More Flickr Fun (#7) - out of order!

I'm going back to pick up some of the earlier items I missed.

Here's one of the trading cards I made.
Looked thru a whole bunch of Flickr tools, apps and Mashups. Colr Pickr can be useful if you need to match color closely. Mat is a nice tool for framing photos; also helpful to see how different colored mats and frames would look for real framing. Retrievr is an intriguing idea, but it didn't work very well. It's 'experimental'. You do a simple free hand drawing (with choice of color and line thickness) and retrieve images that supposedly match your sketch. The drawing tools are too primitive; most of the results were way off. It would be nice to see it evolve. Mappr and Trip planner are among the most practical apps for everyday.

Podcasts (#10)

I found a goldmine of interesting podcasts in Podcastalley, and added an RSS feed for "Authors on Tour Live" to my Bloglines acct. Listened to a couple of sample podcasts from that one, including one by Frank McCourt, reading from "Teacher Man." It was a special memorial podcast. Also sampled readings by Joan Didion and David Sedaris.

Other interesting podcast series that turned up in my search include: Learn Japanese Daily podcast; Brain Science; Music Library; and various library educational podcasts. For example, Library Survival, from Emory University, uses podcasting for tips and tutorials on doing library research. Subjects included "Google Scholar", and "Endnote and citation managers". Some libraries are using podcasts for announcing upcoming events and 'what's new'; others focus on tutorials and education.
I've always found NPR a great source for podcasts (particularly to catch broadcasts I missed); now I'm planning to check out more good stuff on Podcastalley.

Audiobooks (#9)

I set up a Netlibrary account thru the Norwalk Library website, using my NL card. Couldn't do it on the NCL website. I explored the features of Netlibrary and found some titles through browsing categories and using search, and was able to do a download to the computer. I did find a number of appealing titles, and now that I have the Netlibrary account, I plan to use it more.

Tagging and Social Bookmarking (#17)

Looked at the video and sample Delicious page. This could be useful for sharing websites and bookmarks with each other, and for developing content of research pages on the website.

Speaking of tags -
Tags could be very helpful to supplement the catalog entries. So many subject headings in the catalog are unintuitive to patrons; it is so often frustrating for them to figure out how to find specific subjects or categories. Instituting tags for our catalog (when technically feasible) would require considerable thought and evaluation. Value is limited if a tag is not widely or consistently applied. If there is too much overlap and duplication with existing Subject Headings, it doesn't add all that much. But it could provide access to things that are otherwise difficult to search for. Many of our patrons need all the help that they can get.
I've looked thru the 'Popular tags' list on the Darien Library's Catalog page. They include things like "dog books for twos", "princess stories" (catalog SH is "princesses - fiction); "gone too soon"; "Oprah's book club"; "Stephanie Meyer"; "web-featured"; "Classics". Only 99 books are tagged "Classics", and some of these were a surprise......


Made comments previously on Flickr tags. They are useful, but certainly have their false drops.

Second Life (#22)

Second Life is 6 years old this summer. After all the buzz about it in the first years, it seems that I haven't heard anything about it for quite awhile. However, according to a recent report by the analyst firm Next Up Research, SL is thriving. One million users logged in during a recent 30 day period, and the number of hours users spent on Second Life "has been increasing steadily and is currently at historic highs, totaling approximately 124 million hours in the first quarter of this year." The same report indicates that the aging population of its main target markets (U.S. and Europe) could have a negative impact on the company's valuation.(http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/02/does-anybody-still-use-second-life-and-if-so-how-much-is-it-worth-today/).
For those who thrive in virtual worlds, there appears to be a wealth of educational and business applications for SL using simulations, gaming etc. I was never all that impressed with the library applications in SL, but it was interesting to see what a few of the libraries in the Discovery Resource section are doing. It could have value for special projects, such as the historical simulation on the SC State Library site (dialog is pretty hokey!). Yes, there is a role for libraries in SL -- but its value seems limited compared to many of the other technologies (especially in proportion to the resources required to develop and maintain that presence).
It could be interesting to keep an eye on applications that extend and integrate SL into other sites.

Social Networking sites (#21)

Laurie's sample Facebook account was very helpful to get a feel for it. I found that some universities are using it to post training events (with RSVP feature); e.g. for online search training. I wonder how many responses they get this way.
Linkedin is primarily a professional networking tool, of course. The updates I get from my Linkedin contacts include things like 'books I'm reading' and 'groups I've joined', as well as new connections and profile updates. Books read tend to be professional reading; eg. project management books and such.
New networking sites keep springing up. I got an invite for "Namyz" last week. Anyone have any experience with it? I looked at some blog posts about it thru Google and Technorati. Quite a few complaints about spamming. I decided not to accept. Some of these new sites search your contact list and automatically send invites to everyone there, without your knowledge. It pays to check before you click.

YouTube (#11)

It's hard to imagine life without YouTube. There are all of those funny/crazy clips that I get from friends who seem to do nothing but scour YouTube for things to send around - the more outrageous the better. But it's also a great source for music, dance and drama previews and material; how-to material/demos; and even veterinary information. Recently, during a consultation about a cat with a strange sounding cough, one of my vets opened YouTube on her cellphone and found video clips showing cats with similar sounding coughs. I was able to confirm which one sounded and moved just like mine (since the cat wasn't coughing while in the vet's office). That actually narrowed down the diagnosis pretty quickly.

YouTube videos have potential for promoting library events. Demo clips (how-to clips on various practical skills, for example) could be used on resource webpages.

Technorati (#18)

I tried a lot of different search features, searching both for blogs and for postings on a subject. Found interesting blogs on technology, gardening, science, health, politics by searching; and browsed thru the Popular Blogs, Channel and Explore features to find some more and see what the range is like. Advanced search features worked better than the general search for relevance, but there were some tech. glitches with all searching ('Technorati experiencing tech difficulties'). Good tags are clearly critical. It's interesting to see what the most popular/top blogs are, although they aren't necessarily the most interesting blogs. I don't find the Authority ratings very useful for locating good content, although clearly they would be useful for marketing and PR purposes. In a previous job, I found Technorati a useful tool (among others) for monitoring what users/subscribers were saying on the blogs about the company's online product and it's competitors. There was an interesting article in Searcher Magazine recently, concerning "The Medical Blogophere", largely from a healthcare PR perspective, which highlights the issues with compiling a list of top-ranked medical blogs to monitor (and the limits of the authority rank). They recommend using multiple blog search engines (e.g. Google Bogs, Bloglines, etc) in addition to Technorati. I used Google Blog search for comparison for a number of my searches, and found things that didn't come up in Technorati. Both had some unique items. In teaching patrons how to find blogs or search for topics in blogs, this is good to keep in mind. Technorati does have nice features, though, for seeing what is popular, etc.

RSS (#4&5)

I discovered that you can set up a feed for images from Flickr - neat. Never thought of that before. My Bloglines feed lists now gives me updates on new photos added to the 'top 20 Northern Lights' group pix. In the process of locating aurora pix for RSS, I found searching by tags in Flickr frustrating. I got a lot of extraneous stuff (mostly multicolored jewelry) searching for various forms of aurora/ northernlights/ auroraborealis etc, even with advanced searching. I actually got better results searching full text - less jewelry, more auroras.
The documentation on Bloglines was useful. I tried the various ways of adding feeds; organized things into folders and generally explored.
Clearly this is the best way for managing updates in many cases...but there are a number of news sources I use which don't have feed options yet, so I still get a fair number of email news updates.

Wiki world (#15-16)

I made additions to the NCL2.0 wiki, including a blog; font changes; and a language translation gadget. The page is interesting in Japanese or Chinese translation (but the spacing gets strange).

I've found wikis useful in the past for project team work, meeting/conference preparation and other things that involve a variety of people who may be in different locations. Some of the special interest divisions of library organizations (SLA comes to mind first) use wikis as a central place for activities and documents of the group. Conference wikis can include everything from program planning to tourist information, all in one place. It's a great tool for gathering/sharing/ organizing feedback in the process of product design; team members can look at the latest version of a design or a concept (or presentation, etc) on the site, and comment and discuss in a central area. Having all the project related things (documents, calendars, schedules, etc) on the same site is a great advantage.
Maybe a wiki could be useful when the library's website is going thru enhancements, to share and collect/discuss proposed changes and design concepts, etc -- in addition to meetings.
It will be interesting to think of other ways they could be used --- maybe a large, active book group could find a simple wiki useful (?)

Photo fun: Flickr, Picasa (#6)

In the scalding heat today, I'm remembering a cool scene at the New York Botanical Garden's Chihuly exhibit on another hot day a couple of years ago. The boat floating on the cool water lily pool is full of beautiful glass sculptures, and in other corners of the pool there were reeds and water birds sculpured from green and blue glass.

I've enjoyed exploring Flickr, but I'm more inclined to use Picasa for managing my photos. Both products have lots of neat features. Several friends send links to Picasa every time they get back from a trip; it's great for sharing, with privacy features if you don't want to share with the world.
When I'm searching for photos, I use both products.