LibrarianInBlack

A spot of Jott will do ya just fine

Speech-to-text tools have been evolving for a while now.  A tool that I've been playing with a bit and LOVE is Jott, which is in public beta testing right now.  Send Jott your e-mail Contacts through Outlook/Gmail etc. Then you just call the Jott number and talk.  Your words can be sent to yourself, another person, or a group via e-mail or text-message.  How cool is that? 

For me, with my 90 minute commute each way, this is a great tool.  I can send myself reminders, send myself the draft of a memo or report, send e-mails to other people asking quick questions, you name it.  It works in the US and Canada, takes only a few minutes to set up, and works pretty darn well recognizing what you've said.  You just talk clearly, it captures your words, and that's it!  You can do one after the other quickly without going through menus.  And really, you don't even need to talk that clearly.  I started off enunciating like crazy, but then got sloppier and lazier with my speech and it still picked everything up perfectly--even sentence structure. 

It's very, very cool and I highly recommend trying it.  A few tips for successful Jott fun: 1) make sure your contacts are listed with first and last names 2) set up one account for work and one for home 3) Each one is limited to 30 seconds, but don't freak out--just send yourself multiple ones back to back if you have to.

I heart Jott :)

USA.gov site

I've been playing around with the redesigned USA.gov site (used to be FirstGov), and it really is better.  The search is good (wow, on a gov't site!), the design is a lot more professional, and things are organized in a rather logical fashion.  I wonder if they hired librarians!!!  Printing, e-mailing, and RSS feeds are a lot more prominent, which is nice.  Also, the most commonly used items are pushed to the front of the navigation through Quick Links in each category.  Take a look!

found via beSpacific

Women in IT

Women in IT are becoming a rare breed.  "Researchers" at NYPL (does that mean librarians?) were commissioned to find out what they could about women in IT: what positions they're holding, and if they're here at all.  Jeff Zeldman writes about it in Women in Web Design: Just the Stats.  There are not stats on web design specifically (odd, eh?), but lots of stats on IT.  What did they find?

Women make up less than 1/4 of the IT workforce, and that number is shrinking, and the women in the field aren't promoted as often or as highly as their male counterparts.

Speaking as a newer techie, I can say that it's unusual to encounter women doing tech jobs--even in libraries.  Most IT folks are still male, and the few women I've encountered in library tech are in managerial positions like mine--kind of the "we'll oversee what you do, not that we understand it."  I have had more than one experience with people being shocked that I actually understand the jobs of those that I supervise...that I know what a network is and how it works, that I can code, that I know how to build a computer from bits and pieces.  Now, I don't know if that's because I'm female of that's because people are used to managers who don't know squat.  I don't know.

Since it's unusual to meet women in library tech, a traditionally female-dominated field, I'm not at all surprised to hear that overall, "women in tech" is a declining number.

found via A Passion for Puters

Collaborative Virtual Reference Symposium

Wanna go to Denver and talk about virtual reference?  Then go to the Collaborative Virtual Reference Symposium, July 31-August 1 in Denver, Colorado.  Registration is limited to 75 people and the $105 registration fee covers the symposium, its materials, and four meals (nice addition!). You can view the agenda here.  Joseph Janes is giving the keynote.  The symposium seems focused on academic libraries, as most of the speakers are academic librarians and the topics seem to have that focus. 

I would be very interested to see the "Side by Side Comparison of Collaborative VR Services" materials made public...this is something we all are interested in.

What's most interesting to me is that with the session dedicated to IM, it's written as though "Collaborative VR" and "IM VR" are mutually exclusive.  While there are certainly software barriers that make that difficult (namely, not being able to have multiple people monitoring one 'queue' or 'screen name'), you could easily set up collaborative IM right now by having each library monitor particular hours/days, thereby sharing the work but offering the service to all.

Social Networking BooYah

Here are two resources to tap if you are trying to get social networking off the ground in your library:

• "Don't Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace" by Robert Andrews in Wired--a discussion of how educational institutions are using social networking sites to reach out to students
• Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services--a new blog dedicated to social networking services for libraries (it's how I found the article above :P).  A feed is available too.

How to allow for change in your institution

David Lee King has written an excellent piece entitled "How Can We Change the Unchangeable, or David’s Rant" in which he discusses the elephant in the room with all this wonderful Library 2.0 stuff.  (No, not the "inadequate staffing" elephant--that's the other elephant there in the corner to your left).  His elephant is the issue of administrators often blocking change, especially technology changes, and sometimes even those changes that they have requested or initiated.  David asks three questions of his readers at the end, and if you can, pitch in a few ideas for one of them over on David's site.

• Steps to take to convince administrators that the library world is different than it was in the 1970’s?
• How to convince administrators that constant change and innovation is good, and that it’s also a necessity in our new millenial world?
• How can we become change agents in a field that’s apparently not used to changing?

What he points out, though, is sad.  Many innovators land in a library where they expect to do wonderful things, find road blocks at every bend, and end up either leaving the organization in hopes of a better situation or simply giving up and ceasing to innovate.  Is this what we want?  I don't think so -- but it is what we have. 

So here's my charge for each of you.  Think about how you (yes, you) could be blocking change and innovation in your library.  Think about why you're doing it.  You may feel that you have very good reasons (budget issues may be one of those).  But you may be doing things subconsciously or as a knee-jerk reaction without thinking.  Just do some self-reflection here. 

What can you do to empower change in your institution?  How can you move things forward?  Then do those things.  Please.  For the love of squirrels.

Teens are not as dumb as you think they are

Time and time again, library staff (mostly older librarians--really, I hate to say it, but it's true) come to me and say something along the lines of--"We can't do X on our website, because the teens can't control themselves" or "No way are we having a MySpace profile--that would tell the teens that we endorse the site, and they can't handle themselves online!"

How dumb are we?  Pew just showed us how dumb we are.  Their newest study, "Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks," shows that teens are very, very intelligent in the way they manage themselves in their online presence.  The report shows a lot of interesting things that I sincerely hope libraries read and take to heart. The study found that 55% of online teens have profiles restrict access to keep sensitive information out of the reach of people they don't know or who they don't want to see the information (like parents).  Additionally, very few of the surveyed teens ever post information that would allow malicious people to find them (last name, phone number).  Read the full report for more details.

Presentations worth reviewing

A lot of people have posted their presentation materials from their Computers in Libraries sessions.  David Lee King's work caught my eye particularly.  He has posted three presentations, on change management, planning/implementing Library 2.0, and videoblogging.  Check out his website for links to all three presentations.

Infotubeys

The Infotubey award winners were announced at Computers in Libraries.  If you don't remember, the Infotubeys were awards given to libraries for exemplary content posted on YouTube.  They are really quite good videos, and examples of what libraries can do with the medium.  You can see the winners listed on Stephen Abram's blog.

Instant messaging and security: how to talk to IT

Instant messaging (IM) is one of the most popular ways for people of all ages to stay in touch online. For many teens, it is the primary mode of communication. Libraries have been in the IM game for several years now as a way for users to contact staff for anything from a reference question to circulation help. Even though IM is over a decade old now, I’m sad to report that many library staff come to me after my talks or by e-mail or IM, saying “We want to do IM, but IT won’t let us.”

Just as with any other technology, there are security issues with instant messaging. The issues are not that different from those we’ve already encountered and become accustomed to with web surfing and email. Unfortunately, many IT departments have called upon the specter of the “IM Security Threat” to shut down their libraries’ attempts to put an IM service in place. And that’s just plain wrong-headed and lazy on the part of those IT departments. That’s right: wrong-headed and lazy (but don’t say that yourself to your IT people—they’ll probably turn on you).

IT folks always seem to walk into a meeting armed with two articles (it’s always the same two), having not done thorough research, claiming that these things prove, unequivocally, that IM is the devil. It’s good to know your enemy, so read these articles.

1. More Instant Messaging Security Holes by Fred Langa (2001)
2. Instant Insecurity: Security Issues of Instant Messaging by Neil Hindocha (2003)

Below is some information you can use to arm yourself when talking to your IT folks and your administration. These recommendations apply for staff-to-staff IM and staff-to-public IM as well.

We’re librarians, folks: let’s use our research skills to find out the right information about the topic and go in there well-prepared.

How the IM Threats Work

The threats that come in through IM are largely worms, viruses, and Trojan horses. Both spread through downloads or link-following. An incoming message can appear to be from someone on the user’s buddy list, or not, and contain text like “Look at my photos!” or “Here’s that file.” Clicking on the link or downloading the file will result in infection. If you have your IM software set up to automatically download attachments, you don’t even need to do anything and you will be infected. The infection could then spread to others on your own buddy list.

How to Stay Safe

1. As you should be doing already, just for general safe computing reasons, keep your IM, operating system, antivirus, firewall, and antispyware software up to date.
2. Turn off file-sharing in the IM program(s).
3. Disable automatic downloads in the IM program(s).
4. Do not immediately open files or click on links from people. There are few cases in most reference or circulation transactions where the user is going to be sending you a file or link, but if it seems valid, re-send a message to the person asking if the message and its attachments are trustworthy, then continue. Even if the person is a person you know, that doesn’t mean they sent the message or file: automated bots can send these if their computer is infected.

The following articles can give you more information and back-up. Note that they are more up-to-date than the articles the IT folks seem to bandy about.

1. Tips for keeping your computer safe when using instant message or online chat programs by Steve delVecchio (2005)
   
2. Using Instant Messaging and Chat Rooms Safely by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (2004)
3. Instant Messaging Opens New Security Holes by Paul Korzeniowski (2004)

Now what? Read everything I’ve linked to, and then bring this post and all the articles with you to any meeting. Be safe, be careful, and be enthusiastic about this great new service opportunity!

Three sites worth your time

The lo-fi librarian does a periodical listing of "this week's useful tools," and a recent post listed several things that I think have real potential for library use.  Let me know if you're using any of these, especially in/for your library.

• Cluztr: This is a tool that lets you share your favorite websites with others, and get recommendations from friends.  It like del.icio.us, but (imho) with a slightly more friendly interface.
• Yugma: Free web conferencing tool.  There are premium subscriptions available, but this puppy allows you to share your screen, audio conference, include a whiteboard, have chat, and all without ads.  It also lets you create a widget that you can add to a website to let users web conference with you in one-click.  Wow!  Can we say "another virtual reference competitor" y'all?
• Blackle: *drumroll please*  This is my absolute favorite.  It's a Google Custom Search that is basically Google's basic search, but done in all black to save energy.  You get the same results as you do in Google, except without the "sub" results, the "page within a page" results, which is fine by me.  The homepage notes how many watt hours users have saved by using it.  It's my new home page.  It's black--what did you expect? ;)

the gender and age of your website visitors

Our library (ok, I) just spent a bundle on some website statistics management software--you know which one, the big name in the field, the one we all want but nearly keel over when we find out the price.  Anyway, for those for whom the pricetag is a little steep, here is another option: Quantcast (in beta).  Free sign-up and all it requires is a wee bit of javascript on your webpages.  What's kind of weird is what kinds of data they collect about your visitors:

We observe anonymous records of visits to internet destinations. For a portion of these observations, we have certain information, such as the age, gender or income level of the internet visitor and/or their household. This group is called a panel and forms one aspect of our analysis and reporting methodology.

We also analyze internet log records which include information such as the page viewed and the IP (internet protocol) address used to access the page.

OK, what "portion"?  And what other "certain information"?  They collect their data through their various "affiliations with partners, who include advertisers, publishers, ISPs and advertising networks." Hmm.  Even though their privacy policy seems overall fairly okay (unless I missed something obvious), it's still weird, creepy, and freakalicious, if you ask me.  Still, I could see libraries wanting to know this type of information about their website users--it might differ from your area's census data overall--who knows?

found via the Infoblog

Two ideas for managing booklists

If you're looking for a way to manage booklists, may I kindly suggest blogs with tagging?  Set one up for kids, one for teens, one for adults - or one for all three - and have a nice template for your staff to use into which they can paste ISBNs to get a screenshot, author and title, and description.  Then, let them free-tag it so users can free-sort what they want to to see in the way of recommendations.

If that's too scary and your take on booklists is more in the "It's a Word document, darn it!" mode, take a look at BooksoniX.  It's a management system for booklists and they say it can do all sorts of cool things like give you the canned descriptions right out of the chute so you just pick the title and no further work needed, madame librarian!

found via Peter Scott's Library Blog

"It's raning on I-80" says the 'puter

You can get weather along with your driving directions from Trippish.  I've given it a try the last three days I've driven around the Bay Area, and it's not too shabby at all.  Plug in where you're going from and to, and your departure time, and voila.  I like it.  It prints pretty well too (grrrrr, Mapquest stupid extra page).  I think I may use it for a while instead of Google Maps and see how I like it in the long run.  Give it a try :)

found via heidi go seek

Create online forms easily

Here's a nifty little tool to employ to help you create online forms: Wufoo.  Stan over on ResearchBuzz posted about this a while back, but I'm only now really looking at it.  Making forms is a pain in the rear end for anyone who has to make them, and this site creates forms in an instant--no code knowledge needed. 

You get to pick the fields, where the data goes, create reports, and even password protect forms and data.  Just copy and paste the code.  They even let you use CSS and XHTML mark-up if you are so inclined. 

And come on--you can't go wrong after a product so-named because the developer likes Wu-Tang and Foo Fighters (seriously). 

Also, Wufoo seems to do a pretty good job of using the right form controls and tags and such to make the form accessible to those with disabilities, but you should still probably watch out for that once you get the raw code from the site.

Sarah's LTR is Here!

Sarah's LTR is Here!
Originally uploaded by Librarian In Black.

My Library Technology Report, Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries, arrived in the mail today--hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

That means that you should be receiving yours soon too, if you ordered one. And if you didn't, my muscle, err, lawyer...will be having a word with you shortly.

BBC opening up archives

Next month the BBC will begin a trial with 20,000 users to release over a million hours of programming of its shows for people to view and download.  Within a year, it is expected to be available throughout England.  Now how cool is that?

found via beSpacific

TinyURL Alternative

Aww, we all love TinyURL.  It's one of those simple yet irresistably cool tools that make nearly everyone swoon.  But, if you want to try something new, take DwarfURL for a spin.   The neat thing is that it tracks how many clicks your new, smaller URL gets.  You just log in to see the numbers as often as you wish.  Neat, huh?

found via the Infoblog

Cool Tools for Webmasters

If, like me, you were unable to attend the Computers in Libraries conference (whether due to a lack of funding, a lack of flexibility in your work schedule, or a system that limits your professional development--whatever), you have some solace.  A lot has been blogged about the conference, including Darlene Fichter's presentation Cool Tools for Webmasters.  Looking for new stuff to make your website hot?  This is a great place to start.

Web 2.0 and accessibility

Martin Kliehm has written an excellent article on A List Apart entitled:  Accessible Web 2.0 Applications with WAI-ARIA.  If you're a major geek like I am, you'll enjoy learning about the tabindex attribute, namespaces, and more and and how they can help make our 2.0 sites more accessible.

Karen Schneider interview

If you haven't heard biblioblogger Karen Schneider's interview with the Baltimore Sun yet, check it out!  Listen to the nice half-hour interview in their Blography podcasts series (yes, that's blography, not biography).  She talks about libraries, intellectual freedom, and more.  Go Karen, go!

Earth Day: search engine style

Below we can see what the top four search engines did for Earth Day.  Below are Google, Yahoo, Ask.com (the one with the grass) and MSN's LiveSearch--which is the only one of the top four that didn't do anything.  For shame, Microsoft.

Vegan At A Steakhouse

Vegan At A Steakhouse
Originally uploaded by libraryman.

Michael Porter ate steak and I ate a baked potato and salad. It's all good. I once again prove that a vegan can eat just about anywhere.

Speaking at WLA

I just got to the airport in Pasco, WA after speaking at the Washington Library Association's annual conference.  Walt Crawford and I gave the keynote which was a discussion of Library 2.0 (not really a debate; Walt and I are rather rational folks).  It was a lot of fun speaking, and the crowd was very kind and asked good questions.  Their webpage for the conference had this cool laptop image, and some of the speakers show up on the screen (thus the "Sarah on a laptop!" image above).  I also got to see my good friend Michael Porter and the librarian who got me in to librarianship in the first place, the wonderful Andriette Boersema-Pieron, Director of the Neill Public Library in Pullman, WA.  It was so, so good to see her again.  I hope that I can someday do for some other young person what Andriette did for me in the way of encouragement, support, and kindness.  Now I am enjoying the free wi-fi in the airport (which neither of my local airports, San Francisco and Oakland, offer).  Free wi-fi in the airport is the best.  Really.  It is. 

OPAC Survey Results

Dave Pattern conducted an informal survey about OPACS and now has the results.  He posted the results in a multi-part series, so here are all of them, so far.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

There is a lot of interesting data here, and much of it is what we'd expect to see--at least for those of us in the trenches with the OPAC, we who know its strengths and weaknesses.   It also shows what people perceive in terms of ease of use of the system as well as what we'd want added to the system to make it better.  Most interesting to me was the fact that overall, there wasn't much difference in customer satisfaction between the three vendors covered: III, Ex Libris, and Sirsi Dynix.  Results are broken out by geographic location and library type.  Most interesting!  Thanks Dave for an excellent study!

MySpace and libraries research project

Aaron Schmidt points us to a new study being done by two LIS students on MySpace and libraries.  They have set up a profile on MySpace: LibraryMySpaceStudy.  They've also started a list of resources about MySpace and libraries, handy for people wanting to use this as an online outreach and marketing tool for the library.  If your library has a profile, become their friend.  They're up to 56 friends, and this may be a good place to list all the libraries with MySpace profiles--and not just those for teens, but for all users, like my library's MySpace page (which isn't nearly as active as I'd like it to be).  Open up the conversations, y'all!  Bring it on!

Virtual Reference and the Law

Mary Minow offers up the following resources on virtual reference and related legal issues in two posts (count 'em--one, two)! 

• "Is Privacy Working?  Planning for Stronger Privacy Measures than Security Through Obscurity" by Mary Minow and Paul Newhaus for the ALA.
• A Discussion of the Interface between Legal and Technological Issues in the Provision of Digital Reference Services by Michael McClennen, Ph.D. (PowerPoint as a PDF)
• A Discussion of the Interface between Legal and Technological Issues in the Provision of Digital Reference Services by Michael McClennen, Ph.D. (Talking Points as a PDF)
• Digital Reference: Copyright and Related Issues by Kenneth D. Crews (PDF)

Be sure to follow the comments on her first post too, which point to additional information and resources.

New Cites & Insights Issue

Walt Crawford's latest Cites & Insights issue is available.  I particularly enjoyed the "Making it Work" section, which is all about social software and what works in libraries, and what doesn't necessarily work...and why we do it all in the first place.  Some very intriguing thoughts here.

More on OCLC WorldCat Local Project

A lot is being written about the OCLC WorldCat Local project, and since my library is one of the beta guinea pigs, the commentary has really interested me.  Here's some of what I'm reading:

The WorldCat Local pilot will test new functionality that allows users to place requests, gain online access, or request an interlibrary loan within WorldCat.org.  [eContent]  Sarah's thoughts: This first item is news to me.  Those of us at the pilot libraries haven't heard anything about requests going through the WorldCat Local project--anything beyond the searching process itself is still all being handled by our native ILS, in this case Innovative.

Yet another clear demonstration that the library world is changing.  The traditional boundaries between the ILS/LMS, and library and non-library data services are blurring.  Get your circulation from here; your user-interface from there; get your global data from over there; your acquisitions from somewhere else; and blend it with data feeds from here, there and everywhere is becoming more and more a possibility. [Richard Wallis, Talis]

The possibility of OCLC providing the OPAC surely must raise a couple of questions from the libraries - "Do I get a support discount from my vendor if I don't use their OPAC?" and "Who do I ring when it starts misbehaving?" are just a couple that come to mind.  [Richard Wallis, Talis]

Is this the beginning of the end for the local catalog from OPAC providers? - It’s always exciting to see new things/ideas but we wish that OCLC would also get other longtime WorldCat issues up and running correctly.  [Gary Price, ResourceShelf]

There may be a future world where teeny libraries like the ones in my area and other rural areas become part of this great giant catalog that is supposedly so beneficial to library users everywhere, but for now they can’t afford it. And every press release that says that this sort of thing helps everyone is like another tiny paper cut added to the big chasm that is the digital divide out here. How is this problem getting solved? Who is trying to solve it? [Jessamyn West, librarian.net]

Libraries are all-but-invisible on the web. Search for the "Da Vinci Code" and you won't get the Library of Congress--the greatest collection of books and book data ever assembled--not even if you click through a hundred pages. You do get WorldCat, seventeen pages in! The causes are multiple, and discussed before. But a major factor is how libraries deal with book data, and that's largely a function of OCLC's business model. Somehow institutions dedicated to the idea that knowledge should be freely available to all have come to the conclusion that knowledge about knowledge—book data—should not, and traditional library mottos like Boston's "Free to All" and Philadelphia's Liber Libere Omnibus ("Free books for all!") given way to: "No part of any Data provided in any form by WorldCat may be used, disclosed, reproduced, transferred or transmitted in any form without the prior written consent of OCLC except as expressly permitted hereunder." [Tim Spalding, LibraryThing]

All fair criticisms, all things OCLC should be thinking about, and all things that are in our minds as test libraries.

As someone whose library is actually participating in this beta test, I wish I had more to contribute to the discussion.

PBS Teachers: homework help info

PBS, o' ye source of all things great, you have wowed me again!  The PBS Teachers site includes resources, services, and professional development tools for teachers of all grade levels.  For example, check out their Math page: just pick a grade and a topic and you're off to the races for free resources.  Every combination I chose resulted in dozens of resources from the PBS site to help with teaching the topic.  You can also read headlines, blogs, and more.  This is definitely a site to add to your list :) 

And don't forget the PBS Kids and PBS Parents sites, also home to some wonderful things!

Free Flash-based presentation tool

In a field where we're constantly creating tutorials for our users, a lot of them in a web-accessible format, free tools that helps us do this are very valuable.  If you're looking for a free option for creating a Flash-based web presentation, check out Spresent. Think of it as a way to replace PowerPoint, or to do what PowerPoint does in a slightly different (and more streamlined) way.  From their self-description:

Spresent is free Web-based presentations application built with Flash. Create and edit high-quality Flash presentations online. You can send presentations via e-mail or publish on your web site or blog.

They offer several demos so you can see what this tool can do (and what it can do is rather impressive, if I do say so myself).  Spresent works on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines and is free, free, free!

found via the lo-fi librarian

English (as in the place) Ratings Site

Here's a little something for my English friends: a consumer ratings site. SheriffRatings.com has absolutely nothing to do with Sheriffs, but everything to do with Ratings.  You can look up services in your area and see what other people say about it.  In order to leave comments yourself, though, you need to register.  The coverage seems to be all of England at the very least, but I can't tell for sure. 

found via Phil Bradley's weblog

Find professional tutors in your area

Tutorz is a beta search engine for professional tutors.  What a fabulous tool for parents and students!  You can search by subject and/or location, and sort by distance, "best match," or popularity.  Listings include information about the person's qualifications, degrees, subject specialties, and rates.  I found dozen of listings by searching in the city I work in and the city I live in, each with tons of information about the tutor.  Tutorz appears to be a good addition to library homework help resource lists and parenting information sites.

found via eHub

Using RSS the smart way

In the class I'm teaching right now on building a successful eBranch, there is a lot of talk of being overloaded with all the new stuff that is happening...all the new products, services, news items.  How to keep up with it all?  RSS is one definite way to make this process easier, but some students balk at RSS as contributing to the overloadedness. 

There is a fabulous write-up called RSS Smarts over on Library Clips (written by John Tropea), all about different tools, strategies, and readers that make RSS a bit more easy to digest (no pun intended...ok, pun intended).

Webpage white board tool

If you haven't seen this yet, check it out.

Firedoodle (which I found via eHub) is a Firefox add-on that lets you add white board functionality to any webpage, image, or map.  You can mark it up all you want with highlighting, writing, and placemarking.  You can also save your work if you create an account.  This could be used during website redesign processes--send out a page in progress and ask staff to mark it up.  Or it could be used to train on various sites, explain troubleshooting issues you're having, the uses go on and on.  I think of it as a way to do what most of us do in Paint or Photoshop with the screenshots we make--except you can do it right on the webpage in the browser instead of having to do a Print screen, open the image program, etc.

Find songs based on the tune

Check out Midomi, a beta service that can help you find a song when all you know is the song's tune.  You send a sound file you've created (humming or so on) and it will try to find a match.  If you know the artist, you can search the catalog of song samples.  Amazon.com and AllMusic.com are also great resources for finding songs when you know the artist, as they have lots of song clips.

via Marylaine Blocks’ Neat New Stuff

Flickr for newcomers

If you're trying to sell Flickr as a great way to post photos of your library's activities, or even to your mom so she can share all those great photos she takes of her garden, then take a look at this Newbie's Guide to Flickr from the Webware blog. 

This is the most concise and complete explanation of what Flickr options exist, even better than what's on Flickr's own site (which isn't really a nice list, but rather long paragraphs with really important hyperlinks buried in the text, and that are the only way to access those features).  Anyway...yes, take a look at this guide and integrate it into your own Flickr classes.

found via Darlene Fichter's furl file

Gary Price: The Tour and The Interview

Gary's upcoming speaking engagements are presented on the Ask.com site as Asking Price: Gary Price Tour 2007.  See the poster to the left.  I love it!  What a great way to advertise where you're going to be speaking :)

And here is a great interview with Gary Price about vertical search engines from Eric Enge.  There is some great information here!  Gary knows his stuff and every time he talks or writes (which he does prolifically) I learn a lot.

Update on LiB's library website redesign

Along with our library's part-time webmaster, I am embarking upon a complete website redesign.  The library's current website suffers from the same problems that many library websites do--important information is buried, no Web 2.0 features, and a real lack of content. 

We are using LibrarySite 2, from the Cherry Hill Company.  It's a pre-built Drupal package, along with full support and training.  It's kind of like "Wanna do Drupal but you're scared?  We'll help you!"  So far I am very, very happy with the process and the service.  Right now we're looking at the various blocks and themes and deciding what we want for our site.  I am very impressed with Drupal, too, and am even more happy now than I was when I made the decision. 

Being the project manager, the project plan is insanely complex...pages and pages of various tiers of responsibility and steps.  It feels good to be getting some of it done, getting our footies in the water for the first time, but as with most things...the slowness of the process can be frustrating. 

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, humanist and novelist, has passed away at the age of eighty-four.  Author of nineteen works, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, a lover of libraries and librarians, he was one of the few celebrities who was at the top of my list.  He spoke eloquently and peacefully, and advocated much that is admirable in his work and his talks.  One of the things that he said, "Teaching is friendship," (which NPR also mentioned in their piece on him this morning) is something I have held near and dear to my heart when I teach and train.  Here's to a well-lived life.  I will miss you, Mr. Vonnegut.

Update: This post was featured in Technorati's Buzz TV v-log entry on Vonnegut's death.  Being quoted is good for the ego, and this is the first time I've been quoted in this venue, which I regularly watch myself.  It's also good publicity for librarians in general!  :)

Headline: LiB's Library part of OCLC WorldCat Local Project

My employer, the San Mateo County Library, is one of the few libraries that are a part of the OCLC WorldCat Local project through our consortium, the Peninsula Library System. 

WorldCat Local is an overlay over our regular III catalog that will replace all the screens our users see during the search process--all the search screens, main results screen, etc.  Users will still see the regular III interface for placing holds, looking at their accounts, getting PINs, etc.  The results screens will show our libraries' holdings at the top, and underneath that, other libraries that participate in WorldCat that are nearby. 

None of us has actually seen any part of the product yet--we're just going on what we've been told.  We are hoping to see the product in action soon, and are told that we will see it before it is launched live on our site.  This project has been a huge deal for our consortium and libraries, and none of us has been able to talk about it for months.  I'm glad the cat is out of the bag, finally.

Book Club in a Bag

Via John Klima at Pop Goes the Library, the Kitchner Public Library is offering a Book Club in a Bag program, where you get 10 copies of the same book and a discussion guide in a bag that checks out as one item.  Their "bags" are cataloged in their catalog, so people can find them easily.  The Bettendorf Public Library offers something similar--Discussions in Boxes.   Other libraries have similar programs--what a fabulous idea!  Can your library do something like this?  It wouldn't be hard!

Revish: social book review site

It seems like book review and collection management sites are springing up all over the place.  I think LibraryThing spawned a whole lot of this activity.  The newest addition (found via Library Stuff) is called revish.   revish allows you post reviews, see what others have read and read their reviews.  It has coopted Amazon, so you get Amazon info on the site.  You can participate in groups, keep reading lists...lots of useful things that our ILSs should do.  The Blogging Librarian says that it’s similar to BookJetty, but without linking to any public library system.

Image-based palette generator

Via Dorothea Salo at caveat lector, check out this great image-based palette generator.   Pick your image, and get two nice palettes (dull and vibrant) of colors that are web-safe for happy matching to your original image.  A fabulous way to design your site around your logo, or whatever other image you have in mind.  A definite bookmark!

Library PR Ideas

The CogSci Librarian has some fabulous ideas for publicity for libraries.  One example I loved was to advertise in airports with the theme "read thousands of travel books @ your library!"  This is one of those "well duh!" moments...why can't we all do this?  It seems rather ridiculous that we aren't doing all of this seemingly basic stuff already...

Very powerful computer-based dictionary

Tired of your local library not having the English-to-WhateverLanguage Dictionary that you want?  Tired of being the librarian who has to order for this section?  No worries!  Check out Coolexon. 

The Coolexon Dictionary, from Coolsoft, is available now as a free download on a trial basis.  The dictionary offers multi-language translation software and dictionaries for 60+ languages, including English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and many more languages.  And the scary thing is that, once downloaded, the whole thing is only 3MB.  No, LiB didn't mis-type that...3MB.  Craziness.  Read more about the features in their press release.

Amazon goodness with advanced search

This post from lifehacker about Amazon's Advanced Book Search features jogged my memory (and that of many others) about what wonderful goodness the Advanced Search offers on Amazon's site.  Limit by year (and years that haven't even happened yet!), by format, category, reader's age, and more.  It's like our OPAC Advanced Search pages, except, well, it works.  See something you like on Amazon's site?  That's great.  Now, the next step is to communicate that to your ILS vendor.  Tell them what you want.  Tell them what your users tell you they want.  If we're not vocal, nothing's going to change.

365 Library Days Project

Think you can commit to posting 365 photographs of your library in the next year?  If so, join the 365 Library Days Project Flickr Group, started by my always-smiling bud, Michael Porter.  This could just serve as the kick-in-the-pants that libraries needed to get involved with Flickr.  Nice work Michael :)

P.S. You really don't have to do one per day, but that's what it works out to in the long run. 

WorldCat gadget

OCLC has released a gadget through GoogleGadgets, appropriately named the WorldCat Gadget.  With it, you can add a WorldCat gadget to your personalized Google page.  I don't use a personalized Google page, but for those of you with one--enjoy!

LibraryThing for Libraries (w00t!)

The revolution has begun, and its name is LibraryThing.

Tim Spalding, the creator of LibraryThing, has given a sneak preview of a version of LibraryThing just for libraries.  I can't wait to see this puppy in action, real-time.  From the explanation of how it works:

LibraryThing for Libraries is composed of a series of widgets, designed to enhance library catalogs with LibraryThing data and functionality. The achievement is that the widgets require NO back-end integration.

We're serious. Just add a single Javascript tag, and one tag for every widget you want to display and we do the rest.

You can view a demo page (an overlay on NYPL's catalog), and here's what the page looks like without the LibraryThing addition.  The additions are the nice entries for similar books and related editions.  Sweet useful goodness!  Over the next few months, various widgets will be released, some free and some on a for-pay basis.

I am very interested to see this implemented in a library, and my guess is that several will snap these widgets up as soon as they can.  If I had control over the catalog our library uses (which I don't because it's a consortium), I would be all over LibraryThing for Libraries like a cheap suit.  Every library should check this out and take a look at it at the library's committee or group meeting for whoever's in charge of the OPAC.  This is a serious addition to the ILS fray, and one that we all need to pay attention to.  Even if you don't like it, you have to realize that independent groups and individuals are going to be creating things like this for free or at the very least as separate entities from our regular ILSs.

Sarah's tech competencies report is here!

My issue of Library Technology Reports is finally here: Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries!  You can view some sample pages online, but if you want the whole thing, you're going to have to shell out $63 (unless you're a regular subscriber).  I haven't seen the thing yet myself, but am told that it shipped early last week.  I know that technically this is a serial, but you know what?  It's a book.  It's over 30,000 words?  It's a book.  So yes, my book is now out.  Enjoy :)

Library ringtones

Chadwick Seagraves has created two library-themed ringtones as giveaways for National Library Week.  He used a free service called Myxter to take a Monty Python sketch and an old LIS training video and make amusing ringtones out of them.  You can read more about the process on InfoSciPhi, or download the ringtones from Myxter directly.  This is a great way to attract the attention of your users--give them something they want (go figure)!