Thursday, January 31, 2008
Library of Congress photos on Flickr
Hey, I just saw this and found it interesting. LC has launched a pilot project with Flickr - with more than 3,000 photographs from their most popular collections. They want to be able to share the photos with those not normally visiting the LC (physically or virtually.) They are also trying an experiment to see how tagging and social collaboration impacts their collection and how they manage it. Cool stuff! See for yourself!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thing 27: LibraryThing
I've heard Tim Spalding speak at conferences various times now and his product LibraryThing always sounded interesting. and he's easy to listen to, informal, knowledgable, forward-thinking..everything i look for in a conference speaker. at any rate, i must say that I never rushed home to create my own LT account, however....
Now that I've played with it for this exercise, I can see the appeal. It is SO EASY to add a title from your collection. I love that you can then add your own customizations, like tags, and select from a multitude of book covers. and then of course you can follow tag clouds to find other items of similar interest. what a great overall idea!
this is definitely for booklovers. one doesn't need to know the first thing about cataloging, which is the real genius behind it.
My mind wanders not to how can I use this for my personal collection, but rather how can we use this as a library system? I looked over LTFL (for libs) and am curious. More so, I looked at their list of libraries using LT and am amazed at how FEW are running the same ILS we are. that didn't bode well, i must say. anyway, i'll continue my investigation.
Now that I've played with it for this exercise, I can see the appeal. It is SO EASY to add a title from your collection. I love that you can then add your own customizations, like tags, and select from a multitude of book covers. and then of course you can follow tag clouds to find other items of similar interest. what a great overall idea!
this is definitely for booklovers. one doesn't need to know the first thing about cataloging, which is the real genius behind it.
My mind wanders not to how can I use this for my personal collection, but rather how can we use this as a library system? I looked over LTFL (for libs) and am curious. More so, I looked at their list of libraries using LT and am amazed at how FEW are running the same ILS we are. that didn't bode well, i must say. anyway, i'll continue my investigation.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thing 26: Image generators
wow - i had no idea there were so many image generators out there! and here's a site that lists alot of them...http://www.customsigngenerator.com/ in addition to the resource given: http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/. it's really amazing. everything from "dummies" book covers to license plates, to tarot cards, flags, watermarks, and road signs.
i had a good time creating my blog header at http://www.headerbar.com/.
then i fooled around with: comicstripgenerator.com with my little alien egg pic. i saw alot of similarities in how the 2 sites work. also saw alot of similarities in the ads thrown at you while you're trying to be creative.
i looked at letterjames.com and love the idea of making my own calendar. unfortunately, it seems to be a site sponsored in germany and i'm fresh out of euros at the moment. (and am not excited about the unfavorable to USD exchange rate, either.) schade. guess i'll stick to flickr's utility for building calendars.
well, gee, some amount of time has flown and i have had fun with george, elvis, and a host of other characters and creatures. but alas, all fun must come to an end. there are other things to learn, after all!
my overall impression of this thing: i just had no idea what all was out there! good to know there's help for those of us that are graphically challenged!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Thing 25: Podcast and Video in the lib.
I've looked at the recommended sites: Denver PL, ASU, and others, and think they're definitely on the right track. I, personally, am not the podcast junkie. But for those who are, the more podcasts, the better.
That being said, one has to approach it wisely. Much as I'd love to see podcasts and videocasts available for VBPL, I'm not advising just throwing stuff out there because we can. First we need to gauge who is likely to benefit from podcasting, who are they, and what are they looking for?
Next, we need to be able to know how often our pod/video casts are being used. Enough to continue? Or haven't we found the right audience/topics yet?
And of course it goes without saying that once we start, we need to make every effort to keep them current and relevant. Once people know we're offering podcasts, they'll come back to see the new stuff - or will want RSS to automatically get the new stuff. If there is no new stuff, they're gone.
In general, I think we could make a sincere effort to try podcasting. I really like DPL's use of podcasts for the childrens stories. And Sheridan's/JHU's use of podcasts for scholarly research stuff - like explaining citations is great. They could use a few more about there, and hopefully that type of thing would grow.
So, VBPL, where do we start??
That being said, one has to approach it wisely. Much as I'd love to see podcasts and videocasts available for VBPL, I'm not advising just throwing stuff out there because we can. First we need to gauge who is likely to benefit from podcasting, who are they, and what are they looking for?
Next, we need to be able to know how often our pod/video casts are being used. Enough to continue? Or haven't we found the right audience/topics yet?
And of course it goes without saying that once we start, we need to make every effort to keep them current and relevant. Once people know we're offering podcasts, they'll come back to see the new stuff - or will want RSS to automatically get the new stuff. If there is no new stuff, they're gone.
In general, I think we could make a sincere effort to try podcasting. I really like DPL's use of podcasts for the childrens stories. And Sheridan's/JHU's use of podcasts for scholarly research stuff - like explaining citations is great. They could use a few more about there, and hopefully that type of thing would grow.
So, VBPL, where do we start??
Monday, January 21, 2008
Thing 24: Podcasting
At a quick glance, it looks like both podcastalley.com (podcast aggregator) and podcast.net did indeed require some kind of download to actually listen to any of their content. Since I am a dyed in the wool iTunes fan, I'll stick with that.
So my next question became, how to get a podcast i found at podcastalley.com into iTunes? they graciously gave me a url, but i'm not seeing where in iTunes I can paste that sucker. i'll keep looking. good news: found a hopefully interesting podcast on taking care of our oceans:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/oceanworld.
back to the iTunes search...okay, it's hidden under the "advanced" tab. figures. and now that i found it, i discover that my chosen podcast is no longer available! note to self: check links before subscribing to podcast.
no problem, it's easy enough to find another podcast of interest. once that was done, i was able very easily to add the podcast to the blog. Blogger is just the best - for a freebie, that is.
i'd like to say thank you for the link to the: How to podcast tutorial because it uses a free product called "Audacity", which is a great cross-platform sound editor. their tutorial on setting up the mike and input things was alot better than i'd found on my own when first struggling with it. so kudos for the great link!
So my next question became, how to get a podcast i found at podcastalley.com into iTunes? they graciously gave me a url, but i'm not seeing where in iTunes I can paste that sucker. i'll keep looking. good news: found a hopefully interesting podcast on taking care of our oceans:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/oceanworld.
back to the iTunes search...okay, it's hidden under the "advanced" tab. figures. and now that i found it, i discover that my chosen podcast is no longer available! note to self: check links before subscribing to podcast.
no problem, it's easy enough to find another podcast of interest. once that was done, i was able very easily to add the podcast to the blog. Blogger is just the best - for a freebie, that is.
i'd like to say thank you for the link to the: How to podcast tutorial because it uses a free product called "Audacity", which is a great cross-platform sound editor. their tutorial on setting up the mike and input things was alot better than i'd found on my own when first struggling with it. so kudos for the great link!
Thing 23: YouTube
Well, I'm much too chicken to advertise any of my own videos on YouTube (put up there as a lark), so I'll go with one from one of my favorite used-to-be-local bands, Betty!
If you don't know them, you're missing out.
And here's a not-bad video...
Okay - back to library stuff. YouTube makes it so easy just to post someone's video on your blog or homepage. Copyright issues aside...well, just aside.
I think the most difficult part of publishing and advertising videos is actually making the darned thing. I'm talking about filming something, then editing it and inserting interesting things like titles, credits, music. cropping out bad stuff, etc. once all that hard stuff is done,it's a piece of cake to upload it to youtube and then put it on a website.
i suppose i could take this opportunity to bemoan the picture quality of youtube versus the other video host sites, but since it's got such a share of the content, guess they know what they're doing.
If you don't know them, you're missing out.
And here's a not-bad video...
Okay - back to library stuff. YouTube makes it so easy just to post someone's video on your blog or homepage. Copyright issues aside...well, just aside.
I think the most difficult part of publishing and advertising videos is actually making the darned thing. I'm talking about filming something, then editing it and inserting interesting things like titles, credits, music. cropping out bad stuff, etc. once all that hard stuff is done,it's a piece of cake to upload it to youtube and then put it on a website.
i suppose i could take this opportunity to bemoan the picture quality of youtube versus the other video host sites, but since it's got such a share of the content, guess they know what they're doing.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Thing 22: Mashups and Flickr
I browsed thru some of the flickr mashup and add-on apps. Again, I must say I'm impressed with what all is available. THe great thing is that these can grow as the sophistication of the user base grows.
Anyway, for a simple flicr app, I looked at Spell with Flickr. This is a little tool created by someone outside of Flickr, using Flickr photos of letters. You just type a word/phrase and it pulls the letters to give you back your word or phrase in a cool mosiac. Most ingenious, I thought. If you don't like a particular letter you just click it to get another version of the same letter. My only complaint is that given the code provided (html or js), your site has to link back to flickr to get your mosiac'ed word. i guess it would be violating copyright ?? if one made local copies of the letter jpg files and stored/referenced them on one's own server... for dialup users to your site or blog, i'd imagine the calls to flickr for those image files could slow things down a bit.
Another mashup I liked is Pictobrowser, which lets you put a slideshow widget for your flickr photos on your blog. not just a link, but an actual slide show. that's nice.
i also looked at flickReplacr, but that was a dud. the idea was to take any two words and replace them with a photo from flickr. the hits i got back were too strange and unreliable for me to pursue this one further.
one could definitely spend all day playing with these things!
Anyway, for a simple flicr app, I looked at Spell with Flickr. This is a little tool created by someone outside of Flickr, using Flickr photos of letters. You just type a word/phrase and it pulls the letters to give you back your word or phrase in a cool mosiac. Most ingenious, I thought. If you don't like a particular letter you just click it to get another version of the same letter. My only complaint is that given the code provided (html or js), your site has to link back to flickr to get your mosiac'ed word. i guess it would be violating copyright ?? if one made local copies of the letter jpg files and stored/referenced them on one's own server... for dialup users to your site or blog, i'd imagine the calls to flickr for those image files could slow things down a bit.
Another mashup I liked is Pictobrowser, which lets you put a slideshow widget for your flickr photos on your blog. not just a link, but an actual slide show. that's nice.
i also looked at flickReplacr, but that was a dud. the idea was to take any two words and replace them with a photo from flickr. the hits i got back were too strange and unreliable for me to pursue this one further.
one could definitely spend all day playing with these things!
Thing 21: More on Flickr
Okay - well I suppose I can't just fluff off flickr because i personally use another product for photo-sharing. having read several of the articles (i particularly like those by Michael Stephens), I must say Flickr is a broader animal than i first suspected.
okay - the tagging is nice, but alot of products allow one to tag. what's more impressive are the toys available, and the host of things that sprout up around the flickr site. take the discussion groups, for example. now i know that one doesn't have to look far to find a discussion group on just about any topic, but it is convenient if you can have discussion groups in conjunction iwtht the photo collections...yet another way for people to make connections online.
and i must say i love the idea of using hte flickr tools to make your own stuff - (physical) prints, cards, calendars and even postage stamps. that last one's kind of cool, i think.
as for library use - i think we should go for it! e.g. we just celebrated the 20th birthday of our central library. why not put some shots out on flickr? and point to them from the virtual lib? maybe or maybe not flickr will be around for the next 20 year celebration (which is true for each of us, as well, eh?), but even if not, who cares? we'll still have electronic copies unless our beloved IT dept decides to just purge them during some space-saving exercise.
as stephens points out, flickr could be used for sharing photos of programs, our helpful and diverse staff, our excellent physical environment, etc. what better advertising is there?
so flickr away, vbpl!
okay - the tagging is nice, but alot of products allow one to tag. what's more impressive are the toys available, and the host of things that sprout up around the flickr site. take the discussion groups, for example. now i know that one doesn't have to look far to find a discussion group on just about any topic, but it is convenient if you can have discussion groups in conjunction iwtht the photo collections...yet another way for people to make connections online.
and i must say i love the idea of using hte flickr tools to make your own stuff - (physical) prints, cards, calendars and even postage stamps. that last one's kind of cool, i think.
as for library use - i think we should go for it! e.g. we just celebrated the 20th birthday of our central library. why not put some shots out on flickr? and point to them from the virtual lib? maybe or maybe not flickr will be around for the next 20 year celebration (which is true for each of us, as well, eh?), but even if not, who cares? we'll still have electronic copies unless our beloved IT dept decides to just purge them during some space-saving exercise.
as stephens points out, flickr could be used for sharing photos of programs, our helpful and diverse staff, our excellent physical environment, etc. what better advertising is there?
so flickr away, vbpl!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Thing 20: Flickr and Photo Sharing
Well, first I must confess. I started this exercise with a personal bias and I found it hard to get rid of. You see, I've been using a site called "webshots" for about 10 years now...WAAAAYYYY before i heard of 2.0 anything.
But I tried to give Flickr a fair chance. Must say I was turned off when I saw I had to first create a yahoo account and then a flickr account. perhaps it's just my mood now - and gemini that i am i could feel differently 10 minutes from now - but it's just not worth it. knowing i won't convert to flickr from webshots for sharing my photos, i'll resort to option 1...
at any rate, i did take the flickr tour and much is similar to webshots. there are a few niceties, however, that flickr offers, including the maps and making stuff. now, would i use any of those features? probably not.
what i look for in a tool like this is the ability to simply:
- upload photos - many at a time preferably.
- organize them into meaningful groups and i don't care whether you call them sets or albums or fred...
- label them. perhaps tag them too, but i'm happy with simple titles and/or captions.
- share them.
i like webshots in that i can have public albums as well as private ones. but overall what got me hooked on that particular product was the screensavers. the client includes desktop photo manager, screensaver, as well as upload manager. for years all i cared about were the professional photos i was able to get on any topic - from antelopes to zylophones - i could get a photo from webshots.
and by the way, it's possible to get oodles of pictures of crop circles from any photo sharing site, no doubt. but i only had to look as far as "my pictures" to find this one taken several years ago in wiltshire, england. what a fascinating trip that was!
so, sorry, flickr, i'm sure you're great for those not already sharing photos, but i'll stick with where i am, thanks.
But I tried to give Flickr a fair chance. Must say I was turned off when I saw I had to first create a yahoo account and then a flickr account. perhaps it's just my mood now - and gemini that i am i could feel differently 10 minutes from now - but it's just not worth it. knowing i won't convert to flickr from webshots for sharing my photos, i'll resort to option 1...
at any rate, i did take the flickr tour and much is similar to webshots. there are a few niceties, however, that flickr offers, including the maps and making stuff. now, would i use any of those features? probably not.
what i look for in a tool like this is the ability to simply:
- upload photos - many at a time preferably.
- organize them into meaningful groups and i don't care whether you call them sets or albums or fred...
- label them. perhaps tag them too, but i'm happy with simple titles and/or captions.
- share them.
i like webshots in that i can have public albums as well as private ones. but overall what got me hooked on that particular product was the screensavers. the client includes desktop photo manager, screensaver, as well as upload manager. for years all i cared about were the professional photos i was able to get on any topic - from antelopes to zylophones - i could get a photo from webshots.
and by the way, it's possible to get oodles of pictures of crop circles from any photo sharing site, no doubt. but i only had to look as far as "my pictures" to find this one taken several years ago in wiltshire, england. what a fascinating trip that was!
so, sorry, flickr, i'm sure you're great for those not already sharing photos, but i'll stick with where i am, thanks.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Thing 19: Best of web 2.0
well first of all, i love it that someone has already done the work of filtering out the best of the 2.0 websites. just when one is ready to sink into the mire of useless info, someone reaches out to bring the cream to the top!
that said, i spotted iGoogle on seamoz's list of web 2.0 award winners. boy do i agree with that one. i just love my new iGoogle home page. not only do i have easy access to google - which is my favorite search engine, but i also have everything else at a glance i want to see...latest posts from blogs i like, rss from news sites, inspirational photos, local weather and movie listings and so much more. i even have an abbreviated version of my gmail inbox. i would have liked to put a similar widget for my ATT worldnet mail, but it seems the security isn't that great for the pop3 widget.
anyway, i think library staff could benefit greatly if each would create their custom iGoogle page. of course, there's the part about ComIT erasing the default home page from time to time, but that's easily reset.
one award winner i learned about thanks to seamoz is ColorBlender - a great tool for web development. it's got great slider bars for RGB and you can create virtually any color you'd need on your page - and then gives you the html equivalent to use. wunderbar!
that said, i spotted iGoogle on seamoz's list of web 2.0 award winners. boy do i agree with that one. i just love my new iGoogle home page. not only do i have easy access to google - which is my favorite search engine, but i also have everything else at a glance i want to see...latest posts from blogs i like, rss from news sites, inspirational photos, local weather and movie listings and so much more. i even have an abbreviated version of my gmail inbox. i would have liked to put a similar widget for my ATT worldnet mail, but it seems the security isn't that great for the pop3 widget.
anyway, i think library staff could benefit greatly if each would create their custom iGoogle page. of course, there's the part about ComIT erasing the default home page from time to time, but that's easily reset.
one award winner i learned about thanks to seamoz is ColorBlender - a great tool for web development. it's got great slider bars for RGB and you can create virtually any color you'd need on your page - and then gives you the html equivalent to use. wunderbar!
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