Week 8 - Mashups
Week 8 - Mashups
The final week of the course is mashups. Such fun!
I started by looking at Codex.Com, and found the DaVinci Code. I found it interesting that Vatican City (and other church locations) had several copies. I’m not sure how Codex.com would be used. I can’t imagine libraries having their online catalogs here.
I then explored the award winners list on Mashup Awards.com. I was intrigued by Twitter Answers , which offered real answers, by and for real people: http://www.mosio.com/twitter/ It’s a mashup of Twitter and Mosio. Most of the questions were, shall we say, not academic - and some of the answers were wrong, although later corrected. But it’s a very interesting concept, which might be applied to medical library reference, especially over long distance.
I then explored Programmable Web.com and selected Mashups Directory (almost 3000 entrees!). These mashups seemed more personal than those on Mashup.awards.com. I found Qlock under reference, and also found other interesting sites. TV Schedules is one the cheap husband should like. Librarian Chick was disappointing as it was for free materials more of interest to teachers. Geobirds.com is a very cool site for birders.
Then it was time to explore Rollyo.com. I searched for “librarianblogs”, then searched for privacy in this set. I found almost 10,000 results, much of which is junk - like links to PrivacyGuard.com. I discovered that I could select a specific Blog, and chose the KraftyLibrarian. I found excellent results. although even these were still laced with ads. Appropriately enough, her first Blog that mentions privacy is on mashups: http://kraftylibrarian.com/2006/11/brief-note-on-mashups.html
Finally, I set up a brief searchroll on women’s health on Rollyo, which features many of the sites we use regularly at work: http://rollyo.com/pvanhine/womens_health/
This was a great course! THANKS!
Week 7, Part B - EAHIL has great galla dinners!
Week 7, Part B - EAHIL has great gala dinners - or what I learned on YouTube
The second part of Week 7’s assignment was to explore YouTube, find a library that was using YouTube, find a video that I like, and share it on my blog.
Using YouTube was relatively easy, considering my dial-up connection. I searched for “medical libraries” and found about 200 listings, many of which celebrated library week or provided library instruction.
My favorite video, however, was the first one on my list of results:
Sirtaki at EAHIL Gala Dinner in CLuj. Medical Librarians dancing till climax ……Sirtaki EAHIL EAHIL2006 Gala Dinner CLuj medical libraries
Added: September 28, 2006
The European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) is an active professional association uniting and motivating librarians and information officers working in medical and health science libraries in Europe. EAHIL encourages professional development, improves cooperation and enables exchanges of experience amongst its members. The association counts about 1 000 members from about 30 European countries.
The program for the 10th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania September 11-16, 2006, is found here:
http://www.eahilconfcluj.ro/scientific_programme.html
The Gala Dinner at Hotel Belvedere was held 1900-2400 on September 15.
The conference has a photogallery: http://www.eahilconfcluj.ro/registration.html, but no photographs from the Gala Dinner are on the site. You can recognize librarians from the video in some of the photographs, however.
I enjoyed my YouTube experience. If the site were ever unblocked in our library, we could develop some fun programs. For instance, we always wanted to have a library training program with Peeps. Our oral history programs are video, so perhaps some of those could be shared.
Week 7, Part A: Podcasting
Week 7, Part A: Podcasting
Our assignments were to explore the podcasting directories of podcast.net and Podcast Alley, to view two medical libraries’ podcast sites, create an Odeo account, search for podcasts, subscribe to a podcast, and note subscription under My audio.
I found Podcast Alley easier to use than Podcast.net. Podcast Alley was faster, better organized, and included interesting features like voting. I liked how the description of the video and author popped up when you clicked on it. I was surprised to see videos listed on Podcast.net.
I could not get into UT podcasts, but the history of medicine lecture series at UVA was impressive and well displayed and organized.
Creating an Odeo account was easy, and finding podcasts of interest was simple, if sometimes slow through dial-up. I found NPR Health and Science, but somehow accidentally subscribed via an RSS feed to Google Reader. Of course, initially the RSS feed went to the wrong person, as I share the computer with the cheap husband, who signs into a different volunteer organization account. I was able to change to my account and copy in the NPR URL to my Google Reader RSS feeds. Four NPR programs appeared, and sometime after, I heard bits and pieces of one coming through the computer speakers. I realized that I was supposed to subscribe differently, but when I went to change the subscription in Odeo, it told me I already had a subscription. So I subscribed to a different program. I think I find getting them through my RSS feed more convenient however anyway.
I am not sure that developing Podcasts has too much potential use in our library at this time, in part, because all of the sites are blocked. Sometimes podcasts can be useful for staff education, however, like sharing a recent NPR story that mentioned our organization.
Week 6 continued
I just uploaded a third photo on Flickr, so I could have something for my MySpace page. I wanted to add a photo of my cats, but it was in the wrong format. I had to use a stock photo instead, since I really have few personal online photos. When I went to add it to my page, I found I could just upload it from my computer - it didn’t ask me to go through Flickr. I imagine I could also have asked Flickr to send it - as I did for my Blog photo.
Luddite learning (continued)
I finally added a page to my wiki (http://pammlaweb20wiki.wetpaint.com). I’m sharing a few suggestions on Luddite Learning, or how to do Web 2.0 with a dial-up connection.
Week 6 - Online photo sharing
Week 6: Online photo sharing
Well, this week did not go as well as the last two. I’m not sure Flickr has any obvious value to someone who has neither a computerized camera nor a fast Internet connection. It took me more than an hour to upload two photos!
I did not find Flickr intuitive to use, and I was not happy that I had to sign up for a Yahoo account to use it. Flickr also asked me to sign up for other things when I tried to edit a photo.
I can see the value of Flickr and other systems for online sharing of photos, group editing of photos, and other projects, many of which could apply to the medical library, especially for the management and distribution of portrait photographs.
But for me, it was a frustrating experience.
Week 5 - Web Office Tools
Week 5 - Web Office Tools
My response to the MLA Web 2.0 101 Week 5 assignment was first prepared as a GoogleDocs document, then saved to my Blog for further editing.
- I first imported an existing WEBTREAT on end of life care to GoogleDocs and saved it to my Blog. I then made a minor change to the document and saved it to my Blog again. I was pleased to note that GoogleDocs reminded me that I already had saved a document with the same name to my Blog and asked me if I wanted to replace it.
- One problem that I noticed in transferring a Office Open Writer document to Word to GoogleDocs to my Blog was spacing, so I don’t recommend so many generations of programs going into a Blog. However, importing my document into GoogleDocs seemed just fine.
- Pulling up the spreadsheet and making changes was very easy.
- Creating a presentation slide was more challenging on a dial-up connection. I thought I had lost my slides as I kept getting error messages when I tried to save the show, but an earlier version was still there. I was able to edit it and share it with people. Apparently you can not post a slide show to a Blog however. Too bad!
- Comparing GoogleDocs to Zoho, Microsoft, and Webex: I did not get into any of these three products to check them out. Zoho required too much paperwork, Microsoft did not display the required fields, so I could not register, and the Webex website did not work. I like that GoogleDocs did not require any upfront paperwork - just an existing Google account.
- Do I think that GoogleDocs and similar Web-based products are the future of office software? Probably not, or not any time soon. For me, they have great potential. I’m part-time, so it will be nice to be able to work on documents at home and at work in the same format. I can also see great potential for group document development, although my (cheap) husband said that he just sends an e-mail. Assuming that these documents are really secure and safe, I can see keeping some common documents on the Web, so that they can be used at home or at work. For instance, we respond to dozens of incoming e-mail messages every day, many asking for guidelines form our organization or other commons questions. We keep various “cheat sheets” that summarize some answers on our computers at work. My boss also keeps them on a portable hard drive. Keeping them on the web might make more sense - and perhaps we might even want to share some of them as FAQS.
- Obviously one needs to be very careful about what one stores on the Web and how one shares information. I keep adding websites to del.icio.us for my own quick reference, including adding a FacePage and other sites from this course. The FacePage site had more than 600 co-links - all spam! So that was probably not a good idea.
Week 3 - FaceBook continued
Today I was able to finally write on a FaceBook wall (JR - my cubicle mate who is also taking this course). I wrote on her wall, sent her a gift, left her a message, and poked her. Such fun!
Del.icio.us is delicious!
Del.icio.us is delicious!
I loved Week 4 of the MLA course! Signing up for del.icio.us was very easy (now that I remember to NOT use my work e-mail) and using it was very intuitive. Using del.icio.us really appeals to my inner indexer.
I easily viewed the SJLibraryLearning2 site on digital libraries and could move through the ’saved by’ link to other views with tags and categorizations. I could wander through the pages for hours, if I had the time.
I bookmarked 5 sites in del.icio.us: the MLA course blog, my blog, the ACOG Webtreats, the SOGC sexuality site, and the British family planning site. I was surprised that only one person had bookmarked the MLA site to date, but please that 2 other people (not from ACOG) had bookmarked the ACOG WEBTREATS, and that 13 people had also marked the British family planning site, and 24 had marked the SOGC sexuality site. Oh, then I bookmarked a few more that I bumped into in the SJLibraryLearning2 site. Such fun!
I can see using Del.icio.us for my bookmarks, and I would like to explore some of the other options (CiteULike and Connotea) for managing recommended new articles and reports. I will need to play with them to see if they can replace my manual system that I’m currently using.
I will also recommend either CiteULike or (probably) Connetea to other staff, especially those who are always working with huge bibliographies for their projects!
I have wondered where clouds came from - and now I know. The greatest use of them that I saw recently was in an art exhibit at Touchstone Galleries. Real-time clouds for the two Democratic candidates were flashing on the floor as part of an interesting piece.
Week 3 - Facebook, My Space, and Linkedin
Blog for Week Three of MLA 2.0 Course - MySpace, Facebook, and Linkedin
I found this week’s assignments much easier than I thought they would be. My main problem is that I’m trying to take this course at home on an old laptop computer with dialup Internet access. I was afraid that I would not be able to get into Facebook at all, but it wasn’t that time consuming to access it. I have learned a few lessons about trying to do Web 2.0 on an old computer with dialup access - that will be another Blog soon, I hope. I also plan to clean up my Blog pages and add some photos.
I finally figured out that one of my problems with setting up my Blog was that I was importing text incorrectly. And once I finally saw the video on how to blog, it all became much more clear.
This week I was able to successfully set up a Facebook and Linkedin account and view the MySpace library sites mentioned in exercise 3.
Anyway, on to Week Three Assignments:
- How can social networking be used by MLA to connect members: Linked In is certainly a way that MLA and other organizations could connect members. It appears to be most suited for job placement. Perhaps it could replace the current systems that MLA uses.
- I found the questions asked quite disturbing, and apparently I had to answer them before being allowed to sign up. I don’t lie well, so I had to add real information that I would rather not share. I assume that other librarians and professionals might also be reluctant to participate at this time if forced to divulge such details.
- Should your library have a Facebook or MySpace page? Not at this time. Having a MySpace page for the entire organization to reach young people - both younger members and younger consumers - might be quite effective. I really enjoyed the Denver library site!
- Are there privacy concerns for individuals when using social networking sites. Absolutely, especially for women. We hear horror stories about problems with potential employers, stalkers, other users spreading false rumors, and other bad things.
- What did you like or not like about your experience with Facebook or MySpace. The exercise was with MySpace, not Facebook. I found the sign up procedure for MySpace to be unnecessarily difficult. It should warn potential users that they cannot access MySpace until they process an e-mail message that MySpace sends. I was not able to use MySpace for several days because the message was sent to my work e-mail and I could not set up a different account with my Gmail account. Once I could access my account, I found it quite easy to use, although I had the same problems as others did in that it primarily looked for “friends” with similar e-mail accounts. I found it relatively easy to find the pages for MLA, PUBMED, and WorldCat and add them to my page. Would I use any of these in real life? Not at this time. But it was fun to play with them.
