well, i'm writing this using the Google Docs program. it is an interesting program and works quite well, especially for something that's free. it has nowhere near the level of something like Microsoft Word, but most users don't use 3/4ths of the features Word offers, so in general, this program would be suitable for most people. i'm sure there are some special features in word that are also available in Google Docs - i just haven't found them yet - because the layout is pretty straight forward. the part i really like is that you can save your documents and access them elsewhere without needing to save them on flash drives or floppy disks (if any computer uses floppy discs anymore).
for a free app. i'm quite impressed and i can see myself using it at times i don't have my flash or access to it (something that happens entirely too often). i've noticed it's still listed as a beta product and hope this is something a number of people learn about and use if only to keep it available for those who don't have access to expensive word processing programs.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thing 17 - Wiki sand box
It is rather interesting to play around with our own wiki pages and this has given us a chance to look at the other side of what wikis entail. I have to say, if you restrict the users who are able to change entries into a wiki, this makes them a valuable resource with a number of applications over a broad span of areas. As nice as it sounds to allow access to everyone, not everyone is serious about a topic and way too many people think it’s funny to sabotage publically accessible sites. Allowing anyone to view but only certain people to change looks like it would be the best option as far as accuracy is concerned. (another pet peeve of mine)
It also depends on who is using the wiki and its topic. At one point we were considering a wiki for our tech services manual at my main job at Creighton’s Law Library. We eventually decided not to because we couldn’t get enough space for some of our files for things such as labels and we had a great number of screenshot images for our documented procedures. We decided to go with our Angel system for the university, but if we were able to have enough space, a wiki would have been ideal.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thing 16 - Wikis
Just for the hell of it, I decided to look up elephants (if you don’t get the reference, continue to read and I’ll explain later) on SJCPLSubject Guides located here:
http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page
I immediately find this to be somewhere out of their subject range and can’t decide whether elephants fall under History-related Mysteries or Pets. They could fall under entertainment if you are thinking of the circus variety. Or maybe family history, depending on your family.
It wasn’t under history-related mysteries which turns out to be a classification of fictional mystery books. I then checked pets and that page tends to go toward the more traditional pets – cats, dogs, birds, lizards, whatever – but no elephants. I’ve then looked under crafts, gardening, publishing family history, travel, tax information, legal information and classes and none of them have anything about elephants.
I guess this is more of a browsing sort of Subject Guides and not meant for specific searching. Or they have something against elephants. Perhaps I just think of wikis as a source of information similar to an encyclopedia, seeing as those are the only ones I’ve encountered.
Moving on, I check out the BookLoversWiki from Princeton Public Library (http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library). This one seems to be more of an index to book reviews broken down by book types – autobiographies, poetry, science fiction, horror, chic lit, contemporary fiction, you get the point.
Browsing through the contemporary fiction, I did find a book titled Water for Elephants which is oddly closer to the first wiki that I tried to do a search of. Go fig. I guess I found the elephants when and where I least expected it. No, strike that. The least expected place would be under my desk or in my shower. (I need help, don’t I?)
Back to the elephant reference. In the spring or summer of 2006, The Cobert Show on Comedy Central, a satire of right wing pundit shows, stated about wikipedia that "You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true." Seeing as on the show, Colbert has a problem with endangered species advocates, he then suggests that if enough people go into Wikipedia and change then entries for elephants to say their population had tripled in the past six months it will become the “Truth”. Instead of reality this becomes wikiality or something like that. I just like the phrase wikiality. The problem was, a number of Colbert followers proceeded to do this. While a great number of people found this humorous, Wikipedia did not and once they realized what was happening, they corrected and locked the entry for elephants and only certain members (or maybe it’s anyone who’s an official member) can change the elephant entries. 2 ½ yrs later, the entry is still locked.
This demonstrates one of the greatest flaws with encyclopedic wikis, specifically Wikipedia. Ideally, everyone lends their own expertise to the entries, but a lot of people have less expertise than they might think. Kinda like cousin Bob adding to the entry on a type of brain surgery while he’s still convinced the brain is somewhere around his left knee. (actually, we’re not sure Bob has a brain, so the left knee is as good as anywhere else to start looking. The man’s head whistles in a crosswind.)
This is why I say Wikipedia is a good place to get a general idea about something, but double check your facts and check out their references if you intend to use it as a research source. I also don’t think anyone should cite it in a paper, but that’s my personal opinion and I’m a research snob.
Colbert show and Wikipedia’s elephants article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6100754-7.html
http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page
I immediately find this to be somewhere out of their subject range and can’t decide whether elephants fall under History-related Mysteries or Pets. They could fall under entertainment if you are thinking of the circus variety. Or maybe family history, depending on your family.
It wasn’t under history-related mysteries which turns out to be a classification of fictional mystery books. I then checked pets and that page tends to go toward the more traditional pets – cats, dogs, birds, lizards, whatever – but no elephants. I’ve then looked under crafts, gardening, publishing family history, travel, tax information, legal information and classes and none of them have anything about elephants.
I guess this is more of a browsing sort of Subject Guides and not meant for specific searching. Or they have something against elephants. Perhaps I just think of wikis as a source of information similar to an encyclopedia, seeing as those are the only ones I’ve encountered.
Moving on, I check out the BookLoversWiki from Princeton Public Library (http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library). This one seems to be more of an index to book reviews broken down by book types – autobiographies, poetry, science fiction, horror, chic lit, contemporary fiction, you get the point.
Browsing through the contemporary fiction, I did find a book titled Water for Elephants which is oddly closer to the first wiki that I tried to do a search of. Go fig. I guess I found the elephants when and where I least expected it. No, strike that. The least expected place would be under my desk or in my shower. (I need help, don’t I?)
Back to the elephant reference. In the spring or summer of 2006, The Cobert Show on Comedy Central, a satire of right wing pundit shows, stated about wikipedia that "You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true." Seeing as on the show, Colbert has a problem with endangered species advocates, he then suggests that if enough people go into Wikipedia and change then entries for elephants to say their population had tripled in the past six months it will become the “Truth”. Instead of reality this becomes wikiality or something like that. I just like the phrase wikiality. The problem was, a number of Colbert followers proceeded to do this. While a great number of people found this humorous, Wikipedia did not and once they realized what was happening, they corrected and locked the entry for elephants and only certain members (or maybe it’s anyone who’s an official member) can change the elephant entries. 2 ½ yrs later, the entry is still locked.
This demonstrates one of the greatest flaws with encyclopedic wikis, specifically Wikipedia. Ideally, everyone lends their own expertise to the entries, but a lot of people have less expertise than they might think. Kinda like cousin Bob adding to the entry on a type of brain surgery while he’s still convinced the brain is somewhere around his left knee. (actually, we’re not sure Bob has a brain, so the left knee is as good as anywhere else to start looking. The man’s head whistles in a crosswind.)
This is why I say Wikipedia is a good place to get a general idea about something, but double check your facts and check out their references if you intend to use it as a research source. I also don’t think anyone should cite it in a paper, but that’s my personal opinion and I’m a research snob.
Colbert show and Wikipedia’s elephants article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6100754-7.html
Blog 15 - Library 2.0 and Web 2.0
When I first started this program and mentioned to a friend what it was, I only had the vague impression of what library 2.0 and web 2.0 were. When I took her to the main website for the “O! What a Geek” program, they specified that this program involved both. Seeing as neither of us knew exactly what either program is, we had to look it up on Wikipedia (a great site if you just want to get an overview of something, but if you want actual facts, it’s best to double check any you get from there). As soon as we read the description of library 2.0 she said “That’s what libraries have been doing for the past 40 years.”
And she’s right – in a way. The past years have been spent using computers and technology to make information more accessible and while the internet has been around longer than most people think, it has only been readily accessible to the general public for the past 10 or 15 years. Changing from a physical card catalog and checkout system to automated systems on computers was a big step but I don’t think they were originally created to allow for home use. And that’s what library 2.0 is supposed to be about – taking the library to the user, aka home. There is a difference between making information available via technology in the library and making information available via technology in the home.
I’m a little undecided about this. I suppose library 2.0 is just another label for the next step in library technology, an inevitable step that follows what has been worked up to in libraries for the past hundred years. I’m not sure I like the label of Library 2.0. Perhaps I’m just too hung up on the separation of types of technology, I see just see it as a continuation of what we’ve been building up to not some revolutionary ‘new’ way of thinking about the library. This could just be because I’m a relatively new person to libraries (6-8yrs give or take a few months) and I am rather geared toward technology/computers in the first place so when I started working in libraries I saw reaching out to patrons at home as an obvious part of working in a library – making things easier and more accessible to our patrons via whatever new technologies are available.
Once again, that made no sense did it? I seem to be having trouble expressing myself. Sigh.
And she’s right – in a way. The past years have been spent using computers and technology to make information more accessible and while the internet has been around longer than most people think, it has only been readily accessible to the general public for the past 10 or 15 years. Changing from a physical card catalog and checkout system to automated systems on computers was a big step but I don’t think they were originally created to allow for home use. And that’s what library 2.0 is supposed to be about – taking the library to the user, aka home. There is a difference between making information available via technology in the library and making information available via technology in the home.
I’m a little undecided about this. I suppose library 2.0 is just another label for the next step in library technology, an inevitable step that follows what has been worked up to in libraries for the past hundred years. I’m not sure I like the label of Library 2.0. Perhaps I’m just too hung up on the separation of types of technology, I see just see it as a continuation of what we’ve been building up to not some revolutionary ‘new’ way of thinking about the library. This could just be because I’m a relatively new person to libraries (6-8yrs give or take a few months) and I am rather geared toward technology/computers in the first place so when I started working in libraries I saw reaching out to patrons at home as an obvious part of working in a library – making things easier and more accessible to our patrons via whatever new technologies are available.
Once again, that made no sense did it? I seem to be having trouble expressing myself. Sigh.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thing 14 - technorati blog search
The problem I had was coming up with subjects to search for. So, as usual, I surfed. And I found some very interesting blogs that fell into my interest areas. Although it’s probably not the best topic to put in my blog, seeing as I highly doubt anyone will actually read this, I’m gonna go ahead and do it.
I am a criminal. I love bittorrent. I am well aware of the illegality of this, but I don’t really care (too much). For anyone not familiar with bittorrent, it is a file sharing program. Often times (most of the time) the files shared are copyrighted making it illegal to share them making them pirated. I even have a parrot I put on my shoulder while I do this – and I’m not joking. I actually have a live parrot and he likes to sit on my shoulder. I now know this is the reason pirates have eye patches cause he’s a mean sucker and likes to bite. Anything. But back to my confession.
I have three rationalizations that make this okay. 1) I primarily download television shows that I missed because my DVR sucks. Once I’ve watched the shows, I delete them. 2) I do not sell or burn copies to share of anything I download. 3) some of the stuff I pirate has not been licensed in the
But this is beginning to change. Recently a lot of the big networks are starting to post the latest few episodes of their shows on their web pages making it unnecessary for me to download the shows. NBC has gone even farther and created Hulu.com. this is an awesome site that has television shows and movies from a number of networks including Fox, Warner Bros. and MGM. The shows they post there are available for viewing at any time and instead of a few minute long commercial break you’d see during a regular television show, they have a single commercial 15-30 seconds long. Frankly, I think this is the best approach to stopping piracy. People will still buy the DVD sets when they come out because they want to actually own them, but the need to resort to bittorrenting the show just because you missed an episode is now gone. I have a cable modem so I have 24hr service and actually prefer this to downloading them because the quality is better and the threat of legal prosecution is gone. Besides, once I’ve watched an episode, I delete it from my hard drive, so for me, it’s the best option. Since hulu is continuously increasing the number of shows available, not only have I seen some shows I’d never considered watching before, but have the ability to go back and catch up on some of the shows I’ve lost track of over the past couple seasons.
BUT, now that I’ve confessed my illegal activities I’ll get back to the main point of this entry. Technorati had a blog with the latest on bittorrent and the search engines listing and hosting some of these torrents. The file sharing is actually really neat. I downloaded a free program (actually named Bittorrent but there are other programs available and some of them charge you to purchase the program) that allows me to download selected files from other peoples computers. The person has to specify what files they want to share and depending on the number of people offering the same file, you may get the entire file in a couple of minutes (single 30min episode) or it could be days (an entire season of episodes). Patience is important. It’s a kinda short explanation, and it wasn't meant to be the topic of this post, but you get the idea. I was able to find something that interested me.
Lame ending, huh? A lot of stuff to read to find what I thought about technorati , isn't it? sorry.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thing #13 – Tagging
Tagging is a hard concept for me to grasp. For some reason, cataloging with subject headings and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) make more sense to me because the idea is to use a set group of words or terms to describe an item. By using the set group of terms, you won’t have to wonder if the term you’re using is right. For example: let’s say I’ve described an object as light blue. Someone else might say its aqua. So if I’m searching and enter the term light blue, anything listed as aqua might not come up. I see this problem with tags. Not everyone will describe things the same way so a lot of things may not be found when searching for tags. (I know, I’m being too much of a library snob.)
On the other hand, tagging can also create some interesting paths (what I call a path is just another line of thought or a ‘path’ of research. And like real paths, they can branch off in a number of directions or lead absolutely nowhere (real profound, huh?)) so while I’m looking at other people’s bookmarks here, I could find other similar sites by clicking on their tags.
I did like playing with the delicious website and even created my own login. I may not do the tagging to begin with, but this could be a good way of keeping track of a few favorite websites between my two jobs, my home and any other computers I might visit along the way.
On the other hand, tagging can also create some interesting paths (what I call a path is just another line of thought or a ‘path’ of research. And like real paths, they can branch off in a number of directions or lead absolutely nowhere (real profound, huh?)) so while I’m looking at other people’s bookmarks here, I could find other similar sites by clicking on their tags.
I did like playing with the delicious website and even created my own login. I may not do the tagging to begin with, but this could be a good way of keeping track of a few favorite websites between my two jobs, my home and any other computers I might visit along the way.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Thing #12 – Rollyo
This is a strange one. While I can kind of understand the reasoning behind creating your own specialized search engine (the quotes one specifically) I prefer to search everything, not just a couple of sites I like. I like using Google to search for things I don’t know because I want to find as many answers as possible and then take the consensus from those. I don’t quite know how to express it, but I’ll admit it, I don’t know the best sites for everything and I really can’t think of a subject matter (such as quotes) that I could choose favorite sites for because if I don’t have a specific site I use all the time, I just Google it and check several sites. I don’t want to be difficult or anything, but I’m going to opt out of this one, merely because I’m at a loss for what to create a specific search engine for.
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