite useful.
Friday, October 19, 2007
#7 Create a Blog Post About Anything Technology-Related
Well isn't this one easy?
For me an "anything technology related" topic for this week is a game. "Oh! How frivolous!" you may say. So what do you think I do in my spare time? Read wiring diagrams? (Actually, I've been known to do things like that too.)
However in this day and age games, while often frivolous, do not necessarily need to be.
That wasn't always the case. Early electronic games (anyone remember Space Invaders?) were little more than exercises in hand/eye coordination. From what I can see, most still are.
Needless to say, I'm lousy at them.
The particular game I like to play is called Civilization. I've been playing it off and on for years and, interestingly enough, getting worse and worse at it.
What the game is about is, literally, building a world wide civilization - starting with the first settlement of a nomadic tribe in 4,000 B.C. and ending with an advanced civilization in the Twenty First Century. You start by building cities. You need to connect them with road and, ultimately, rail lines. You also need to grow your economy by building farms and factories, libraries and research institutes. All the time you are doing this you also have to keep the neighboring countries from attacking you. They will, if you let your guard down. Sometimes, of course, there are reasons why you may feel a need to attack them. If you do, though, you better win. This game is merciless to losers.
So why am I getting worse at the game? Well, it happens that each successive version of it has gotten increasingly complex. Nowadays, it's a bear just to survive the assorted challenges it throws at you.
So why should any adult care?
They should care because games of this sort have a huge, and mostly untapped, educational potential. Not too many of us, of course, will ever be called upon to spend six thousand years developing our own personal civilization but there are other problem solving skills we can develop while playing "simulation" type games such as Civilization. To take an example look at a fairly old game - SimCity.
What was SimCity about? Urban planning and zoning. The planning and zoning policies it had a player implement were a bit on the simple side but computers are getting more and more powerful and programmers and getting more and more adept at what they do. The ability to create and run much more sophisticated simulations will do nothing but grow.
Even now, fairly specialized computer modeling and gaming is heavily used in disciplines like science and engineering. The focus is pretty narrow, though. The potential isn't. Looking at the increasing ability of computers to create whole worlds for people's amusement, it doesn't take a genius to realize that we are not too far away from a time when computers will be able to create other, even more realistic worlds, for people's education.
For me an "anything technology related" topic for this week is a game. "Oh! How frivolous!" you may say. So what do you think I do in my spare time? Read wiring diagrams? (Actually, I've been known to do things like that too.)
However in this day and age games, while often frivolous, do not necessarily need to be.
That wasn't always the case. Early electronic games (anyone remember Space Invaders?) were little more than exercises in hand/eye coordination. From what I can see, most still are.
Needless to say, I'm lousy at them.
The particular game I like to play is called Civilization. I've been playing it off and on for years and, interestingly enough, getting worse and worse at it.
What the game is about is, literally, building a world wide civilization - starting with the first settlement of a nomadic tribe in 4,000 B.C. and ending with an advanced civilization in the Twenty First Century. You start by building cities. You need to connect them with road and, ultimately, rail lines. You also need to grow your economy by building farms and factories, libraries and research institutes. All the time you are doing this you also have to keep the neighboring countries from attacking you. They will, if you let your guard down. Sometimes, of course, there are reasons why you may feel a need to attack them. If you do, though, you better win. This game is merciless to losers.
So why am I getting worse at the game? Well, it happens that each successive version of it has gotten increasingly complex. Nowadays, it's a bear just to survive the assorted challenges it throws at you.
So why should any adult care?
They should care because games of this sort have a huge, and mostly untapped, educational potential. Not too many of us, of course, will ever be called upon to spend six thousand years developing our own personal civilization but there are other problem solving skills we can develop while playing "simulation" type games such as Civilization. To take an example look at a fairly old game - SimCity.
What was SimCity about? Urban planning and zoning. The planning and zoning policies it had a player implement were a bit on the simple side but computers are getting more and more powerful and programmers and getting more and more adept at what they do. The ability to create and run much more sophisticated simulations will do nothing but grow.
Even now, fairly specialized computer modeling and gaming is heavily used in disciplines like science and engineering. The focus is pretty narrow, though. The potential isn't. Looking at the increasing ability of computers to create whole worlds for people's amusement, it doesn't take a genius to realize that we are not too far away from a time when computers will be able to create other, even more realistic worlds, for people's education.
#6 Flickr Mash-ups & Third Party Sites
I discovered that I had done half of this task before I learned what a mashup might be.
A while back I was playing around with Flickr and clicked on the Map link at the top of the page. I placed some pictures I had snapped around the house on the map and then forgot about it. Then I found out what a mashup is and discovered that I had done one. So to do this assignment, just for forms sake, I added a few more pictures, one of me in California and a pair of others in New York. To see them, go to the map attached to my Flickr account.
On a roll now, I fiddled around a bit with the Flickr Color Pickr mashup. This mashup was both fun, fascinating, worthwhile and (ultimately) kind of depressing.
The fun is pretty obvious. Play with it for a bit and you will know what I mean.
Fascinating and worthwhile are also obvious. Imagine being able to search by color and shape. Not only is this one a new one on me, it does lay some serious portion of the groundwork for combining text, shape and color in online searching. For someone who spent the first two decades or more of his online search career (did I just indicate how old I am?) doing text only searches - since this was all that the computers we had in olden times could do - this is truly revolutionary.
Then there's the depressing aspect of it all. This kicks in because this particular mashup reminds us (me anyway) that, even though we may not glow in the dark, there actually are people out there who are so brilliant that they do. How do they think up of this stuff and who needs to be reminded that the rest of us can't?
Finally, I played a bit with montagr, which made me feel a little better. I didn't have great luck with it but I didn't care much, since I'm not particularly fond of photo montages. After all, there's enough clutter in life as it is. Why take perfectly harmless photos just to make more of it?
A while back I was playing around with Flickr and clicked on the Map link at the top of the page. I placed some pictures I had snapped around the house on the map and then forgot about it. Then I found out what a mashup is and discovered that I had done one. So to do this assignment, just for forms sake, I added a few more pictures, one of me in California and a pair of others in New York. To see them, go to the map attached to my Flickr account.
On a roll now, I fiddled around a bit with the Flickr Color Pickr mashup. This mashup was both fun, fascinating, worthwhile and (ultimately) kind of depressing.
The fun is pretty obvious. Play with it for a bit and you will know what I mean.
Fascinating and worthwhile are also obvious. Imagine being able to search by color and shape. Not only is this one a new one on me, it does lay some serious portion of the groundwork for combining text, shape and color in online searching. For someone who spent the first two decades or more of his online search career (did I just indicate how old I am?) doing text only searches - since this was all that the computers we had in olden times could do - this is truly revolutionary.
Then there's the depressing aspect of it all. This kicks in because this particular mashup reminds us (me anyway) that, even though we may not glow in the dark, there actually are people out there who are so brilliant that they do. How do they think up of this stuff and who needs to be reminded that the rest of us can't?
Finally, I played a bit with montagr, which made me feel a little better. I didn't have great luck with it but I didn't care much, since I'm not particularly fond of photo montages. After all, there's enough clutter in life as it is. Why take perfectly harmless photos just to make more of it?
Friday, September 28, 2007
Flickr
For this post I'm going to do something different. I'm going to make it (by my standards) short.
Flickr is another one of those things I first heard of this past spring at Computers in Libraries. Shortly after the conference, in order to figure out a bit about it, I set up a Flickr account.
You can see it here: Joe's Flickr Account.
It seemed kind of like cheating, though, to use an account set up months ago for a current assignment. So a week or two ago I uploaded a bunch more photos and started adding captions, tags, etc. I've still got a ways to go before I finish all of this editorial work but there's still a lot here - about four and a half pages of photos. Some are pictures of family, others are pictures of my wife's sewing projects, others of my own assorted projects and, finally, there's a bunch of "around the house" photos. I've managed to create three sub-collections of pictures and would have made more except that you only get three for free.
This was another one of those assignments that was quite a lot of fun. If learning at school had been this much fun I might have stayed awake in class a bit more often.
Flickr is another one of those things I first heard of this past spring at Computers in Libraries. Shortly after the conference, in order to figure out a bit about it, I set up a Flickr account.
You can see it here: Joe's Flickr Account.
It seemed kind of like cheating, though, to use an account set up months ago for a current assignment. So a week or two ago I uploaded a bunch more photos and started adding captions, tags, etc. I've still got a ways to go before I finish all of this editorial work but there's still a lot here - about four and a half pages of photos. Some are pictures of family, others are pictures of my wife's sewing projects, others of my own assorted projects and, finally, there's a bunch of "around the house" photos. I've managed to create three sub-collections of pictures and would have made more except that you only get three for free.
This was another one of those assignments that was quite a lot of fun. If learning at school had been this much fun I might have stayed awake in class a bit more often.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Lifelong Learning - Is ignorance really bliss?
Yesterday I had a conversation with a fellow employee and mentioned that my first job had been as a soda jerk in a drugstore soda fountain. Even then (I think it may have been sometime during the administration of Grover Cleveland), I was a heavy user of public libraries.
The library I used, though, was as yesterday as my first job title. It had books. It had magazines. It had musical recordings too (on 33 1/3 LPs, of course). But databases? Audiobooks? Videos? Computerized circulation systems? Computerized anything? Don't even dream it.
By the time I went to library school things had changed. Not much, though. The library at my library school still had a card catalog but the university itself may have had an automated catalog (of a sort) and databases did exist. In fact my class went on a field trip to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Library once, just so that we could see what an online database looked like. You can't believe how fast a 300bps computer terminal with an acoustical coupler seemed back then.
So look at me now. A decade ago the Howard County Library hired me to buy reference books. How many reference books do you think I buy these days? Not many.
These days I mostly buy electrons. I buy online electrons, streaming electrons, downloadable electrons. You name it. If it's an electron, somebody will discover that we have a need for it and will tell me to buy it.
This gets back to the subject of this post. In the real world that we actually live in these days, ignorance is only bliss if your particular flavor of bliss also goes by the name of "unemployment."
After all, what do you think my job prospects would be if I was still a professional soda jerk or if my resume claimed that "I'm really good at filing cards in the card catalog"?
This is where the concept of lifelong learning kicks in. Back in my grandfather's day an eighth grade education taught Grandpa pretty much what the old boy needed to know to function in what then passed for a modern society. Only once did Grandpa need any significant job training after the eighth grade - when Uncle Sam issued him a Springfield '03 and told him to go out and fight Kaiser Bill.
It doesn't work that way anymore. In fact, these days, the most important skill you can learn in school is to learn how to learn. This is so because almost everything else you learn in school is certain to be obsolete within a few years of graduation.
In a lot of ways 23 Things is the real face of modern education. Aimed at the already graduated, it isn't a degree program. Rather it is a modest, incremental little "courselet" that updates the skills of the already educated and prepares them to deal with things that didn't exist when they got out of school.
Which gets me to the whole point of this particular exercise. In looking over the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners we are asked to, "write down which habit among the 7 & 1/2 that is easiest for you and which is hardest."
Except for one, all of them are actually pretty easy. That's largely because of habit number 7 1/2 - "Play." If you let it be, learning actually is fun. Habits number two through seven come with the territory to those who allow themselves to enjoy the process.
It's actually Habit 1, "Begin with the end in mind," that's the hard one. This isn't because it's hard to begin with an end in mind but because it's in the nature of learning that learning frequently brings you to many places beyond the one you thought you were going to.
It sounds like I'm laying it on a bit thick here. I'm not. Can you imagine what an absolute bore our jobs would be if we were still futzing with card catalogs and if microfilm (of all things!) was still the hot new technology? All the new toys we get to play with these days are an absolute blast. What could be more fun than getting paid to play with them?
The library I used, though, was as yesterday as my first job title. It had books. It had magazines. It had musical recordings too (on 33 1/3 LPs, of course). But databases? Audiobooks? Videos? Computerized circulation systems? Computerized anything? Don't even dream it.
By the time I went to library school things had changed. Not much, though. The library at my library school still had a card catalog but the university itself may have had an automated catalog (of a sort) and databases did exist. In fact my class went on a field trip to the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Library once, just so that we could see what an online database looked like. You can't believe how fast a 300bps computer terminal with an acoustical coupler seemed back then.
So look at me now. A decade ago the Howard County Library hired me to buy reference books. How many reference books do you think I buy these days? Not many.
These days I mostly buy electrons. I buy online electrons, streaming electrons, downloadable electrons. You name it. If it's an electron, somebody will discover that we have a need for it and will tell me to buy it.
This gets back to the subject of this post. In the real world that we actually live in these days, ignorance is only bliss if your particular flavor of bliss also goes by the name of "unemployment."
After all, what do you think my job prospects would be if I was still a professional soda jerk or if my resume claimed that "I'm really good at filing cards in the card catalog"?
This is where the concept of lifelong learning kicks in. Back in my grandfather's day an eighth grade education taught Grandpa pretty much what the old boy needed to know to function in what then passed for a modern society. Only once did Grandpa need any significant job training after the eighth grade - when Uncle Sam issued him a Springfield '03 and told him to go out and fight Kaiser Bill.
It doesn't work that way anymore. In fact, these days, the most important skill you can learn in school is to learn how to learn. This is so because almost everything else you learn in school is certain to be obsolete within a few years of graduation.
In a lot of ways 23 Things is the real face of modern education. Aimed at the already graduated, it isn't a degree program. Rather it is a modest, incremental little "courselet" that updates the skills of the already educated and prepares them to deal with things that didn't exist when they got out of school.
Which gets me to the whole point of this particular exercise. In looking over the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners we are asked to, "write down which habit among the 7 & 1/2 that is easiest for you and which is hardest."
Except for one, all of them are actually pretty easy. That's largely because of habit number 7 1/2 - "Play." If you let it be, learning actually is fun. Habits number two through seven come with the territory to those who allow themselves to enjoy the process.
It's actually Habit 1, "Begin with the end in mind," that's the hard one. This isn't because it's hard to begin with an end in mind but because it's in the nature of learning that learning frequently brings you to many places beyond the one you thought you were going to.
It sounds like I'm laying it on a bit thick here. I'm not. Can you imagine what an absolute bore our jobs would be if we were still futzing with card catalogs and if microfilm (of all things!) was still the hot new technology? All the new toys we get to play with these days are an absolute blast. What could be more fun than getting paid to play with them?
Friday, August 31, 2007
Haven't I been here before?
23 Things asks you to set up a blog and, for assignment purposes, here I am doing just that.
I've done this before, though. This past spring, after going to Computers in Libraries, I set up a blog, just to see what was entailed.
It was a lot of fun but, after a while, I stopped posting to it. Why? For the same reason I think that individual blogs produced by the Howard County Library staff are an idea that is more than a bit iffy.
The reason? Time.
Initially, I tried to write a post once a week. I'm one of those people who actually enjoys writing (witness this “short” blog entry). So, unconstrained by deadline pressure, space, or anything else for that matter, I quickly discovered that it was very easy for me to spend several hours on each of my blog postings.
For me, what fun. For my employer, what a waste of company time.
Upon realizing this, having learned from my enjoyable experiment what I needed to learn, I stopped posting to my blog. I did one more post, though, just this past week. I did it to reconfirm the conclusions I had come to this past spring. Sure enough, I managed to spend well over three hours on one posting. You can see it here, if you like: Joe Says
I had a ball but the simple reality is that few employers, including ours, can allow their staffers the kind of open ended time that maintaining a blog can entail.
But this technology is powerful and we do want to make use of it. So how do we do so? In some ways, time will tell, but I believe I know a good starting point.
Rather than have Howard County Library staff create whatever little blogs our little hearts may desire, we might start with departmental blogs, aimed largely (though not exclusively) at the public. Good examples might be a blog set up by the Fiction Desk at Central or, perhaps, by the children's librarians (either by branch or as a group).
Each staff member might be allowed, or even required, to contribute book news, reviews, program information or what have you on an appropriate group blog. Their work would be signed, both so that they could receive credit for their work or, in less happy cases, be held responsible for it. The department head responsible for the blog would function as it's gatekeeper, being responsible for reviewing contributions prior to their being posted.
I'm sure this is not the only way we can make use of blogs but I think it would be an effective and safe way to start. By taking the step of creating and operating departmental blogs, we can gain the kind of experience that will tell us what sort of next steps make sense.
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