Jim's Blog

The end or just the beginning?

2007-11-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

I am glad that I took the time to complete this program. I would like to think of myself as a technophile. As a techie, exploring new technologies is fun and unlike others I have no reservations about killing a few minutes or hours "playing".

Specifically, I had lots of fun with Facebook and Flickr. I was able to develop a new collection of sites that I can reference to search for and borrow code/scripts/widgets. I know that I definitely will be able to reuse the widgets I created for the TLC 2.0 Challenge. That fact alone is worth the price of admission.

I truly believe this program and Library 2.0 is much more than just exposing library staff to new technologies and encouraging them to play. This program has been a vehicle for change. Technologies will continue to change, that is the nature of the beast. In my opinion, people are lessly like to embrace change. This program was instrumental in establishing an environment where changed was not feared, but welcomed.

Ryan Deschamp states in his post titled We Asked for 2.0 Libraries and We Got 2.0 Librarians, "The largest benefit of Library 2.0 has been a radical change in the core service that libraries offer — namely, librarians (and by “librarians,” I mean anyone who works in a library). In that realm, the largest success of library 2.0 has been projects like Helene Blowers Learning 2.0 programme."

I would have to agree with Deschamp on this point. The NSU Libraries TLC 2.0 Challenge has been a great success!

Thinking about 2.0

2007-11-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

This discovery exercise was one of the least technical yet most thought-provoking. I just started on the "23 Things" this Monday, so I was able to skip some things, backtrack, and finish some of the "earlier" exercises out of sequence. This exercise happens to be the second to the last thing I am attempting to complete in the "23 Things".

As suggested, I read the OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries? When I read Rick Anderson's section, Away from the "icebergs," it reminded me of an engaging argument I took part in over a decade ago. The place was a graduate lib sci classroom and the point of contention was the question of "access vs. ownership". Anderson's term "just in case" collection immediately transported me to a place where my hair was dark and I was extremely passionate about the direction of my newly chosen profession.

In the early 90's, Lynx browsers were giving way to graphical Mosaic browsers. Paper and character-based indices were being eschewed and the fancy new full-text databases were in demand. I fondly remember the very first time I printed out a full-text article to a dot matrix printer. I guess we probably all remember our first time.

Always on the "access" side of the aisle, I argued that it would be ludicrous to continue to grow huge and largely duplicated collections when quality reproductions of materials within shared collections could be delivered through the Ethernet. I was convinced that collection development dollars would be more judiciously spent on resource sharing networks, digitization projects, online resources, and most of all, more publicly accessible terminals.

At that time, I viewed my classmates that supported "ownership" and the continued building of research collections as dinosaurs that were ultimately impeding the inevitable technological progression of the profession. More importantly these "ownership" fossils were building collections that would only be used by the faculty and a few doctoral-level students. True, these "serious" researchers were our "regulars"and their patronage was valued. I wondered out aloud, how could, how would, we be able to reach our "infrequents"? Specifically, I wanted to reach the freshmen, the Greeks, the newly-termed "returning non-traditional" students, and many other emerging new groups of campus. The closing argument, that I always espoused with great conviction, was "why would anyone want to even come to the library if they could access an article at 3:00 am from their dorm room?"

Anderson's term "just in case" collection made me think about a nearly fifteen year old "access vs. ownership" debate. I was now motivated to look for a similar arguments currently brewing in the Library 2.0 movement. It took about three minutes to find an interesting thread in this vein. I found it in an engaging post on the blog Library 2.0 and Academic Perspective. The post was titled 2.0 Librarians in 1.0 Libraries. This post references Ryan Deschamps' We Asked for 2.0 Libraries and We Got 2.0 Librarians and Michelle Boule's response We Got 2.0 Librarians, Not 2.0 Libraries.

My take is that Deschamps argues that the shelf life of the term Library 2.0 is about to expire and it is now time take an inventory of where we are as a profession.

He states "The success of library 2.0, as is to be expected, has been mixed. That was kind of the point anyway. Library 2.0 was, in part, a way of seeing success in failure — we had to learn to play, take risks, fail, and learn from the process. In short, the library 2.0 movement was not really about changing libraries, but changing librarians. Librarians needed our time in the sun, and now that we are getting our time. Now that we are popular, hopefully we will see that we need to clean our houses before we invite people in.

It appears that Boule believes that the Library 2.0 movement is stalling because most library organizations are stuck "1.0." organization structures and are generally slow to embrace change.
She states, "Library 2.0 has succeeded in nothing as well as creating a group of frustrated 2.0 Librarians. L2 has done a wonderful job of educating, enlightening, and invigorating librarians to be better, to do better, and to involve our patrons. We are reaching a critical mass of librarians who are excited about what is possible. The problem is that many of those librarians are stuck in 1.0 libraries."

and later, "2.0 Librarians usually end up leaving for somewhere better, more innovative. This is a great option if you are mobile and able to move. Not everyone can. This “brain drain” has resulted in a hand full of libraries doing really great stuff, a few more libraries sticking toes in the water, and the majority of libraries looking around in befuddlement. I would not be afraid to guess that in many 1.0 libraries, there are 2.0 librarians working behind the scenes and those librarians are tired."

I guess I want to relate my "access vs, ownership" debate to this 2.0 discussion in that I once believed that those crusty "ownership" dinosaurs were impeding the progress I was attempting to champion. I think the ownership folks were concerned that the people supporting the access position were impulsive radicals who very willing to discard baby junior with the bathwater. With a 10 year professional cushion, I would like to think that I have a more balanced approach to the old debate. I think the institution's population should dictate which side of the equation the library decides to pursue. In my opinion, a large ACRL library with a huge campus population is incumbent to build large print and electronic collections. Libraries that support scattered satellite campuses and a large distance populations may be wise to spend their dollars on the access that electronic resources can offer.

The access vs. ownership debate allowed people to initiate a dialog and begin forming opinions. I believe the technology matured to a point where it was no longer necessary for libraries/librarians to adopt on extreme position but decide on somewhere in the middle. Somewhere that supports the needs of their users. I think Boule and Deschamps discussion is similar. Technologies will continue to morph and change entirely, and I believe the Library 2.0 "change movement" focus really should not be so closely associated to the technologies that are used within libraries or what we label these technologies. I would like to think the 2.0 movement is bigger, it represents a change in thought. The 2.0 movement has allowed us as a profession to refocus and concentrate on the expressed needs of our populations and reduce institutional barriers when possible.

Web Browser Time Line

AJAX

2007-11-14T05:24:00.000-08:00

I have recently developed an interest in exploring and working with AJAX. I recently created an AJAX widget to use within the upgraded version of the Alvin Sherman Library ILLiad interface. What is AJAX?

Wikipedia describes AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), or Ajax as a "technique used for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is intended to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability."

AJAX has become very popular. Here are few examples of well-know apps that make extensive use of Ajax:

AJAX is commonly used for form validation within complex web forms. The Alvin Sherman Library is currently using AJAX to validate the text input in its Broward County online card application forms.

AJAX, like many of the Web 2.0 technologies, is allowing us to develop rich user interfaces but the use of AJAX can also introduce some security concerns. Developers have to recognized how their AJAX applications can be used to launch a cross-scripting attack.

Our ILLiad AJAX application is allowing us to send a secure asynchronous query of one of the tables in our ILLiad database. The requested data from the query is then returned to user in a manner that is not natively supported by the ILLiad software.

Below are some other ideas I have on using AJAX within our setting.

Circulation information: I’d like to use AJAX to update the circulation pages so that it’s easier for patrons to see all borrowing related info, including renewals, fees etc. AJAX can pull that data from a div in the corresponding page. That way we wouldn’t have to maintain the data in more than one place. Add floor maps to NovaCat: Use AJAX to call library floor plans on the fly.

FaceBook

2007-11-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

This "thing" was really fun. I jumped right into it. I was immediately "poked" by my colleague and friend Piya. I joined three groups within about five minutes. I joined the group No, I don’t look like a librarian. I have definitely heard that comment a time or two over the last decade. One of my friends that I played football with in college thought I could be "pound for pound the baddest librarian on the planet." Whatever that means.

PodcastBlaster

2007-11-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

I used the podcast directory PodcastBlaster for this discovery exercise. And once again, I now have another "favorite." PodcastBlaster is a great site; I have had lots of fun here. Through this site I stumbled upon some podcasts that describe how some of my favorite television shows ended. I conducted a search on the term "shatner" and PodcastBlaster linked me out to a site called TVSeriesFinale.com. This site contains information on cancellation news, cast reunions, and a variety of other things. To my horror, I have found that one of my favorite shows appears to have been cancelled :(.

Wikis

2007-11-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

Wiki and blogs are excellent tools for working groups. I have experience working with wikis as an end user as well as working with the "backend" management of the software. Most of the wiki software that I have evaluated can be configured to allow differing degrees of edit/management functionality. Some wikis are built on top of databases such as MySQL where others are built around flat text files. I have found the installation and use of Mediawiki and PMWiki to be very simple. Some front-end users have indicated that learning the specific syntax of these wiki packages can be cumbersome. These users have preferred to use a hosted solution such as PBWiki which offers a true WYZWIG interface. The library applications for wikis are innumerable. Wikis can be used to develop online documentation and even as an enterprise CMS solution.

Technorati

2007-11-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

Technorati will be very useful in that it will allow me to focus my searches on the blogosphere when necessary. I found a few posts that will allow me to pursue some avenues that I have an interest in. I add Technorati tags to two of my Pittsburgh-related posts on this blog.

Del.icio.us

2007-11-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

I had fun with this discovery experience. I realized that I could really spend some time exploring the social network aspect of Del.icio.us. I created my own account and then I added a tag to the online edition of the Pittsburgh paper Post-Gazette. I soon found myself bouncing all around the Web reading various information on Pittsburgh.

Image Generator

2007-11-13T13:39:00.001-08:00

I used one of the Big Huge Labs image generator to create the image below. The generator I used was titled Magazine Cover. It was fun and easy. I would like to have more flexibility to change the font weight and style.

Bloglines

2007-11-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

I created a Bloglines account some time ago. I have occassionally used it and the online aggregator NewsGator. I have found both of these services to be useful but I prefer the desktop application RSSReader to collect my feeds. The primary reason that I prefer RSSReader is that it supports the ability to subscribe to secure/protected feeds. There is an option to input password sequences for certain feeds. It works extremely well. RssReader will also check my feeds without me having to have a browser open. I really enjoy having a interesting feed "drip" down to me when I am working with an Access database or some other desktop application. It allows me to take a nice little break.

I have also found Bloglines to be somewhat unreliable. I tried to connect this afternoon and it was down for an hour or more. I am logged in right now and it is taking forever to subscribe to a feed. :(

YouTube

2007-11-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

Luke Ravenstahl, recently elected mayor of Pittsburgh, has been involved in a series of "scandals." The Pittsburgh media has had a good time with the young mayor. I found this YouTube video, posted by Pittsburgh TV station WTAE, to be extremely entertaining. Mayor Luke has been accused of being immature and not fit to lead. His response in this video seems to lend some validity to that argument.

Pittsburgh

SpringWidgets

2007-11-12T19:52:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed this "thing." I was exposed to many sites that are incorporating 2.0 technologies. I have bookmarked the Seomoz.org site and I know I will be returning often to grab code for different projects that I have been working on.

For this exercise I chose one of the sites in the Widget category. The site I chose was SpringWidgets. In less than a minute I was able to create a RSS reader for this blog. The whole process was extremely simple. The only thing that did not work was when I click the icon to get the code the box did not open. I had to right click on the icon and open the link in a new window to get the code for the widget. A small inconvenience to obtain a small reusable widget.

This type of widget could be used in several places within our library environment. I could create a feed of newly acquired resources and then add this feed reader widget page to wherever I want to publicize the new resources.

Get this widget!

First document

2007-11-12T19:37:00.001-08:00

This little post was originally created using a beta version of Zoho Writer. This 2.0 app seems to work much like MS Word. After the initial creation in Zoho Writer I exported the document to Blogger and here it is. I later made some edits in the Blogger interface.

I can see how Zoho Writer and Google Apps could be useful for users of publicly accessible computers. Users of public computers generally have the ability to save to a removable USB drive but none of the other disk drives.

Pbwiki

2007-11-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

Pbwiki is extremely easy to use. Due to the fact that the users do not need to learn any Wiki syntax the learning curve is very slight for most users. This software is an excellent option for a group that need to have wiki functionality without hosting the wiki software on their own server.

Rollyo

2007-11-12T15:48:00.001-08:00

It is alright to jump on the bandwagon. Don't be shy, everyone likes a winner. Search Pittsburgh Sports now!

Library Thing

2007-11-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

So far Library Thing has been my favorite "thing." I can see many practical applications for this type of catalog. I am wondering if the images that are in Library Thing could be drawn into other mashups without having to jump through a ton of legal hoops.

Technorati

2007-11-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

I played around with Technorati few a little bit this afternoon. I found it to be quite comprehensive and found a few blogs that were interesting to me. One blog that was especially interesting was ACRLog, the Association of College & Research Libraries. Billed as "blogging by and for academic and research librarians."

I found today's post, Takes More Than Blogs And Wikis To Build The Socially Networked Academic Library, to be interesting.

Aspiring beach bum!

2007-11-12T14:52:00.001-08:00

Spell with flickr

2007-11-12T13:41:00.001-08:00

Spell with flickr was listed as one of the top ten flickr mashups by Michael Calore in his 2/26/06 WebMonkey commentary. I think this mashup can be useful especially if you have access to your own web space. I think it has limitations in the Blogger application because you can not resize the images.

Here is the brief summary of Spell with flickr from Calore's commentary -

This mashup is a simple tool that spells out a message you enter by drawing it with photographs of letters and numbers hosted by Flickr.

One for the thumb! Here we go Steelers!

2007-11-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

This year, 2007, is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are beloved by most western Pennsylvania natives. I found this image of the Steelers 75th Anniversary Exhibit at Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio to be pretty cool. It was posted to Flickr by “Tanukitty” on August 7^th, 2007. Steeler fans in my generation like to refer to the first four trophies as our "Dad’s Superbowls" and the last one as “ours.”

A little late to the game.

2007-11-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

So this Blogger? Pretty easy to use and very cool!