Not a fan of peanut butter?

If you're not a peanut butter lover, unlike President Obama's daughters, you may not need to check out the FDA's peanut avoidance widget. But how about some other .gov tools? I thought you'd never ask!

Here are a couple from the EPA - one that provides tips on how to combat climate change:

Or here's one for finding the watershed in your area:

Maybe you're wondering what you and your patrons can do to help save the environment? Check this out:

These and several more EPA tools are snazzy to look at and easy to add to using simple copy and paste into your site's code.

But maybe the EPA isn't your cup of tea, either. If greening the planet isn't quite doing it for you, maybe you'd prefer keeping track of the FBI's ten most wanted. If you're always peeling your eyes for missing persons and criminal types, the FBI's got you covered.

They've even provided a history widget!

How cool is that?!
(And there are more to choose from, too.)

You can find a longer list of various different .gov widgets here in a very nice list courtesy of the McNeese Government Documents Department's wiki.

Around and around we go!

Now this is truly nifty, especially if you do ILL or your library has a Reserves service for faculty.

It's a Copyright Code tool.

The Section 108 Spinner lets you determine if a request meets code standards quickly and easily.

Really, I kid you not - it's interactive and everything. You can "grab" the wheel with your mouse and roll it around to whichever section addresses your particular question.

So if you happen to have a special collection or archives, and you have an unpublished manuscript that's gradually fading away, the spinner says....

Libraries or archives may make up to three copies of unpublished works for preservation or security purposes, if:

Dant! dant! da!
Cliffhanger

It's sort of like a Crazy 8 Ball,
but with more applicable answers!

It's a countdown!

Here's something fun - have you ever wanted a way to show visually your library's progress toward some goal? Maybe you have a YA group reading their way through 100 books, or you'd just like to track how many blog posts you manage in a month.

Here's a tool for you:
The Ticker Factory lets YOU
create your very own graphical tracker.

Although the main push of the site appears to be tracking for babies, ovulation/menstruation, the trackers available include some for building your savings, crafts & hobbies, weddings & birthdays & special events, weight loss & fundraising. With a wide variety of ticker rulers to choose from, you can create and re-configure to your heart's content.

I created this one for a fictional event to take place next month.

After selecting the ticker & slide you like, the site generates the html code for you - you can choose from large or small image size, light or dark backgrounds, and then just select the code appropriate for your particular intended use. The tickers can be used on Facebook, message boards, MySpace, MSN, webpages, blogs (duh!), and are even with iGoogle.

Forgive me, I've been slacking & Oh No Robot

In spite of my best intentions to keep up with at least one cool new-to-me technology/tool/gadget/widget every week, I let the holidays and then the rush of the new school year get the best of me. Must have been all the fruitcake! So this is my first appearance since.... the LibraryThing lesson.

This week's cool tool is Oh no Robot

With its Google-esque minimal-image screen and cute mechanical mascot, Oh no Robot is certainly innocuous looking enough. But what, you ask, does it DO?

Ah....

Do you like webcomics? Are you a closet Unshelved fan?

*Aside* If you haven't encountered Dewey, Mel, and Buddy the Book Beaver yet, where HAVE you been?

Would you like to be able to search for your favorite characters, specific episodes, or strip series?

If you answered YES to any of those questions, then Oh no Robot is your thingie. It's a personalized web comic search and transcription tool.

Yes, that's right, you can even help transcribe your favorite comic - If the author of your favorite webcomic has set up an Oh no Robot account, you, the reader, can assist in making all of the episodes easy to find. How it works: the comic author creates an account; the author, and any interested readers transcribe the content according to simple directions provided on the transcription form; the completed transcription goes to the author for review, and if approved, is added to the searchable database - pretty nifty, huh?

For a fun few minutes of screen flipping, see if there are any un-transcribed Unshelved episodes here - it's pretty popular, so don't be surprised if someone's already beat you to the latest one.

But if you can't find an Unshelved episode to transcribe, you can always take advantage of the site's random comics browser or help transcribe another comic's episodes. Or take a chance, and Let the Robot decide!

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.

Fun with Flickr

This week I get to visit an old friend - Flickr!

My library started a Flickr account sometime last year. We use it for homepage decoration - seasonal shots add interest - and also to highlight what types of new stuff we've added to the collection.

If the home page is full, I just pull the widget off until there's space again.

This grinning guy is currently wishing site visitors a Happy Halloween.

Reading through this week's lesson, I realized I've never identified our photos using the tag "sdlibraries". That was my first task.

To add a tag to all images (or as many as I wanted) I used the Organize function in my account. It allows mass photo editing, mapping, adding to sets, groups, etc. Definitely nifty.

Then I set about exploring.

Things I discovered:

• The blog-it-from-Flickr feature: I absolutely LOVE this. Can't believe I never noticed that button there before.
• People like Carnegie Libraries - there are a ton of photos of them floating around. And I can see why. They just look library-esque.
• Searching tags with stucktogether words can be useful. Flickr has not always allowed tag phrases with spaces, so searching for "librarydisplays" brings up lots of results. And gave me lots of display ideas :)
• The tag "books" - people use it for some interesting items....
• I need to visit this bookstore!
  

Flickr Widgets - the lesson doesn't mention them (maybe it's in Lesson 4b?), but you can build a Flickr Badge for your library homepage (or wherever) really easily. Once the widget code is installed, it self-updates with your new Flickr content. So, if you don't have access to edit your pages yourself, just tell your web-designer where you'd like one stuck, and Flickr will take care of the code for them and updates for you.

Can't wait to see what's coming up next!

Blogging news

Dabble, dabble, dabble! (Which rhymes with babble!)

I've now dipped my toes into Bloglines - eehnh... not my favorite - Google Reader - better. And
added a bunch of RSS feeds to various things.

Personally? I use news feeds right now to follow my favorite magazines and pundit's latest items.

What I've discovered thus far:

• RSS feeds into my email just don't get read as much. I'm better off limiting those to journal subscriptions and search alerts. (Did you know you can set up RSS feed from any of the publications in EBSCO?)
• RSS feeds to my blog - those I like. (But I knew that already.)

For library use, adding & keeping many of these tools up-dated depends on having ready access to your library homepage. If you don't have ready access it's critical to carefully select your news sources for coverage relevant and appropriate for your online audience. Feeding ALOnline, for example, would be useful for a staff page, but I'm not sure all of our patrons would be thrilled.

A feed from the Chronicle of Higher Education, on the other hand... hmmm.....
Might just have to act on that thought!

If you have access rights and can edit your library's home page, changing out the RSS feeds that run in response to seasonal or current interest and events would be great. Right now, election news from NPR topics: politics or CNN's Political Ticker are timely. But why not follow Super Bowl coverage, MLB Playoffs, college basketball's Sweet Sixteen, Elite 8 & Final 4, especially if you know that sports materials are popular with your patrons. Even something as simple as finding a feed from your local news channel, or following regional weather is value added.

Or CREATE a blog that's relevant to your patrons' needs - what about homework help, or database searching tips & tricks geared specifically for parents and/or students who need to know what to search and how. In a school location? Work with teachers on resources appropriate to upcoming assignments. Add a feed option to your blog, and your patrons can subscribe. Add the feed directly to your library's site for easy discovery.

Less work? Select a few popular magazines or local newspapers, and if they offer feeds, profile them on your website with a "read more at your library" note.

As to locating sources? GoogleReader has an easy to use search interface, and also allows immediate "block" subscriptions to popular blogs & news sources grouped by topic. Bloglines offers similar options. Ot type your topic (e.g. music, sports, etc.) into any search engine along with the phrase "news feed" for pages of results.

Have a favorite print title, sportscaster, or news personality? Chances are there's an accompanying blog, and usually an RSS option.

The BiG BloG challenge! - not so scary after all

Our first assignment - set up a blog.

Done!

I've done this before, so the blog part was fairly easy. It's some of the next steps that will be more difficult.

The second directive - watch the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits - was interesting, but the fact that I was reading the text and clicking through to the next slide before the narrator had a chance to finish speaking? Probably indicative of where I'm apt to have the most probl... Er- sorry, challenges(!) acquiring the 7 1/2 habits. Can you say "patience"?

Easiest? Goals, I think. I'm already looking forward to learning about (or learning more about) the tools in the upcoming lessons. And playing :)

The opportunity to just fool around with this stuff is priceless!

Actually, the hardest for me will probably be seeing problems as challenges to be overcome. And not being negative about them. The whole positive outlook thing.

Second most difficult? That toolbox of learning resources we're supposed to build, consisting of contact information & resources we can use to learn more about what we're doing.

And how, you might wonder, is that an issue? Not the collecting of information, certainly - I'm a librarian, after all, and finding answers is my stock in trade!

But asking questions on my own behalf? Not so fun. Yes, I know that theoretically, there's no such thing as a stupid question. But who wants to be the example that proves the rule!

Before I worry too much about that, however, I might as well go see just what I'm to have the opportunity to learn!

Feel free to follow along :)