I’ve been pretty media-shy up to now, preferring to write instead of recording audio or video messages. But after seeing how easy it is to listen to podcasts, and how easy it was for our 27 Things team to create the podcasts and videos for the exercises, I’ve decided to use the capabilities of software I already have to embed podcasts into my blog posts.
Last summer, a friend introduced me to Goldwave Audio, a free download that can take input from a record player (remember those?) and then edit out all the hisses and pops to create an amazingly clean digital recording you can burn to a CD. I transferred cuts from an album the Al Nobriga Trio made in the late ’70s that was never published on CD, and was so delighted to hear my brother’s voice again! (He played bass for the group.)
Long story short, this weekend I’m going to use the voice recording capabilities of Goldwave to create a podcast. If it works, I’m going to take my laptop to Hawaii and ask my mom to record some of her stories and memories. It will be interesting, to say the least!
As for using our digital catalog to find downloadable materials – I’ve been downloading audiobooks for about a year now, and listening to them when I walk. Last spring when I was practicing for the Avenue of the Vines half-marathon, I went through about 3 titles, the most memorable being “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.”
My family doesn’t have a history of video – we tend to take only snapshots, and lately, people have been hard to catch. I decided to look on YouTube for something other than people. We’ve been having an ongoing discussion at home about whether we really need a dog (no), so I looked online for a cute dog video to enjoy. This one shows a Kerry Blue Terrier like one I used to have playing with a skateboard. Enjoy!
I’m writing this post in Zoho Writer. Specifically, I am trying the “post to your blog” feature. Although the WordPress post editor is functional, it looks as though Zoho brings more to the table in the formatting area, for example:
Inserting a table
inserting today’s date
emoticons
Special characters Ψ Ω Ý β
find-and-replace editing
undo button
There have been times when I’ve wanted to do more formatting than Blogger could handle, and this might be a good way to add some pizzaz to Blogger or WordPress posts.
After doing the readings, visiting library wikis, and watching the videos I have developed a new respect for wikis at a vehicle for organizing knowledge. I’ve been avoiding them because I didn’t have a clear idea of how I could apply this platform in a work setting. Procedures manuals were the only thing I could think of, and yet such a manual for internal processes should not be made available to outside viewers. Subject guides, especially topical ones, can be quickly compiled and made available. The content can be linked to searches in our catalog, web sites, blogs, and other pages in the wiki.
In the course of visiting the Blogging Libraries wiki, I discovered another couple of bloggers I want to follow, and was also gratified to see our own grandCENTRAL listed there in the California section!
I also noticed there isn’t anything organized about Sacramento Public Library in the Sacramento Wiki. Now that we’re web 2.0-savvy, shouldn’t we be checking to see what is – or is not - “out there” about us and taking charge of it? I would challenge all our 27-Things participants to add content to the Sacramento Wiki if the conventions for adding content were’t so different from PBWiki, where our 27 Things wiki is located. But if you’ve a mind to play with it … I’m just sayin’ …
As with Delicious, I had already created an account with Technorati over a year ago and “claimed” this Annot8tions blog, but I didn’t ever go back. Tonight I was poking around and I found a new blog to follow: Across the Great Divide. I read the Invisibility post and was hooked. I claimed a couple more blogs just to complete the exercise, but I have no illusions about becoming a mover and shaker in the blog world. My blogs are ranked way down there, and that’s ok with me.
As for the future of librarianship, I noticed that the suggested OCLC article was published in 2006, generations ago in Internet Time. However, there are timeless ideas embedded throughout, this being one of them:
No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves.
The key is to be keenly attuned to trends and to anticipate correctly which will work harmoniously with library core principles to make the library’s collections and expertise most accessible to its constituency. Not easy.
I’ve believed for several years that the telephone (cell phones, to be more precise) will become the communication medium of choice between patrons and libraries. Not just to renew items, get hours, or talk to someone, but also to use the catalog and databases, to place holds, to pay fines, and to share information with friends. I believe what we should be doing is figuring out how to make our catalog and databases small-screen-friendly, and to offer services that work with cell phones. This might be creating program feeds, providing text reference service, pushing bibliographies, texting call number info for individual titles or providing maps and driving directions. Cell phones are getting “smarter” every day; we should be looking for ways to exploit their capabilities.
I’ve been a fan of Delicious for a long time. I maintain both a personal account and am a contributor to Central Library’s account on behalf of TELIS (telephone reference.) It comes in handy when callers need a web site fast and you know it’s bookmarked: just type in your tag and you’re there! I like that the bookmarks are not tied to the browser on a single computer, but are accessible to me no matter which computer I use. I also like the tag bundling feature. I’ve created a few bundles that I think might be useful for upcoming computer classes offered here.
Although Delicious is a social site, I have not used its social features except to link my own bookmarks with CEN’s in a network. Selfish, I guess, and maybe just a little private about my personal bookmarks.
It took me a little while to remember my login for Library Thing, and I suspect I may have 2 accounts now. I opened an account in 2006, added 2 books, and abandoned it. I added another handful of books on Saturday, but the library computers were so slow, it was an exercise in frustration. I don’t see any of those books today, so either I didn’t save properly, or I opened a new account and forgot the login. I don’t have a huge collection of books that needs to be organized, and I’m keeping track of my reading in Facebook and on my Bibliog blog, so I don’t think I’ll be using Library Thing right at the moment.
Rollyo
I finally “got” it! I’ve been messing with Rollyo for a couple of weeks now, and couldn’t seem to duplicate the finely-tuned results I’ve seen on others’ blogs. But I had an “aha!” moment this afternoon, and ta-dah! My Rollyo!
My object was to gather some library journals together and be able to search them all for articles on … whatever. But I couldn’t figure out how to make the search box display in this post, hence the link. I can see a use for this on our Research Guides, as a bookmark for computer classes on a particular topic, and as a work tool for selectors.
