Tag it just a little bit!

I love Delicious. At conference a couple of years ago a presenter used it during one of the sessions, and I was really impressed with how simple & portable it makes using bookmarks.

User Testimonial: I used to have scads of bookmarks saved, but when I really needed them they were inevitably on another computer or saved in another browser, or I couldn't remember what heading I'd saved them under.... Now I use Delicious, and all my bookmark headaches just faded away.

Seriously, though, I use Delicious daily to keep track of newly discovered links and favorite pages that I use on a regular basis. I imported all of my years' long list of bookmarks from Firefox, and now I can access any of those from wherever, too. (I've actually added a bunch of the tools we've looked at in the course of this project so that I can find them again when I want them.)

Actually, one of the best ideas I've heard about for using Delicious in a library is creating a library Delicious account and adding a shortcut link to the toolbar of the browsers on the library's staff & public workstations. Then, as the reference desk or other staff find worthwhile links, they can add them, and the links can be accessed by any of the other library staff or patrons from any computer in the library. I haven't actually done this, but I do think it's a great idea.

I like the ability to sort tags, and also to view how many others have the same items bookmarked. I like being able to add my own comments/notes about sites. I also like the fact that it's now possible to edit tags - that way, if I forget and add an "s" on the end of something, capitalize differently, or if I have a site saved under an old browser bookmark, I can consolidate similar items easily under one tag.

Previous editions of Firefox actually ran Delicious as a plug-in. Unfortunately, with the last two version upgrades, the plug-in hasn't been available, but using the toolbar isn't difficult at all.

While I currently use Delicious mainly for keeping track of my own sites, I'm intrigued by all of the searching options provided. Flexible, easy to use, available anywhere - It's a great tool.

Facebook & MySpace: Socializing virtually...

I already have a Facebook account, which I check sporadically and use mainly to keep up with friends I no longer manage to snail mail regularly. I'm considering MySpace, if only to keep track of what my teenager's up to.

I think though, that here's where I draw my line in the sand, at least for now. Social networking with sites like LibraryThing, using Flickr & podcasting to create buzz; those are tools that I can use.

But Facebook & MySpace aren't anonymous and aren't intended to be, really.

They're also configured in a way that's less than professional - do I really want to allow my professional self to be "bought" & "sold" by other users?

Setting up more than one account per person is, I'm guessing, frowned upon. Or at very least, creates a slightly confusing navigational challenge for friends, patrons & co-workers....

So if you're going to maintain the accounts as YOU in your public persona as a librarian, that's fine - but better warn your family, because comments from your best friend or your mother might get a bit awkward....

• My Facebook account was created (not on work time 0r machine) for me to keep in touch with my friends and family.

• I don't plan to use it for work, as that sort of defeats the "social" purpose of the account.
  

Of course, Facebook seems a bit more relaxed about allowing "institutional" accounts than it used to be - and many libraries have a presence there all along.... But I think this is one of those semi-gray areas that I'm not going to pursue for my institution. My personal account is going to stay personal.

I can, however, see the potential benefits of using a network familiar to students/patrons to announce new resources, lectures, events, etc. There are certainly plenty of libraries out there - the ALA has a profile (I'm a friend!!) - that do exactly that. I'm just not sure I'm personally ready to take that plunge. Maybe when DWU gets around to setting up an account....

Out of curiosity, I decided to go looking for accounts documenting academic libraries experiences with Facebook or MySpace. It's a fairly mixed bag...

• Five Weeks to a Social Library (no longer updated, unfortunately) relates the trials & tribulations of social networking discusses a few pitfalls of a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to go where the students are.

• Meg Kribble at the All-Purpose BiblioBlawg discussed her take on social networking sites about a year ago. She goes farther to briefly describe a few other social sites such as Ning and Twitter, finding that all of them have their uses, but not all are equally useful.

There were others, and I'm sure by this point there's plenty of professional literature on the subject, too. For now though, I think I'll stick with Facebook being for me, not my library, and see what happens down the road.

Wonderful Widgets!

Most, if not all South Dakota libraries should have access to Gale's Virtual Reference Library.

Gale Virtual Reference Library
(licensed by SD State Library)

Did you know you can add a widget to your library's home page that will allow your patrons to type their terms right in and search? I didn't. The full story is available in Gale's November Re:Sources newsletter. If you don't currently subscribe, there's a link to click to do that little thing, as well.

Gale's widgets are easy to add & sort of cute.

Happy searching!

The Doctor is in!

Google Docs, that is.

Sick of the limitations to your productivity software? Tired of endlessly emailing documents to colleagues far and wide? Well, my dears, Google Docs may have a solution....

I haven't actually tried Google Docs before, so this was an interesting lesson. Primarily in-house we use Microsoft Office, and since we're large enough to have our own server environment, documents that need shared editing are constructed, edited & commented upon using Word in Office in a shared environment on the server.

I was feeling a bit rebellious today, so after reading through the lesson, rather than review the tour or view Google Docs in Plain English, I just hit the link provided to Google Docs and commenced learning by trial and error.

Why, you ask? Actually I had a practical reason for initally ignoring the tutorials - while many of our patrons use Microsoft Office, a number of them don't. I'm also on several library-related, non-DWU committees. Having an alternative option to emailing documents back and forth sounds to me like a very practical idea.

BUT, too many time software applications require odd things to be downloaded, or are overly confusing for novice users. So I used the same tack here that I often take with database trials: namely, I experiment with real tasks that I need to accomplish , and tackle them in the new database/product. That way, I have actual goals and when I finish, I have results I can compare against those produced using a product with which I'm already familiar.

I figured, if I can use it cold, without lots of instruction, it may be easy enough for a novice to catch on to - of course, for a real test I'd want to grab a patron, but....

In this case, I created a few signs for the instruction lab, a short presentation for faculty on how (and when) to reserve the lab, what type of equipment they'll have available, etc., and a quick & dirty spreadsheet for some withdrawal statistics.

The results? Google Docs provides an acceptable, if somewhat generic, alternative to a few of Microsoft's productivity apps.

Overall, the presentations software is a bit bland: it certainly doesn't seem to offer the same bells & whistles that are available in PowerPoint, for example. The same could be said of the spreadsheet & text document options.

But all three - document, spreadsheet & presentation - proved easy to open, manipulate, save, reopen, edit, etc. I even tested sharing & embedding with no difficulties.

The one option I didn't/couldn't immediately wrap my head around is forms. After a bit of experimentation, however, I managed to create one.

Want to help me test my success? Fill in your answers, and I'll follow up with the results at the start of next week :)

Well, that's all for now, folks. I'm off to play with a few other applications mentioned in this week's lesson links.

I-Pod people?

Creating my own podcast is one of those things that doesn't much appeal to me. But, I dutifully watched Podcasting in Plain English and was quite impressed with how clear and easy to accomplish it makes podcasting seem. (But the work that went in to making the lesson seem clear, succinct, & easy to accomplish? Betcha it wasn't quite as simple as those little paper cut-outs make it look!)

I can certainly see the merits of using podcasting for instruction - quick bits & bites about a database or upcoming event would be (seemingly) a great way to get things out to patrons and potential patrons in a highly visual, attractive, and relatively inexpensive manner. The vodcast link was fascinating - there's talent out the somewhere... right?

Scanning over the images of the "Popular Today" vodcasts on Monday before the Presidential election, the vods seemed about evenly split between scantily clad beauties & politician/pundits' headshots.

I'm more than sure that somewhere out there there's a grad student madly researching the vodcast phenomena - and speculating on the juxtaposition of all the casts featuring either religion or sex. It's somewhat mind-boggling.

But today, sexy wins out - only one talking head's image remains, with the rest of the vods showing scantily clad ladies (and one pink, grinning cartoon character).

I moved on to YouTube

A location I try not to spend too much time :) But it's surprising how frequently it does come in handy for answering odd questions. I've located commercials, tracked down speakers, and forwarded on this handy little video series on the Periodic Table.

It's also a good tool for how to (or how not to) do library-related tasks. Case in point, this video from UTlibraryinstruction demonstrates quite clearly how to turn almost anyone OFF getting research assistance in the library.

What I learned this week

I'm still not a podcasting fan, and I can happily avoid YouTube without the loss bothering me too much. I have lots of other time-wasting habits that are probably damaging enough to my to-be-accomplished list. BUT.... the medium is popular (obviously) and growing. And with the major networks adding all sorts of bells & whistles like holograms (watch it on YouTube) the future is making history as we speak.

Keeping up, learning to use today's - and tomorrow's - tools right now is the best way to keep our profession up to date & relevant.