It's just easier when you get right to the point....

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How do Libraries/Librarians fill roles as New Producers, new Markets and New Tasetmakers?

"The Power of the PC means that the ranks of "producers" - individuals who can now do what just a few years ago only professionals could do - have swelled thousandfold." 

Librarians/Libraries as "New Producers": 

Libraries are often times community technology centers, helping others learn new technologies that enable them to be the "new producers". Libraries by educating patrons on how to use desktop publishing, video editing and audio editing tools are enabling the public to become thier own "creators".  In another aspect libraries and librarians provide the tools for "amateurs" to educate themselves on any number of topics and disciplines. Thus "creating" amateur experts.  Such as the case with Albert Jones and Robert McNaught, I'm sure they both did some amount of astronomical research at the Library and I'm almost doubly sure that a librarian helped them. 

Librarians/Libraries as "New Markets" and "New Tastemakers":  

On a side note, for my entire undergraduate studies, I only purchased previous additions. Already smart to the "only have to change 9 things to justify a new edition" rule. I never had any problems and was always able to figure out what page my teachers were on. I also swear by bookmooch and half.com for all my book purchasing. Yes, I still purchase books from Amazon and B&N, but thats only after I have been unable to find something comperable elsewhere. Libraries create new markets by offering books to patrons that they might not have purchased before in genres mabye they have been unwilling to pay-to-try in the past. If that experimental reader becomes a fan, they have just become particpants in a new market of genre types or "tastes". 

Librarians also through readers advisory can connect people with new authors they might not have tried before, again creating a new market and changing thier patrons "taste" in subjects. Libraries can also offer thier patrons choices of formats. For example NYPL offers e-books for download, thus opening themselves up to a wider set of content for thier patrons. On another level, more and more libraries are following the Amazon model and allowing patrons to post likes and dislikes, thus influencing any number of new readers. An much like the "LAUNCHcast" example, some libraries are even farming data from thier users and recommending titles. 

Libraries still have a ways to go, but if they start following more examples such as the ones mentioned in the chapters they will always provide useful services to thier patrons. 

Google Analytics.....

I could look at Google Analytics forever, I enjoy reading all the different bits of data on everything about my site. Here are some of the more interesting bits: 

General:

• 79 Visits
• 143 Page Views

Browsers:

• Firefox 52%
• IE 39%
• Chrome 3.85%
• Safari 3.85%

OS:

• Win 82%
• Mac 16%
• Linux 1.28%

Connection Speeds: 

• Cable 38%
• T1 23%
• DSL 19%
• Dialup 1.28% -ok, whoever in this class is still using dialup fess up! :) 

There is so much more interesting stuff, such as network locations (what ISPs people are using), countries (I've used this more with my personal site) and languages (I use this one lots with my soccer site). Overall, fun stuff and I can't wait to check in on it again. 

countdown....

countdown
Originally uploaded by ljascils598f08

This is the the official countdown....I can't wait till its over. It's been 15 years of non-stop school, part-time, full-time and next-to-no time. Three degrees later and I can't wait till December. I will soon add an MLIS to my AA (multimedia programming and design) and my BA (museum studies) degrees and it couldn't happen soon enough. 

I chose to attend Rutgers, even though I live in Brooklyn. It was cheaper than Pratt (which I can't really stand anyway) and closer than Queens College (by train NJ is closer than some parts of Queens!). Going from city universities (everything is vertical) to a NJ College town (frat houses and all) was an experience to remember. The commute has been super time consuming and draining. The courses, somewhat rewarding, it's been about half-and-half. However, where they have really shined is the instructors (not always the content-sadly enough). Ok, so I'm not the biggest fan of the current crop of LIS educational offerings. Out of all my courses my favorites have been Records Management with Steve Dalina (super relevant course, everyone should take it) and Interface Design with Jacek Gwizdka. Overall, I am happy to have met such a great crop of MLIS'ers, they are really the stars of the program. 

So, yes, I have been counting the days till its all over and I can reclaim my life, spend time with my family and read whatever I want. I will also enjoy having more time to focus on my career and spend more time on my professional development. It hasn't been the easiest, but it hasn't been the hardest either (classical studies and attempting to read Greek was harder!). 

my-rega

my-rega
Originally uploaded by ljascils598f08

One of my favorite pics from the flickr project.

Brown & Druguid Ch5 & Ch8

...thoughts on the conclusions in Brown & Druguid. Every time I pickup this book, I really want to put it back down again. The tone is always so negative, almost agressive, and I don't really care that Publishers Weekly thinks it's and "intellectual gem". However, when I dig into the chapter I tend to change my opinions. It's like they always seem to be having a rough start of it, but usually successful in making me think in the end. 

Ch5 - I get the battle between HR & IT. In libraries it's always been IT against another department or the library as a whole. Possibly cause half the time no-one knows what they are doing (B&D aren't the only ones that can get negative) and the other half thinks they know better, when everyone really knows nothing. I've never been one for epistemological debates, cause everything is all really lots of jargon and buzz words these days. However, their description of knowledge -vs- information is sufficient for the discussion and the personalization of knowledge is a given. Its no surprise that ELP failed at its attempts to harness the essence of what made Grimes so good. This happens all the time, again I'm going to reference advertising. Advertising companies buy each other up all the time only to find that what made that firm so special is out of reach. Same thing with Design agencies, its the culture of the people that make the place and make the work either substandard or great. Buy the agency, mix it in with another agency you change the dynamic, therefore changing the human factor that made it so great to begin with. So B&D really win me over in this section. The other way they really win me over (when they are not being so negative) is with their insights through their examples. They really stick with me and I've even used a few of them later in conversation with colleagues. In the "practical value of phone cords" - you really see evidence of the change of patterns in telecommunications and how customer service centers are run. You always seem to have to start at square 1 every time you get on a tech-support call, it doesn't seem to be a "learning" process anymore. 

Ch8 - Reading through this section makes me take a sigh of relief that, I'm almost outta here. Education seems to be getting messier and messier and I'm hoping to get as far away from the fallout as possible. In "solutions" again B&D go a bit negative, but they win me back with "resistance" - the idea that I could get a "turfgrass management certificate" woo hoo! In misrepresentation, I thought back to when I was looking to fill some part-time archivists slot at my old institution. I would immediately disregard certain applicants based on their education. It's horrible, I know, but every staffer that I ever had from that particular institution turned out to be a dud and I didn't want to get burned again. That particular institution had "lost my trust" when it came to finding and hiring qualified archivists. "A Distant Prospect" is incredibly relevant to the means of distribution of our Social-Software course. I often times work late at night and only on the weekends, my course "documents" are available 24/7, thus adding to my learning experience. However, I prefer the "old-system", but who has the time these days? Further on in the section when B&D state that "with a powerful website and some packaged content they can do away with everything but the students". More and more it seems as though students are just being "churned" out, to fill some unknown quota, without regard to the experience of learning itself. B&D are right when they say "catalyst for further conversation" as yet another reading of theirs causes me to think, rather than just shallowly read. 

RSS and Information Overload

RSS and Information Overload --- A means to an end, whew!

Honestly, without RSS I think I would be suffering from information overload. RSS readers allow me to get everything I need, from all the sites I normally read, in one centralized location. I could never keep track of all those as bookmarks and would never have the time to visit each site individually. I subscribe to over 140 different feeds, and RSS allows me to read all those feeds in one go. Although I do see another classmates point about narrowing my field of information vision to only what I want to read, and not experiencing other topics. That's what my undergrad was for, having to read lots of stuff, I really wasn't that interested in. So, I figure now I am on an information vacation. Getting to read what I want as soon enough someone will force me to read stuff I don't want to anyway. At least here I have a choice. The overload aspect can happen when you RSS something that is an aggregator such as Digg, which in my case ends up being duplicates of all the other Tech blogs I follow. So it's knowing what to RSS and what not to. You have to really implement good judgement. I try to only subscribe to feeds that relate somehow to my professional development and expose me to topics that I otherwise would not have the time to pursue. The ability to use RSS readers in order to organize your information intake is invaluable, thus taking away from information overload. You can read what you want, and however much of it you want. RSS by iself is only one half of the whole, it has to be combined with a reader to have its value truly seen. 

The Long Tail and the Library World

When this book appeared on my reading list, I wasn't really sure how it would be relevant. Yes, I had heard of the book and was familiar with it content. During 2004 I was a subscriber to Wired Magazine (still am) when I first read about Andersons "Long Tail". However, I had always thought of it as a "business book" related to marketing and not really applicable to the LIS world. So, throughout the reading I am trying to relate the concepts to LIS perspective and I'm finding it to not be such a leap after all. 

How do we survive in a world that is truly 24/7 with everything available all the time? How do you as a brick and mortar business/library plan to service the needs of a clientele that is growing accustomed to this type of consumerism? We have more choice now then our parent's ever did and we have more freedom as to what we purchase. In one night online we can visit Amazon.com, then JCrew, and even Drugstore.com (to cure those late night LIS reading headaches). How does a library compete with this type of "all-access-pass"? Firstly, I think they are trying. More and more librarys are having richer online components, allowing patrons to do more online, even offering e-books and videos. They brick-and-mortar libraries themselves can never offer the selection that Amazon can provide, but what it can provide is customer service. Libraries themselves should try to focus on what these digital entities cannot provide and give that to thier patrons. They should try to stay abreast with the changes, but not run out of breath trying to keep up. They should instead examine those changes to then give the patrons what the "new-fangled-what-not" isn't. Be innovative, instead of just following along several paces behind. 

Our new digital society allows us to only consume what intrests us rather than lumping us all in together, in turn "shattering" as Anderson says the approach businesses have been taking thoughout most of the 20th century.  Are "hits" dead? Well, I don't think so, but at least now I feel like I have more of a choice on wheter or not to consume them. I am able to seek and find other items that interest me, leaving me less time for that "blockbuster". 

The ability of Anderson to explain our current state in this new, all digital, society was refreshing .  The more I read the more it seemed relevant to the Library/information World.  I honestly, wished I had more time to read it slower to let some of the more meaningfull sections really sink in. 

Using Del.icio.us in the Classroom Environment

Again, like with my Google Docs post below. I always am eager to recommend the use of Del.icio.us in any educational environment. Anytime I do research on a topic, I come across lots of useful resources and tools and always look to share those with my colleagues and classmates. Del.icio.ous makes it really easy to do this. You can instanty save links and mark links to share with users in your network. 

For using it in the Social-Software class I would make one suggestion. When studying web2.o applications, more imporant than setting up lots of accounts on different services. Studying web2.0 is really about studying what people do with the services they use, how they customize thier experience. Chief among all these is content! It's hard to get that depth on something kjscils598f08 just set up 10 minutues ago, let alone have any real depth of content. It has no history, no major customizations and really doesn't tell you that much about that user other than what they could set up in 10 minutes. Thats what social-software is about users and thier content, not how to set-up user accounts. So the challenge is trying to bring that experience into these accounts that users are setting up for purposes of the course. 

So I suggest when implimenting del.icio.us as part of the user introduction to "Social-Software" to really get the best use out of it you need to instruct current users on how to import thier previous del.icio.us bookmarks to thier "new" user "scils598" accounts. This is what I used to make my "scils" del.icio.us account have more breadth and thefore hopefully provide a richer user experience. 

Google Docs and the online/oncampus student

Any time the situation invloves any type of collaborative document creation, team-project etc. I always suggest Google Docs. Even most recently in my Information Visualization class, when I needed to collaborate with another student, I suggest that we both use Google Docs. Lucky for me this student had taken Social-Software with Steve last semester so he had an account. Work was seamless, easy and we got it turned in on time. I have used it for countless other SCILS classes including Metadata and Interface Design. Google Docs is my go-to, get-it-done, online-in-a-cloud favorite app. 

However, in most of these instances the professors had not even thought to work in this way. As a matter of fact most people don't think of working this way, and it's mainly cause they don't know that they can. Once they get going though, it really catches on and they start using it for all kinds of things personal and educational. I think reluctance to use the tool, would only be out of lack-of-knowledge of the tool. I really think that if they know it exists and know what the application is capable and they are open to using online tools for collaboration its a "no-contest" and they generally accept its use. 

As far as efficiency and collaboration its the best tool for the job. Documents are edited in real-time allowing all users to zoom in and out, making changes, adding content all without emailing one single document back and forth. Its one less thing to worry about for project collaboration. No more questions like "is this the most recent version?", "is this the one she/he just emailed me?". Google Docs makes it quick, easy and painless to collaborate on any project. 

PBwiki -vs- Wikidot

I've used PBwiki several times for class projects in the Library Science Program. I've always been frustrated however by its lack of CSS support unless you are a "power-user" and pay for an upgrade. I also like having a little more control over what my wiki looks like. I tried to see if I could do better. I really based on my choice of wiki software on the look of the website design itself, as the tours didnt really give you a look into the interface that you would be presented with and I wanted to make a choice quickly. 

• PBwiki -it's got ease of use on its side, new users should be able to create pages easily. 
• wikidot - its interface is a bit intimidating, it's hard to know where to start, having the "edit button at the bottom of the page is not intuitive. 
• PBwiki edit interface - uses very familiar icons, similiar to using MS office or any type of other popular text editing software, even similiar to Bloggers edit interface.wikidot - opts to use buttons
  
  
  
  
• Wikidot - opts to use buttons that are less intuitive. 
  
  
  
  
• Wikidot suppports all kinds of bizarre and unexpected editor features such as: mathematical equations, inline mathematical expressions, equation reference, bibliography block, citations and footnotes. 
• PBwiki - has many of the above Wikidot features, but they are buried in the plug-ins menu. 
• Wikidot - you can embed audio and video quickly
• PBwiki - you have to find the embed video in the plug-ins section
• Wikidot - not a wysiwyg editor
• PBwiki - closer to a wysiwyg than Wikidot
• Wikidot - has its own html/wiki syntax, not really a plus in my book
• PBwiki - uses nice and straightforward HTML
• Wikidot - no access to the HTML code
  
• PBwiki - can edit the HTML, but no CSS support

In a nutshell, I will gladly resign some control to have the ease of a nicely designed interface to use to create "quick and dirty" wiki pages. Don't think I will be giving up my PBwiki account any time soon for a Wikidot account. 

Del.icio.us -vs- Ma.gnolia

Well, lets just start by saying I am a die-hard Del.icio.us user and supporter. So I'm going to mainly focus on Ma.gnolia and how it differs from Del.icio.us. 

My first impressions:

• Ma.gnolia is its too cutesy! No IT/Techie in thier right mind will feel "cutting-edge" by logging in to share thier bookmarks via Ma.gnolia. 
• the interface is easy to use
  
• the sophistication of Del.icio.us is just not there (lots can be communicated through design)
• I do like the bookmarks page that the user sees first thing after they save a bookmark, but I also find it showing too much unrequested details. If I want to see that info I will select a tab that will show that to me.
• I really like the little webpage thumbnail preview nicely done, however when a thumbnail is that small is it really adding anything other than color to the page? 

Not a great first impression however, one that makes me not want to explore too much more. It's just not my style. However, I can see it's target audience being younger female users, Mom's, etc. Not power users. 

LibraryThing - a digital bookshelf

Library thing is a great way to keep track of your own personal book collection. Library thing allows you to catalog your own book collection. Personally, I use library thing to keep track of my leisure reading, as cataloging all my classical studies books would be a mountainous task. Library thing helps me also keep track of my collection by allowing a type of folksonomy tagging. For example I have my books separated into "unread" and "read" sections via tagging.  I also even have an "unfinished" tag. I tend to "mooch" lots of books via another site called "Bookmooch" and LibraryThing allows me to keep track of what's coming in and going out. 

The interface is very intuitive with navigation tabs: home, profile, you library, tags and add books among other more social and informative navigational tabs further to the right of the main interface. When viewing "your library" LibraryThing gives you several views and ways to examine your collection. 

List Covers

Tags

Styles A B C D E

Power edit Print

All fieldsTitles/authorsTagsReviewsCommentsSubjectsMost fields

In addition to various different way to view your collection. LibraryThing also integrates other services such as: GoogleBooks, Library of Congress Classifications. 

What makes LibraryThing web2.o is the users ability to also view others who have similiar collections to thier own, view all the users that have a particular book in thier collection. Along with lots of user groups users can join such as: Librarians Who LibraryThing or FantasyFans, to more inventive ones such as I Survived the Great Vowel Shift. 

Overall LibraryThing gives users the ability to play librarian of thier own collections, its no surpise so many librarians LibraryThing. Its great to control your inventory, so much so that some libraries are using it for thier collections http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6403633.html. 

When to put up the privacy curtains? You've just received a friend request from you Mom on Facebook...

Ok, just your average day, open up your email to find a Facebook request from you Mom. Yes, your completely and adult, nothing to hide, so no reason not to right? Right? Well, not so fast, I think. Why the hesitation? Maybe its because you also friend lots of people from work and don't want you mom posting weird things like "Miss you Honey, Oh, you look so cute!  -Love you Mom", "When are you going to come visit? - It's been too long, Mom", "do you want a crock-pot? Love, itchy poo" and any other number of weird things and topics. It's not so much you don't want her to see your stuff or read stuff about your friends. However, it's more like you don't want your friends and co-workers reading stuff from you mom, reading your mom's profile, etc. Then again her finding out about the two business trips you've taken right near her hometown via your status messages, might not be so easy to brush over. So what's next twitter? That will be interesting. I say you make a rule, the most diplomatic way possible. When it comes down to friending your mom, de-friend all your family (so no one feels left out) and tell them, I would like to keep my personal life private not from my family, but from everyone else. There, problem solved. 

New to me Social Software Pt. II - The Found Bin!

The Found Bin

http://www.thefoundbin.com/

Ok, being someone who has loved and lost and loved again, I love the idea of this website. However the only way for it to be truly useful is to have a VERY wide user base. I tried doing a few random searches, but nothing came up. However, I still really appreciate the idea behind this website and would love to see it grow and become more widely used. A good way to possibily start to widen that user base would be to work directly with the chamber of commerce in different cities across the globe and incourage them to incorporate the use of this tool into thier own lost-n-found system structures. A few media spots wouldn't be a bad idea either. 

Here's to hoping that some people are reuinited with thier favorite things.

New to me Social Software Pt. I - Wakoopa!

http://wakoopa.com/

What a fun little app! Total invasion of personal time...however, very, very interesting. 

Above is a embedable widget from the site listing all the software I am curretnly running on my PC. Wow! Pretty scary when you think about it. Right now I am just trying to understand the benefits of something like this, or rather the social software benefits of this. Here are some of my initial thoughts.

• discover new software via your contacts
• see what people are doing
• see how you spend your time

Also from a software development/use standpoint, there is lots of usage statistics that can be harvested. For example they have this quote on the website:

"Did you know communicating is the second biggest activity on the computer? We do. Wakoopa knows software" 

What do you guys think?