Author: dwakimoto

New Visual Search Engines

/ dwakimoto / 2 Comments

Today is search engine day! Or, rather two search engines to keep your eyes peeled for their debut soon: Imprezzeo and VideoSurf and one that is already here: facesaerch. I am so excited about this and you’ll want to share this information with anyone who uses a lot of images and/or is interested in art. I know these search engines will come as a relief to those in art documentation as the access to images and non-textual material is very complicated. So what exactly makes these coming attractions so great? They don’t run exclusively off keywords, subject headings or other text interpretations of the images (still or moving). Yep, you heard that right–these search engines function beyond text capabilities.

Imprezzeo is the still image search engine. Read an article about the use of facial recognition software and other techniques used for searching in Imprezzeo. This will be an awesome search engine when up and running. Talk about a great addition to a digital art collection held at a library. How cool would it be to integrate this into a catalog search? And throw Cooliris on top of it. That would be something I would love to see.

VideoSurf is going to revolutionize searching for video like Imprezzeo will do for still images. Right now VideoSurf is in beta and you must request to be invited to set up an account to use it. I was playing with it this morning and have to say that I love the layout and the ease of refining the results. The fact that the whole video is analyzed, not just tags and other metadata, truly thrills me. Again, great for moving image archives and libraries. I’m not the only one who thinks it’s cool, check out this review of VideoSurf.

Okay, and in my quest to not just give interesting information but some technology you can use right now–I give you facesaerch! (Yes, that is spelled correctly.) This reminds me a lot of Cooliris; it has the same slick look and moving images. This search engine is designed specifically for searching for faces. Click on one of the images that you get in your results stream and it will take you to the webpage that the image is taken from. Handy tool if a patron wants an image of a person. Add to your list of specialized search engines.

Enjoy and have fun playing around with facesaerch!

The Library in a Social World

/ dwakimoto

Today’s topic is broadly about changes in how we interact with information and more narrowly about three interrelated (at least in my mind) topics: social learning, popularity versus authority online, and changing library spaces.

But before we get into that, I got a great comment from Luna Yang of Cooliris, Inc. who alerted me that the Lewis and Clark Library is already using Cooliris to show off their new books. It looks fabulous. Just thought I would share that in case you didn’t see the comment on the last post.

Beginning with popularity versus authority of online resources, we have Seth Finkelstein’s chapter “Google, Links, and Popularity versus Authority” from the book The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age. The entire book, along with New Media World’s other books are available for free online. This is a very relevant issue, especially as we try to teach our students evaluation skills in information literacy courses. I am going to have my students read this chapter. I think it could stimulate great discussion about search engines and democracy online.

The Engaged Learning Blog has 15 Objections to Social Learning post. It makes for interesting reading, especially in the context of the library, because so many of these objections we often here more generally as objections to change and using Web2.0 technologies in the library. So what do you think about this issue? Let’s start a discussion about this topic. Because social learning and social networking isn’t going away, so we need to figure out where we fit in this new landscape.

Finally, just another article about changing library spaces. But check out the comments, they are really interesting. As we re-imagine the library, what do we want to see the physical space become? How can we brand the library and stay relevant through all of the coming changes?

As always, I welcome your opinions and thoughts about anything related to libraries and learning.

Reimagining the Library Visually

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

Okay, so I’m not good with coming up with post titles, but this is a seriously important post and a seriously fun post. Because, as Niels Bohr supposedly said, “there are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.” I think we have to be able to laugh at ourselves and go out on a limb as we reimagine what the library can become. So I have just two resources today to share that I think are just so fabulously cool and really useful too.

The Conversation Prism is without a doubt one of the coolest graphics I’ve seen. I love the fact that it is on Flickr, is freely available for use under the Creative Commons Attribute License and that people have already commented on it in Flickr. So what is The Conversation Prism? It is a color wheel that breaks up different online social networking and collaboration tools into groups. It is a handy way to see all the ways that we could be communicating, sharing and collaborating with each other online. So how many of these web 2.0 tools are we using in the library? What could we add that would benefit our users? How can we harness the living social network online to keep the library relevant and in the forefront of people’s minds when it comes to searching and using information? What studies have been done on using these different technologies? And, by the way, the graphic prints out fabulously well. You can see it on my office wall if you drop by. Let’s get the library into the center of this conversation–right where we belong!

Since this is about reimagining the library visually, I couldn’t help but put in a plug for Cooliris, Inc. formerly known as PicLens. I love this add-on to my web browser. It works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, but alas not for Google Chrome, yet. This add-on allows you to display images as a moving image wall, select an image and blow it up to full screen. It only works on certain sites (like Flickr, deviantART, Amazon, etc.), but when it is enabled-wow! Its interface is reminiscent of the iPhone. It is absolutely beautiful.

So other than it being beautiful, why do I mention Cooliris? Think of the library catalog applications! If your catalog had book covers that displayed along with the books’ records and the website was enabled for Cooliris, your patrons could have a moving wall of book covers that they could quickly scan visually. This would make going through search results very easy, especially if you are more of a visual person and remember book covers better than author names. Not only would it look beautiful, it would be a great browsing technique too, as we are all visual creatures and can form a search image very readily. I used this feature when searching Amazon and it was fantastic. What other ways could we use Cooliris? Is it feasible to use it in the catalog? Well, anything is feasible if we put our minds to it.

So I leave you with the following question: how would you use some of these tools to make your work easier or make the library more central to this new digital world? Don’t be too serious, playing and daydreaming contribute to the great epiphanies and ideas of the world just as much as more serious endeavors. So let’s all figure out together. I’m sure that together, through lots of collaboration, we can harness this cool technology and go from reimagining the library into actually changing the library for the better.

Changing Perceptions of Reference and Librarians

/ dwakimoto

I thought the topic of change was particularly relevant as we try to re-envision and re-imagine the library as place. There are so many resources out there now about all the changes occurring in libraries. From reference to space design, web 2.0 to library 2.0 and online teaching to learning commons, there doesn’t seem to be an area where the library is not in a liminal state as we adapt to new learning environments.

So I want to share two great resources today that have to do with change in the library. And, hopefully, these resources stimulate conversation, thought and a desire for those involved in the library world to become active participants in this change.

Ithaka Report

If you have not read the Ithaka Report, you must read it. Results of the 2006 survey of librarian and faculty perceptions of the library’s future and place in research are reported in the Ithaka Report. While I am a little suspicious that the survey’s response rate was not reported (I’ve not checked the raw data links yet), this is an eye-opening read and a confirmation of what many have feared–that the faculty see the library as becoming less and less relevant and necessary with the increase of digital resources (such as databases, full-text journals, online data sets, etc.). Responses vary by discipline and while no one sees the library completely going away, there is a definite decrease in status of the library as a major information player. However, this is a wake-up call for re-imagining what we can do to become not only relevant but essential to faculty and the rest of our community.

“Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition”

Stephen Abram’s article Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition is a must read article. He puts forth a baker’s dozen of possible future library reference situations. The diversity of possible futures is interesting and thought-provoking. How can we best serve our library patrons? How does reference change in a world of mobile devices, social networking sites, and IM? Should we be providing reference in all of these platforms? How do we integrate others into our library–both the physical space and the digital domain of the library? And how do we know what we are doing is best practice?

What do we want the library to be? We have the opportunity to be agents of change–let’s not waste that opportunity. As always, comments are appreciated. Let’s get the dialog going today so that we can meet our community’s needs now and into the future.

Taming Technology Anxiety

/ dwakimoto

Before we go further into the wide and wonderful world of technology and its application to the library, we should first take a moment to consider information overload and technology anxiety. It is very easy to get overloaded and overwhelmed by the all the new information and technological developments. But just take a deep breath. This post has some resources on how to reclaim control over the information onslaught and make technology work for you.

Sarah Houghton-Jan, otherwise known as the LibrarianInBlack, from her blog of the same name, wrote a great article in Ariadne called, Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload. Read it! Seriously, it has great tips and techniques for organizing and using the information that enters your sphere without being controlled by it.

Also, check out PC World’s article 20 Tech Habits to Improve Your Life. It gives more good tips and suggests lots of free programs you can use to organize your workflow, manage your passwords, encrypt your data and have some fun with music and movies on the Internet.

One of the easiest, fastest ways to organize your life is by putting your bookmarks online, if you haven’t already. Ever want something you’ve bookmarked on your home computer at work but you didn’t have it bookmarked on your work computer? With online bookmarks, this will never be a problem again! Check out del.icio.us. Not only can you import all your bookmarks online after signing up (it’s free!), you can share bookmarks with friends, check out other people’s bookmarks, and more. You can also keep your bookmarks private if you want. Want an example? Check out delicious.com/science4you which has bookmarks of science resources available online. Also, del.icio.us has recently redone its interface, so if you didn’t like how it looked before, you might like it better now. I think it is great.

Last, but certainly not least, check out Google’s new web browser, Chrome. It is in Beta, but definitely worth a look. Download it here: Google Chrome. It has a super clean interface which means you can see more of the webpage. I think this would be great for making screencaps for presentations and classes because you can see more of the webpage! I hate it when I can’t screencap the whole webpage, and this makes it so easy. How cool is that?

These resources should help you tame technology anxiety. And if all else fails, do what I do, and just schedule time away from the computer. You’ll come back refreshed and better able to work.

Please share other tools and techniques you use in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Why it's better to share

/ dwakimoto

We all remember being told to share right? And that two heads are better than one? Well, just because we are in the library world now, and not in kindergarten, doesn’t mean these lessons don’t apply. In fact, it is even more important to share because there is just too much to do every day and way too much information out there for us to get it all.

But what particularly should we be sharing? Well, just about everything. Take a look at this piece from Library Journal by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens, The Transparent Library: Let’s All Lighten Up. In fact, if you like this, take a look at Michael Stephens’ blog, Tame the Web. Subscribe to his blog too–great stuff, I’ll probably be linking to some of his great posts here.

But you don’t care about other blogs, you just want a concrete example of why sharing is better than going it alone? Well, look no further than these databases of online learning objects. Creating new learning objects or modules takes a lot of time. So why reinvent the wheel when you don’t have to? Just make sure the modules you use are accessible, lots are but some aren’t, and link away to your heart’s content! Yes, some of these modules won’t be applicable for your course, but trust me, there are some great resources out there. Some resources to try:
OER: Open Educational Resources
MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching
Online Learning Object Repository

And, as always, ask your colleagues what they are creating or have already created that you can use in your instructional sessions and classes. Remember it is better to share!

In the beginning…there was the RSS feed

/ dwakimoto

So while I hope this blog reaches a large audience, its primary audience at present are the librarians and awesome staff at CSUEB libraries. Why? Because we all need to share what we find out and this is way better than bombarding people with emails about all the stuff I think is cool and handy. And also, blogs have RSS feeds and wikis don’t.

What’s an RSS feed? I’m glad you asked. That is why we are starting at the beginning and bringing everyone up to speed so we can go forth together to improve and implement online services and resources for everyone.

Back to RSS feeds, these feeds allow you to collect from many blogs and newsources and read them in one place–your blog reader. Watch this short video below on RSS feeds to get a better idea about them and then subscribe to my blog by using the link that says Entries RSS or use one of the RSS buttons near the bottom of the page on the right side of the screen.

Really, I wasn’t joking. Subscribe to this blog!

Welcome to The Waki Librarian!

/ dwakimoto

Hello and welcome to The Waki Librarian! First off, you are probably wondering why it’s named The Waki Librarian. Well, it’s not a typo. It’s a contraction of my last name, Wakimoto, and it’s one of my nicknames. It seems to fit the librarian world and bibliosphere as well because librarians are fearless, innovative and, yes, even waki!

I suppose also I should explain the purpose of this blog. Basically this blog is a place to find awesome new online resources and news about the library world, specifically focusing on applying technology in the library, usability, accessibility and anything else I think is applicable. Lots of this information can be found on other blogs, but I know a lot of people don’t have time to monitor tons of blogs, so that is where this blog comes in. It will give snippets of some of the great new technology and tools that can be applied right now to your work in your libraries and trends/issues to be aware of in the library sphere. And, if some of my own research gets thrown in, well consider yourself warned.

So read along, subscribe, comment and let’s make this blog into a great online community space.

Come join The Waki Librarian!