Technology

Packing, Goal Setting and YouTube

/ dwakimoto

Okay, so it is Friday and we all need a little something fun and some tips to help us through the day as the weekend is fast approaching.

First the really awesome YouTube video from CSU Long Beach. CSULB had students give a tour of the reference services at the library–it is a great video. Again, marketing is so much better if students get in on it. I think my library should start a YouTube station. It definitely solves the problem with hosting streaming videos and with Overstream, we can even close caption the videos. Just a thought. Enjoy this video, I did!

Now from one of my favorite technology blogs, Lifehacker, here is an article on “Goal Setting for Skeptics”. I think goal setting is important, whether you write down your goals or not. I fine setting goals helps me from becoming bogged down in the day-to-day chores that have to get done and allow me to focus on longer-term projects, both at work and at home. But then, I’m the kind of person who also keeps journals to track project progress, keeps books of inspiring quotations and am always looking to learn. I know people that hate writing down goals and they get things accomplished just fine. I’m just saying, give the article a chance and see if it works for you. Who knows, maybe you could make one of your goals to adapt a Web 2.0 application to use in your library!

And last tip for the day, check out Wired’s article, Pack Light for Geek Travel. Great article to read for those of us who travel with a lot of tech gear and are getting ready to head out to conferences.

Speaking of conferences, I’ll be at the Internet Librarian Conference this coming week. So if you are going to be there, say hi.

Reality Bites & How You can Change it

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

First off today, I have to give props out to Tom H. who has been awesome in commenting on this blog. Thank you! I am so glad someone is reading and enjoying the posts.

Now to the main topic today: reality bites. That sounds a little pessimistic, doesn’t it? Well, some parts of reality really do bite–like povery, global warming, students cheating, librarians thinking that they can be outsourced and the fact that I haven’t been able to find veggie gyoza at Trader Joe’s for the last 3 weeks.

But parts of reality rock–like Jim Butcher having two new books coming out, people helping out because it is the right thing to do, librarians helping to Rock the Vote, and autumn weather that is warm during the day but perfect for a quilt at night.

So what specifically made me write this type of post today? Two things, actually.

First this YouTube video on cheating that has been going around the Internet. I found out through Tame the Web blog and you can see it here. Did she even think about the consequences of posting this video on YouTube? I mean, it is scary that students are posting videos about how to cheat and the comments to these videos are even scarier. I really dislike the “but everyone else is doing it” defense. No, they are not and cheating is just plain wrong. I am going to show this to my Information Literacy class so we can discuss the implications of the video. But I’m not completely disheartened by this because I still believe that most students are honest and hard-working when they are doing their school work.

Anyone read the latest Backtalk column in Library Journal (October 1, 2008 edition)? Another person who is pessimistic about the future of librarianship–believing that we have caused ourselves to become obsolete through our increased reliance on technology. While I agree that the human touch is very important in what we do as librarians, I don’t believe that technology can be considered the downfall of the profession or libraries in general. Though, I may be a little biased in this as I am an Online Literacy librarian. I think technology, if anything, has made our role as librarians even more important for the efficient finding, analyzing and evaluating of information. I don’t feel obsolete and I am proud of my work as a librarian. What do you think?

I think that our perceptions truly become our reality. If we think we are obsolete, we will fulfill that thought. But if we truly believe that librarians are important, than our thoughts and subsequent actions will make it so. Yes, it is annoying to answer the tenth question in an hour about the location of the bathroom. But we also help people with so many important questions and concerns. We also design websites that are accessible, have events that gather together communities and help students find information that is personally relevant to them. And through these actions, we change reality into something better.

And to end on a somewhat positive note, the Wednesday post of this blog will be in support of Blog Action Day 2008 where bloggers around the world are going to be posting only about poverty for one day in order to raise awareness and hopefully get people to help end world-wide poverty. We can all do something to better ourselves, our communities, our libraries and our world, if we only work together.

Reference Desk and Basic Tech

/ dwakimoto / 2 Comments

I just got my Fall issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly and there is an article that I think everyone should check out. Written by LIS student, Marcella Knibbe-Haanstra, the article is titled “Reference Desk Dilemmas: The Impact of New Demands on Librarianship.” The article reiterates literature on stereotypes of librarians and stress caused by technology and it is a very nice synthesis of the literature on stress management, user expectations, changing technology and shifting roles of the reference librarian. I think it is a great starting point for a conversation on how we can handle our increased workloads and technical competencies that we need in our jobs today. Way to go to publish while in library school too, Marcella!

Now, something practical to help with the technology stress. Here is a great post from Pogue’s Posts hosted by The New York Times. Listed are tech tips and tricks for basic computer use. The comments expand on this post and there are some great tips. I even discovered some shortcuts I didn’t know about, which is super cool. Share the tips with your friends and patrons so we all can use the computer a little more efficiently.

Enjoy the rest of the day and remember–computers are stupid, it is the person who uses the computer that makes them perform great feats!

Digital Libraries

/ dwakimoto

What is better on a Monday than talking about the latest paper to be causing a stir in the library world?

By now, you’ve probably heard about the “Free Our Libraries!” white paper by Richard K. Johnson commissioned by the Boston Library Consortium. Lots of valid points are raised in the paper, but if ideas had been presented more clearly we probably could have avoided some of the confusion the paper has created. So I’ll put in my 2 cents on this Monday morning.

First, no, it’s not the libraries fault that everything is not available online and I do not think that Johnson is blaming the libraries for upholding copyright. Many people agree that copyright is broken. It takes so long for anything to come into the public domain that creativity is hindered instead of expanded and inspired as was one of the original goals of copyright. And yes, in this litigious society, there are many threats to the public domain and fair use. Simply check out Chilling Effects to learn more about challenges to fair use in the online environment.

Second, Johnson’s paper would have been much stronger had it compared anything to the Google Book Project. The Open Content Alliance is the most well-known competitor with the Google Book Project. Google is not the first and last word on digitization, yet.

Third, and this is the omission that always annoys me, there was no mention of archives and archivists. Honestly, do librarians think they are the only ones grappling with these issues? Really, we cannot afford to be that insular. Archivists are creating digital archives and digital libraries as well, and archives know all about preservation and preservation metadata. Do you know what a PDF/A is? Do you know why it is important? An archivist can tell you. We can do so much more if we collaborate and share our knowledge instead of reinventing the wheel in our own small part of the world. It annoys me to no end that archivists and librarians do not collaborate more often and there seems to be little understanding on either side of how the other could help.

Finally, to end on an upbeat note: check out Brewster Kahle’s talk on TED about digital libraries. It is possible to have digital libraries, respect copyright, and still have access. Let’s start working on it.

What about Optimism?

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

So from the title of today’s post, you can probably tell that I’m getting a little frustrated by only hearing about doom and gloom all the time on every issue. It is easy to slip into pessimism about the state of the libraries, the state of the nation and the state of the world. But to me, that is way too much like giving up or giving in. Instead, let’s be optimistic–at least where libraries and librarians are concerned. There are a lot of great things that are happening out there and a lot of ways to turn a lot of glass half-empty scenarios into glass half-full scenarios. And no, I’m not saying to ignore reality, rather I’m saying let’s bend reality into what works for us.

Case 1: Jeff Jarvis’ amazing article Let’s Junk the Myths and Celebrate what We’ve Got.
I love this article. Jarvis could be describing how many librarians feel about the Internet and new technologies, couldn’t he? He completely underscores what I try to get across in this blog: yes there is junk on the Internet, but there is so much potential too.

Case 2: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere
Everyone just has to get on board with the fact that blogs are not going away anytime soon. In fact, more are coming online every day. So libraries and librarians need to continue to get out in the blogosphere and engage others. It’s not enough to have a website and think that we have a web presence to the extent we need. Nor should marketing only occur through the library’s website–we need to be more than a website to our patrons in order to stay relevant.

Case 3: Library Quote #1 & Library Quote #2
There are two great photographs of pillars inside a library with library quotes on them. How cool an idea is that? The photographer, unfortunately, kept all rights reserved instead of using a Creative Commons License so I did not directly paste them in this blog. I encourage you to check them out though. But if you don’t want to click through, the quotes are as follows:
“A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library” Shelby foote
“I don’t believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that’s been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians” Gorilla librarian sketch-Monty Python

Always remember, never take yourself or your job too seriously. If we can still have fun, we can stay relevant and be optimistic about our place and task in the grand scheme of society.

As I always leave my students with a final thought for the day, I’ll leave you with one too that will help you keep your optimism. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” ~Mark Twain

Comments welcome. Stay optimistic and curious and you will be able to find creative ways of doing the work of the library.

Short Post for a Monday Morning

/ dwakimoto

So, this is going to be much shorter than my usual posts as I am supposed to be at CSUEB fall convocation in 30 minutes…Well, I’ll try to be brief.

So, are you feeling that technology is taking over your life? Fear not! I have a couple of great resources from Lifehacker (once again subscribe to their blog, awesome stuff, although so many posts per day that it is easy to get overwhelmed).

I love this post Ungeek to Live: On Reading Well. Here’s just something to warm a librarian’s or bibliophile’s heart. A techie blog calling for more reading, scheduling time to read, and reading for fun. Very happy find on my RSS feed. Don’t miss the comments to this post, very lively discussion of the merits of libraries, used bookstores and chains as places to get books.

Second post from Lifehacker Best of the Best: High Five Winners. A great list of the top tools that Lifehacker readers voted on in various categories. I’ve got to say that I love VLC as a media player and a lot of these other recommendations. Also, I just found where the next time sink for me is coming from–testing all of these tools that I’ve not used yet. And notice that paper and pencil come in on top for quite a few categories. Ungeek to live indeed.

Enjoy your Monday. Comments welcomed.

A Whole Lot of Fun

/ dwakimoto

Okay, so I’m sorry there haven’t been more posts this week. But, in my defense, I’ve been “oriented” at New Faculty Orientation and now am going to be at an on-campus conference (Back to the Bay) for 2 days. So I’ve not been truly slacking, only out of the office. So for those in my library, I’ve not forgotten about the tech brown bags, just waiting for some schedules to come out before we set the dates and start playing with cool new tools! 

As I was getting up this morning, I thought about what would be a couple of good resources for this Thursday. And I thought, why not have some fun? So I give you two sources, Unshelved and a talk from the SirsiDynixInstitute. 

If you are not familiar with the web comic strip, Unshelved, get ready for a laugh. This is a comic strip that is set in a public library and if you’ve ever worked in a public library you can completely relate. This is just fun and their store is great. I want the shirt that says “Library Schooled.” They are also the people behind Pimp my Bookcart! How can you not like that? So if you are new to the Unshelved universe, read their primer first. Enjoy! Oh, and did I mention you can get the comic strip and news via RSS? Just a thought…

For the second resource today, I give you Stephen Abram’s talk, Twenty five technologies to Watch and How. This is one of the great events that is archived from the SirsiDynix Institute. They are free to watch and listen to. This talk is from January of this year, but is great and I finally got around to listening to it the other day. I listened to the mp3 file, so if someone watches the video, I’d love to hear how it turned out. There is another webinar coming up on September 24th, “Welcome to the profession: Where will you be in 25 years? Is that where you want to be?” which I am totally looking forward to. So pop on by the website, you might just find something useful. Like a webinar a lot, find it fun and useful? Comment to this post to share with everyone else.

Happy Thursday!

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!