Instant Instant Messaging

Remember learning about IM'ing at the tech fair? Here's a summary of how to get started.

There are two types of IM programs: 1 involves downloading software onto your computer and the other involves IM'ing through a website (with no significant software put onto your computer). The easiest and safest approach is the website variety.

There are a number of IM websites you could choose to create an account/sign up with. Some of the most famous/biggest are Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. These are also places that support free email accounts that some of you may have already taken advantage of.

There is one drawback to creating an account on one of these websites: If your friends have an account with a different IM provider, you may not be able to IM them. One solution is to have multiple IM accounts, one with each of the major sites; but then you have to sign onto each one separately and it gets complicated.

A better solution involves using a web service such as www.meebo.com. With meebo, you create a sort of umbrella account with meebo, then tell them about which other IM providers you're signed up with and what your screen name and password is for each one. Then to IM anybody in any of these IM systems, you sign onto your meebo account, and meebo takes care of signing you into MSN, Yahoo, and/or AOL Instant Messaging. Then you can see your buddies in any of these services on the one meebo screen.

To summarize, here's how you do it:

1. Sign up with one or more IM services (from yahoo.com, aol.com, and/or msn.com, which all have links to sign up with their IM network).
2. Sign up with meebo and tell meebo how it can sign into the other services you've already created accounts with.
3. When it's all set up, sign into meebo when you're online.
4. Add "buddies" (people you want to communicate with), see which ones are online, and contact them. [See below for how to add buddies.]

Tips and How-To's

Tip 1: If you are going to sign up with more than one IM provider, try to use the same screen name every time--including with your Meebo account. This will avoid confusion.

To sign up with IM providers:

YAHOO:


The picture to the right appears on the home page of yahoo.com. See where there's a smiley face next to the word "messenger"? Click on that to create an IM account with yahoo.

When you get to the IM area of yahoo, click on "get started" then "sign up". Don't forget your name and password! Write them down somewhere.

AOL:

Here's the equivalent image at aol.com. This section appears on aol's home page. Click on the little man running to the right, labeled "AIM". Then click on "get free screen name", then follow the steps to create the screen name. Again, write down any username and password info!

MSN:

And here's msn.com's version on their home page near the top. Click on "messenger" then "join now". Then just follow the instructions and save your password info.

And finally, there's Meebo, which ties it all together. meebo.com's home page looks like this:

Notice that to the right, there's the meebo sign-in (and a button for creating a meebo identity). To the left are sign-in windows for AIM (that's AOL's IM service), yahoo IM, MSN IM, and Google Talk IM. Once you've created your Meebo account and signed onto it, you'll see where you can click on "accounts" to add your MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and/or Google Talk accounts to your meebo account, which means that when you log into meebo, you'll automatically be signed onto all of the accounts you've added in meebo.

TRY IT!

Social Networking As Info Source

I've been hearing a lot of debate about whether information developed through social networking sites (the latest is Wired.com's experiment in amateur-generated new that is edited for grammar only and vetted for factual correctness--it's called Assignment Zero)is valid and beneficial to society. The debate goes something like this: Proponent: "You can't trust the official media anyway, and they can't be everywhere, or be expert in everything. This is democracy at work, giving the average citizen throughout the world a voice he never had before. The public benefits from all the additional information uncontrolled by bottom lines and a slanted press." Detractor: "This is just another example of the dumbing down of news. Any bozo can slap something up on the web and declare it as valid. If you care about accuracy and truth then you know that this trend is a horrifying development in the history of news. It's like saying that truth and accuracy are less important than self-expression."

Well, we're arguing about this the wrong way. You have to step back and look at the web in its totality. The web is simply a new way of holding a mirror up to human society. It is, in fact, human society. It is not an information source, per se, or entertainment per se, or evil or good per se. It is just us. Think about this: some people believe that going to the local bar after work or standing around the jobsite or talking to Uncle Joe or listening to talk radio is the way to find out what's really going on in the world. These people don't trust officialdom, they don't trust experts or the so-called elite. A college education detracts from intelligence and common sense for these people. They may be wrong or right. Then there are those who look things up in the Encyclopedia or buy a book and read an expert's opinion or scan the New York Times. These people are skeptical of the wisdom of the common man. Maybe they're wrong and maybe they're right--It's all just a part of the human species' way of doing things. That's the web. People who are wary of drug companies and intellectuals will prefer information generated by the man on the street. People who want their facts from proven authorities using the "scientific method" will find those sources on the web--American Academy of Science, Grolier's, the Mayo Clinic, etc. It's just people. Both sides of the debate about social networking as a source of news and information are no more or less correct than they were before the Internet was invented. There's room on the 'net for both, for all types, including extremists, loonies, atheists, fundamentalists, libertarians, communists, and all the other -ists and -isms generated by the fecund human mind.

What's my point? It's this: none of this debate on social networking news is really about social networking sites, the Web, new technology, or anything else like that. It's just the latest iteration of the endless debate about the nature of the human sphere.

Freedom of Music

We librarians care an awful lot about freedom of speech, even though we don't all agree 100% on the details. Yesterday was an important day for that priceless liberty. What happened yesterday? Many of the world's free/pay Internet radio sites staged a walkout, shutting off access to their music for a day. What led them to take this extraordinary action? Well, sit down and I'll tell you.

Internet radio is a marvelous phenomenon that perhaps we don't appreciate enough. Thousands of online sites play every possible type of music for you to listen to for free on your computer, to download and pay for, and to use in a variety of other ways. Many of these sites function like radio stations, in that they broadcast what they broadcast and you enjoy hearing album rock, Nigerian music, singer/songwriter music, classical, jazz, blues, reggae, zydeco--anything and everything that you can't find on normal broadcast radio. Unlike with satellite radio, there are often no strings attached. Some stations let you hone in on specific types of music, and others go even farther, letting you design your own radio station so to speak based on your specific preferences of music types and specific recording artists. These stations typically pay their expenses from revenues from some combination of ads and sales of music that you may choose to purchase and download (or not). Some simply do it out of charitable feeling and a need to be heard. Thankfully for all of us, the royalties paid to the artists and owners of copyrights by these stations have been reasonably low, a fact which is the very basis for their existence.

Now, a federal agency/ governing body has decided to drastically increase the royalties that Internet radio stations must pay for each play, and change the payment system to favor big music publishing and recording companies over individual artists (who are often willing to accept lower royalties than mega organizations). In fact, the increased royalties are retroactive to the beginning of 2007, even though they are only just going into effect.

What does this mean? It means that the only Internet radio sites that will be able to continue to operate are those with big corporate backing and those that sell music rather than "broadcast" it for free or for a low price. Free Internet radio is going to become a thing of the past as the corporate guys take over. That is, unless something happens in Congress to change things.

I suggest that readers do two things.

First, visit a few of these Internet radio sites. Just Google Internet radio and find something you like. Also, look at the sites that allow you to customize your experience and even suggest artists you may not know about who are similar to ones you do know. Examples of this variety of site are Pandora and Musicmesh. Then once you see what you've been missing, visit the not-very-objective-but-still-informative website of Save Internet Radio.

Then consider contacting your representatives and give them a piece of your mind.

On Beyond Wikis

Now that I've completed the famous 23 things, I thought I'd continue on to some other web-based tidbits. Toward the bottom of my blog you'll see (I hope) a map displaying the locations of all the HCPL branches. I did this at a website called Community Walk, where you can create maps for online groups with specific interests. It could be locations of good restaurants, hiking trails, local producers of meat and vegetables, the homes of people in a book discussion group, etc. And you can add details, directions, and whatever so that they pop up when you point at a location.

More famous and much more global is the ever-expanding GoogleEarth, which has been in the news lately. You have to first download the software, but then you can fly to any place on the globe right down to street level in many cases, and click on a myriad of details placed there by other people: photos, descriptions, maps, statistics, whatever. There are many sites placed by the World Wildlife Fund, National Geographic, various voluntary organizations (including actual photos of burned out and abandoned villages in war-torn Darfur in Africa). People have developed overlays showing skateboarding locations, bookstores, places they went to on their honeymoon, and on and on. Also on the map (you can turn various layers on and off so that they don't all show at the same time) are restaurants, hotels, pharmacies, banks, and other commercial venues. I saw one area that showed the locations of all the public schools within a county. Since GoogleMaps encourages third parties to add content, the possibilities are endless. And the navigating tool is awesome. You start at the global level, type in a place, and fly around the curvature of the Earth, and down, down, down right to person height. I read that there's even a map of Mars under development or available (I forget which). Check this stuff out, and maybe even use it for your personal or business needs.

What Do Our Customers Really Know?

There's something that's been nagging at the back of my mind lately. No, it's not my mother-in-law, so stop snickering. It's a basic question about one of the things I thought I was accomplishing by participating in Library 2.0. Specifically, there was an implication that our customers are already aware of and using all of these tools and techniques, and it was our responsibility to catch up, as it were, in order to be better library employees.

So here I am, all boned up on wikis, widgets, gizmoz, and the like. Now, where do I stand in relation to our customers? The answer is, I may actually now know a lot more about the subtleties of web and widget manipulation than those I serve--and therein lies the surprise.

When I think about the customers I know (and at Norrisville one can know almost all of them to some degree), I realize that the vast majority--even those in the 13-25 age range--don't know how to do almost any of the things we've picked up in the course of our 23-thing journey. What do they know? They can get to YouTube and browse the videos (but not upload one or link them to a blog). Quite a number have MySpace accounts, but they rarely use them and they definitely don't do any fancy customizing by and large. None have blogs that I know of. None are denizens of Technorati, del.icio.us, or bloglist--in fact very few of them actually have any interest in news, the latest technology, etc. A few have special interests such as Anime and fan art and know how to find it on the web--but again, it's only to browse it and look at it, not to add to it or do anything fancy with it. A number have uploaded photos, usually to sites such as the Kodak one and rarely to Flickr (with exceptions). Some know how to use memory sticks. Those with MP3 players are not paying to download music, but are almost exclusively ripping their own CDs. Many have email through Yahoo or MSN or AOL. Many of the kids know how to get to Massively Multi-Player online games--though I don't see anybody on Second Life.

I already knew how to do all those things before. The question is, where are all those people getting into all those neat, cool, hot things we've been learning about? I guess there are a couple of theories about that.

One theory is that the people using computers in the library are, by and large, people who don't have computers at home, or who only have dial-up at home. Such folks, with no opportunity to customize their web experience on library PCs, are only doing and learning the simple stuff. Ironically, as we learned they could be doing plenty even on library computers, since all of the cool stuff is web-based, but they don't seem to be doing this. Having said all that, the customers in Bel Air or Abingdon or elsewhere may be more inquisitive and tech-ish than the ones in Norrisville, but I wonder... So where are all those people? Probably at home with their own computers, possibly in college (and therefore using the college library), possibly not even library customers or else customers who only come in for DVDs and a few other things.

Another theory is that, worldwide there are millions of people doing wonders on the Internet, but many are in other countries, concentrated in places like southern California and NY City, are computer geeks (meant kindly, not as a dig) working as computer professionals, etc.--with only 1 percent or so of the general population getting into any of this. In other words, it may seem like a lot of people, but such folks are only a tiny percent of the total population, and an even tinier percent in Harford County. So, 1 percent of the world's population is 60 million geek-heads, 60,000 in Maryland, and about 2,500 in Harford County.

I'm not saying that Library 2.0 is not a worthwhile experience. Dang, it's been a wonderful, mind-expanding journey--one that has enhanced my ability to do all sorts of valuable things. Yet my notion that I needed to catch up with my customers may have been somewhat misguided on the whole.

Then I ask myself what do we really need to know to help our customers on the computer? The answer:

-Whether memory sticks work on the public PCs and the PCs in the workroom, the limitations, the techniques.
-How to establish an email account
-Whether and how customers can download photos, music, and other things on the public computers, including the limitations and tricks to get it to work
-Whether and how customers can burn CDs on our computers, and on which ones can they do it, and what are the limitations
-How to fill out an online job application
-Where to find tax and legal help
-How to do an effective Google search
-How to get what customers need on our subscription databases

And on and on. The vast majority of our customers are not in fact very computer literate, and they need basic operational help. Those who are adding animated avatars to blogs (and who have blogs to begin with); those who are interconnected with their college buddies through IM, MySpace, etc.; those who are uploading videos of themselves imitating Eric Clapton onto YouTube--these folks don't really need us.

The Ego Is Amazing, Ain't It?

In a previous post I talked about web 2.o award winner Lulu (to re-read, click here). Lulu is a self-publishing site, and it shows just how far the web has taken this ever-popular business. In about 2 or 3 hours, I had a published book. Well, I did have to write it first. Lulu has a publishing wizard that guides you through:


-Correctly formatting your manuscript for the chosen book format (e.g., 6" X 9" softcover novel)
-Uploading your manuscript and viewing it.
-Selecting a theme for cover art (or uploading your own file, which is very, very complicated)
-Uploading photos or other graphics files to stick on the front and back covers
-Adding text to the front/back/spine of the book (title, author, blurb)
-Translating the file into PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format
-Pricing your book (no upfront cost to author, but 20% of cover price goes to Lulu)
-Writing advertising copy describing the book, to appear on the Lulu site
-The ability to categorize your book and add tags, so that it is searchable in the Lulu database
-For $100, Lulu will assign a bona fide ISBN number and "market" the book to Amazon, Booklist, and places like that so that you can get a little exposure. I'm sure Lulu makes a lot of its profit here. In addition, you have to purchase at least one review copy at the cover price (and you get back the amount of royalty you've built into the price).

I'm now waiting for my review copy to be shipped to me, after which I'll open it up for sale to the general public.

It's way cool, lower than the cost of a dinner for four at McDonalds, and a great way to kill time if you've got a spare manuscript laying around--or if you're serious about trying to sell your book when you can't get an agent or publisher interested.

Miscellaneous 098

Miscellaneous 098, originally uploaded by zuckyscookies.

Ain't she sweet?

Housesteads Latrine

Housesteads Latrine, originally uploaded by zuckyscookies.

This is actually a soldier's latrine at a Roman fort in England. That basin in the middle was for cleaning the sponge on a stick used for... Well, use your imagination.

Endnotes

Wow, what an experience. I thought I knew a lot, and I suppose I do compared to some, but I got a lot out of having to evaluate and test these things in an organized way. Most of what I saw was interesting, cool, and entertaining. Yet there's a lot that I'm not so sure about.

When you put together the masses and ask them to rate things, you'll get opinions in the middle of the bell curve. I haven't yet seen a social networking site that shows both the mean rating and the standard deviation (a measure of how widely dispersed the opinions are) of something. There's a lot of mediocrity in those ratings.

I'm also not a social animal; I don't get much enjoyment out of just linking with people. I already have a few close friends and am happy with those few. I'm not in the dating scene, so there's no attraction there. Also, when I want to know about something, I use the tools available to me (Google, especially) and find it on my own, often more efficiently than I can find it through a site that aggregates blogs, websites, tags, podcasts, or whatever. I also have no trouble keeping up with the few websites and feeds that interest me. I don't need a ton of stuff delivered automatically to my computer every day; that's just not the way I do things. I flit from one thing to another, only a very few of which have anything to do with a computer. It's like having too many magazine subscriptions and feeling pressured to read all of that stuff.

I also don't know how much networking really goes on. The sponsors of these sites are really, though they don't say it, interested in how often you visit and how long you stay, so they can charge more for advertising. If you come to a site repeatedly to add widgets, write blogs, upload photos, change templates, customize a blog, etc., that's as good to the site as it would be if you did none of that and actually communicated with other people. And I recognize that there are many people who do enjoy lots of socializing, connecting, networking, meeting people, etc. I have no problem with that; this is just my own personal slant.

On the positive side, the technology itself is just mind-blowing at times, and I do look at a few feeds and read the NY Times online, and download the occasional podcast for listening. I had a palace-ful of fun doing these tasks and exploring these tools and places. Some of the tools are a little useful, and perhaps I'll use a couple here and there--the experience was far from being a waste of my time. In fact, I'm very grateful to those who got us involved, did all the background work, set up the tech fair, invested the organization's time and resources, all to help us be better at our jobs and in our lives.

Podcasts On The Waters

I looked over 7 podcast aggregating/searching sites. They begin to all look alike after awhile, but there are distinct differences, or at least categories. Podscope is a new approach, in which the search for a podcast searches the actual transcripts of podcasts. I found this not to be very helpful, since my searches led me to podcasts that weren't about the topic I was interested; they just had somebody mention that word in passing. Too broad, unless you're looking for a very specific sentence of name or something like that. Not good for general topics.

Podcast.net and Podcast directory seem similar to each other, though the latter is a little more graphically interesting and seems to have more categories. Some of the sites I visited seemed to be for searching the web generally, while others highlighted the podcasts that they had brought under their umbrella. In the latter case, the emphasis is on selecting a topic or general category (e.g., technology, politics, comedy), seeing what's being offered, and selecting something to listen to/download.

Juice and Yahoo! emphasize their ability to deliver subscribed feeds automatically. You subscribe to a series (a radio show or podcast show, for example, or something from NPR that is a series) and each succeeding episode is "delivered" to your computer automatically when it is available. If the series is already complete and all episodes recorded, you'll get the whole ball of wax.

I think I like podcasts, as long as I can separate the wheat from the chaff. I've listened to Buddhist dharma talks (lessons on how to improve different aspects of one's Buddhist practice), syndicated radio shows (Al Franken), music, etc. The real benefit comes when you have an mp3 player. I never ever want to sit in front of my computer and listen to something for 45 minutes, nor do I want to sit with the hot laptop on my lap doing the same. The mp3 player allows me to take this stuff anywhere--which is a great deal (it's generally free once you have the player), given the fact that I can't get any radio reception where I live and do not want to subcribe to satellite radio.

Oh YouTube, You

Where are all of those videos coming from? Am I the only person on the globe who is not making videos (since I don't have a camcorder or any friends who own such a device, this would be quite a feat)? If any of you have ever made use of Stumble Upon (a very entertaining way of randomly finding websites of selected varieties that have been vetted by others), you'll know that about 1 in 5 stumbles leads to a youtube video. To me, YouTube is simply entertainment. You browse, you listen and watch, you chuckle or shrug, you move on. I'm a little over-YouTubed, to be frank about it. And I'm tired of looking at other people's cute pet photos and videos. I guess I'm waiting for the next great thing.

Speaking of which, I hadn't been to GoogleEarth for some time, and I went back to find it easier to use, more full than ever of little gems, and sporting some breathtaking "flying" graphics to get you from one place to another. I was even able to see our two dogs in the backyard when I zoomed in on our address using the satellite photo feature.

Lots Of Widgets and Thingy's

Take a look along the right-hand border of my blog to see the cool things I've added lately. My most recent foray involves linking to del.icio.us and technorati and bloglines so that people reading the blog can link to what I'm reading and watching in terms of blogs and rss feeds. I've also added a button whereby a reader can add my blog to their blog list in bloglines. The real, big, earth-shaking, universe-expanding, global, basic philosphical question is: Is there anybody out there anyway?

I'm also going through a process of publishing a book on Lulu, which is an amazing site indeed.

Web 2.0 Award Is A Lulu

I went through a number of the Web 2.0 Awards, and had some difficulty deciding which one to glom onto. There's really serious stuff like Library 2.0, some useful things like Craiglist (though its usefulness may be somewhat of an illusion in many markets), and some silly places like one in which you can share your cocktail inventions with others of similar interest (whom I'll probably meet at a fender bender out on the highway).

In the end, I chose Lulu, for personal reasons. Lulu is a website on which members publish books for free--sort of. When I say publish, I mean either downloaded books or actually hard copies (hardbound or soft cover) with cover art and all the rest. The author sets a price with the help of the site and pays only when a copy is sold. And the site is also a marketing venue for authors. Visitors can search for books by genre, read author-written blurbs about individual titles, look at the cover art, then buy the book as a download or actual book (shipped to purchaser). Payment is made to Lulu through credit card or PayPal, and a check is issued quarterly to the author.

Since there is no upfront cost, any dreamers with home-grown novels and a computer can upload the Word document, choose a format (i.e., size and cover type), upload cover art (or use pre-made templates), set the price and wait (and wait and wait and wait and wait) for someone to read their blurb and bite on the hook to the tune of 10-20 bucks. It's really fabulous.

I'm one of those closet authors myself. I have a humorous mystery and a long and serious novel sitting inertly on my hard drive. All I have to do is get up enough gumption to write up an alluring description, design a cover, and whammo, I can sit and wait just as I did when I sent queries to dozens of agents.

I recommend that anybody who does this task in a cursory way (picks a winner, writes about it, and forgets about the other winners) is missing out on some bodacious places (that almost rhymes...) on the Internet highway.

My First Online Document

This is my first attempt at creating a document using an online word processing program. I've read about these, and they have some good features, especially the ability to access one's documents from any computer with Internet access. For those who do a lot of work on the fly, this is a great feature. I understand that there are some limitations on functionality as compared to Word, for example, but how many of us actually use most of those features, eh? I don't see many hands going up out there.

Well, the fact that I see this document on my blog must mean that my effort to publish it to the blog was successful. I may not need this service, but it's a great way to link different people on the run together and allow them to tear apart each other's documents while sitting in airports, working at home at 2 o'clock in the morning, sitting in Starbucks, and visiting the relatives in Hackensack.

LibraryThing

LibraryThing is yet another way to network with strangers--this time with the goal of sharing books you've read and liked (or hated) with others. The use of tags helps get other users to find your selections when they search at random. Being a lover of books and a lover of expressing my opinion to an imaginary audience, I of course enjoyed adding a few of my favorite titles. Will I add more? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's all a matter of time, which, when I look down at my hands, doesn't seem to be on them. I did put a widgety thing on my blog so that visitors can see randomly chosen samples of the books I included in LibraryThing. Way cool, n'est-ce pas?

Sandbox Wiki

Done. I hardly felt anything.

Wacky Wiki

Wikis are a very good, if underused tool. A wiki does not have to be like wikipedia, a semi-authoritative compendium like an encyclopedia. Think of it as a multi-user word processing program with easy organizing and searchability functions. It's a communication tool, an instruction manual, a listing of educational programs given and feedback on those programs. Wikis are hotly debated because of the possibility that contributors may provide incorrect information that does not go through a formal review process prior to publication. In the old style, people would write things up in Word and send them through email to an authority or arbiter. The arbiter would review and edit, then take responsibility (or delegate it) for publishing the stuff in print or on the web. There is probably some truth to this criticism. However, even centrally published info can have mistakes and inaccuracies, and it certainly can and often does get out of date without anyone updating it. So the platform itself is neither good nor bad; it is only as good as the input.

Libraries have been doing some innovative things with wikis, though it is hard to tell how successful these initiatives are or, if intended for use by the public, how frequently they are used. Some are using wikis to post instructional information (accessible through the library website) on how to use the library, the library website, library services, etc.; how to get to the branches, info about each branch, etc. Others are using wikis to gather information together as syllabi for in-house educational sessions. St. Joseph County Public Libary (midwest) has a wiki that allows customers to browse through info resources by topic. Some use them instead of blogs to share and amass opinions on books and films. At least one system is encouraging librarians to make entries about how they handled specific reference questions, so that other librarians can search by keyword and see how those topics were handled.

It gets back to the same question: Are these resources, once created, being used consistently? Are customers viewing and using them? Are we straining to provide info and services that customers are not going to go after? I don't know. I noticed that systems most committed to this concept have dedicated staff to coordinate the wikis. Are we ready for that kind of commitment?

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is such a big thing that it's hard to make one all-encompassing statement about it. It's a way of using the web that opens up the possibility of greater expression of creativity, more customization by the masses, more interconnections, more cutesy animation... And more junk.

From the entertainment, geek-a-thon perspective, all of these widgets and add-ons and links, and third-party tools are major league fun. Pretending that one is a pundit or that the world is interested in one's personal little acre of creativity is also fun. It's the latest parlor game between friends when not sitting in the same parlor. But all of this is entertainment when it comes right down to it. Is entertainment bad? Of course not.

Except in a limited way, this is not my kind of entertainment, except for the joy of fiddling with cool computerized tricks and trappings. I am not a highly social animal, so I don't want more venues in which to socialize. I don't want the world's kudos, so I'm not motivated to strut my talent on the world's stage. I can appreciate other people's inventions (Wow, isn't that cool?) but only in small doses. I do, I admit, want to know what the rest of the world is doing. By and large, unfortunately, I find that it's doing very little of interest most of the time. With all the new types of search engines with user rating of searches and new ways of viewing results, I still find that Google's old-fashioned long list of hits and bits of text from those hits gets me where I want to go fastest with the least fuss. Google's gotten pretty good at ranking those hits, with new tweaks coming on an almost continual, if invisible basis.

And here's another thing. I've learned over my life that most other people's opinions about things do not reflect my own sensibilities. Therefore, I pay little attention to the man on the street's views about specific books (Amazon, e.g.), movies (IMDB, e.g.), blenders, recipes, online vendors, etc. I'm not saying that those opinions are less valid than mine, just that I know who I can rely on to provide opinions that can guide me accurately. For example, I tend to agree with the movie critics in the NY Times and New Yorker magazine (though not always), but not those in the Baltimore Sun, the LA Times, the Washington Post, People Magazine, Time Magazine, and on and on. And if I want to know which blender to buy, Consumer Reports still has the clearest evaluation criteria, the most careful research, and values that I agree with (and if I don't they give me plenty of info to draw my own conclusions).

So, it's exciting, entertaining, fun to fiddle with, but it's not doing a lot for me beyond that. (But keep twiddling and I'll keep watching.)

Now for Library 2.0. A vague term referencing a vague term, but we know what is meant in a general way.

Here is what one pundit says about the subject:

"With these approaches, we take our existing wealth of data, and we make it work much harder. We begin to break down the internal silos of the separate systems within a single library, and we connect those components to one another, and to related components and services far beyond the building. At a technical level, we make it possible for searchers to be presented with choices to view online, borrow locally, request from afar, buy or sell as appropriate to their needs and circumstance. Technically, it is possible, and we are doing it with standards and specifications shared across a range of sectors, rather than inventing our own library-specific standards once again. Can our institutional procedures, and our antiquated notions of 'membership' keep up?

Libraries were once the guardians of knowledge, and the point at which those seeking existing knowledge would engage with it. With the rise of Google, Amazon, Wikipedia and more, there is an oft-stated fear that many users, much of the time, will bypass processes and institutions that they perceive to be slow, unresponsive, unappealing and irrelevant in favour of a more direct approach to services offered by others that just might be 'good enough' for what they need to do." (Click HERE for the link) It sounds good, but we have to think this through. What we are learning and using in the Library 2.0 initiative, the "23 things" as it were, is way beyond what 99% of my branch's customers know about. Sure, they're doing YouTube, MySpace, Massively Multiplayer Online games and such, but they're not making use of more than a tiny fraction of what's possible. It's the way it's always been with word processing and spreadsheets: For the most part, we ignoring most of the functionality built into these programs, because we meet our needs with the basics. But there are some real and positive elements to Library 2.0. For one thing, doing things from home without having to come to a building is a good feature for many customers. A few use our databases (which are not massively Web 2.0 at this time) from home, but not many. And this isn't California, where it seems most of this stuff originates and circulates. BUT--over time, succeeding age brackets will be comfortable downloading movies and recorded books without coming into the library, and some may even learn to contact us for homework help (why don't more do so now?). Maybe the most important thing is that we have to have the right LOOK for the right generation of users. Right now our website has a clean, attractive look, but it doesn't look very 2.0. How do 22 year olds view it (or do they?). And another question: Will people continue to want what we offer regardless of the look or process to get to it? In the end, it is the content and not the form that matters.

Some Sites I Like

Here are some blogs I especially like:

New York Times on the web
Union of Concerned Scientists (great if you want to know the real objective truth about scientific issues in the news)
Wired.com (Good, well written, interesting technie news)

More in my next post.

Downloads Are Still Books

Now, downloadable books. That's a useful thing at least. Great in fact. You can put it on your mp3 player (but not your Apple IPod or many other players you'd like to own or have already) and take it to the woods in your shirt pocket or strapped to your arm...As long as those damned buds fit into your ears. We've listened to recorded books while driving on long trips, lying in a tent at night at a campsite, while tooling around the kitchen--but not while gardening, since the cord keeps getting yanked out of your ears or getting in the way of your weeding tools.

My only criticism is that, again, most mp3 players don't play secure WMA or otherwise don't work with these files. This limits the pool of users, since most people won't by players primarily for this purpose. In a way, downloadable books are better than streaming movies, because those movies often can only be viewed on your computer (Netflix, the library's downloadable DVDs). When streaming movies can go directly to your big-screen TV without a $150 cable, that will be an advance.

So give us more titles to choose from, guys, and Overdrive will really be great.

Delicious?

Well, delicious. I've looked at it before, but it doesn't do much for me. Having said that, for sheer entertainment it's as fun as Stumble Upon, Yoono, or other such sites, including Flickr, YouTube, and others--where you can just stagger around and find lots of interesting and entertaining things without hardly trying. Yet it has no practical use for me. I'm not really interested for the most part in what other people find interesting. I have enough to interest me just straight from my head. Also, I find that if you link into too many of the social networking sites you tend to confuse yourself, get into the battle of the toolbars (how do you manage Yoono, Stumble Upon, De.lici.ous, Snap, and all the other toolbars at the same time?). In the end, you have to choose a favorite tool and stick with it--maybe two tools if you want to get most of your entertainment on the web (doesn't everybody?). I wonder if, below the surface, there's really just a battle to get dollars through advertising revenue, get more hits from us peons, go public, sell out to Google or Microsoft, make mega millions. Is it really about us the users? This society and its power/money brokers have us running around chasing our tails, leaving us very little time to actually figure out who to vote for, what is true, and how we should be living our lives: YouTube, Instant Messaging, Google, Social Networking, hundreds of channels, mp3 and Ipods, the latest PlayStation, DDR, computer solitaire, web porn, satellite radio, working on our kids' stellar resumes starting when they're a week old so that they can get into Harvard, working twice as many hours to pay for our McMansion and spending twice as long commuting to and from it, etc. etc. What if we just shut all that off for a week and searched for some actual factual news about some real things? We'd be much better citizens, I'll tell you that. Climate change isn't a reality until we see it on the Weather Channel. End of rant.

technorati kamikaze

I've been signed up with technorati for about a year now, but I haven't visited it in a while. I checked back as part of this program and found that the tracking tags I set up all that time ago have netted very little indeed: beekeeping, cheesemaking, solar, and citizenre (a company that promises to lease solar electric systems installed on your roof). What I did get was not of high quality for the most part. In fact, that's the problem I have with this type of site, Rollyo, technorati, some of the others. You don't get a lot of quality as compared to sitting down at the computer and doing a focused search. I know these things are supposed to help you, but at least for my needs, the promise is just that at this point.

Anyway, check out www.gizmoz.com, a site that let's you create an avatar using your own headshot photo, which it then animates in funny ways. Beware, though: it's not flattering!

This morning I looked at the Snap search engine. I'm not sure if it's more useful than Google, but it feels fresher, crisper, more visual. Maybe I'll try it for a day and see if I like it.

Rollyo Woe

Well, I experimented with Rollyo, and now my computer is inert silicon and plastic. I tried a search configuration I called "Reviews" in order to search for book reviews on selected sites: NY Times, Rolling Stone, LA Times, and NY Review of Books. I ran a search for "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner. I got hundreds of hits, 98 percent of which were on the NY Times site. I think that every page with their bestseller list on it (every page in Book Review, maybe) showed up separately all the way back through the archives. There were hundreds of useless "hits" in the search results. I did better searching those other publications one at a time. The biggest problem was that Rollyo doesn't seem to let you choose which page of results to view next--I think you just have to page through one at a time until you get to page 745 with the result you're looking for. I'll have to check that again.

The biggest problem was that IE7 kept crashing as I tried to create another custom search tool for "News".

Also, I find that I rarely if ever want to search only so many sites. Normally, either I know exactly where I want to go as the best place for certain info (e.g., I always rely on NY Times book and film reviews because the reviewers best match my taste and opinions) or else I'm casting a wide net looking for something I haven't been able to find (e.g., a recipe for making Double Gloucester cheese that isn't on any of the sites I normally get recipes from). So, it's not that useful to me so far, though I'm going to try and rethink how I do things.

It also occurs to me that if I limit my search to a selected group of websites, then I'm going to miss new sources of info. Also, as Google continually improves its search engine (numerous tweaks a week, according to Google sources), I get what I'm looking for in Google by using good searching techninque, carefully selecting words and relying on quotation marks.

Technology Rant

I'm miffed about mp3 players, Windows XP, Dell, Overdrive downloadable books, and the folks at Creative.

Our Samsung player died while we were on vacation. We were in our tent at the campsite one evening, listening to a downloaded recorded book, when the player died in the middle of a crucial scene. Even the Geek Squad at Best Buy couldn't resuscitate it. So when we got home, I set out to buy a replacement. Only a few models are guaranteed to play secure WMA files (i.e., as verified by Overdrive or whomever). I learned this to my dismay a few years ago when I purchased a player that supposedly played WMA DRM files, but didn't play downloaded recorded books. I had to return that player and by the Samsung.

Anyway, none of the "guaranteed" models were available at local stores, so I ordered the reasonably priced ($50) Creative Zen Nano Plus from J & R Electronics' online store. (How can Creative and Apple both have players named Nano? It's all about bad blood over patent infringement.) I received the player, plugged it in to my laptop at home and...it didn't work. The computer recognized the device, but didn't assign a drive letter. Since the Nano Plus is actually a modified flash drive, the computer should see it as a removable drive. I tried the device on my desktop PC and still it didn't work. I called Creative. They gave me two things to try: assigning a drive letter manually (couldn't get there because the device was hung up in limbo and actually kept freezing the computer... Couldn't shut down or boot up with the device attached, let alone assign a drive letter.) and altering something in the registry. Both failed. Then they told me the device was defective. I returned the player to J & R, who sent a new one. It also had the same problem, suggesting that it wasn't a faulty device, but something in the communication between the device and my computers (yes, both of them). After 5 more hours on the phone with Creative and attempting their recommended fixes, the problem still remained. Their technical expert said: "Maybe it's voodoo or something, but maybe this device is damaged too." He suggested I try it on a third computer, this time at work. I did and...it worked fine on our HPs at work. So I've narrowed it down to my specific computers at home (a Dell Inspiron 6000 and a Dell Dimensions 3000). I searched the web for fixes, but all the advice was the same as the unsuccessful advice given to me by Creative, the Dell website, and the Microsoft website.

This is not an isolated incident. My web search suggested that many people are having the exact same problem with this device. Others say they love it and it works fine. It's a maddening feature of the tech world--too little standardization. Remember when you bought a TV, turned it on, select a channel and sat down to watch--and that was it? (No, not that far back, when you'd have to get up repeatedly to fix the vertical hold.)

Image Generator

I've used a lot of online image generators to entertain my CyberClub participants. They're usually simple, cute, funny, etc.--and they can take home a printed copy to throw out later.

I poked around a few for 23 journeys, though, and amused myself for awhile. Many of them are myriad variations on the same theme--a funny saying that you add to a sign, button, billboard, mailbox, or whatever. There are, though, logo generators (simple and limited to a few parameters) that may actually be helpful to someone wishing to spice up a homemade website, MySpace account, etc.

Library Blogs

Well, there's no shortage of blogs by, about, for, and helpful to librarians. I've looked at three sources: libdex.com/weblogs.html, www.ipl.org/div/blogs, and www.blogwithoutalibrary.net. Chock-a-block full of information, though sometimes you have to search far and wide to find a blog worth reading.

The weakest of the above sources is libdex.com (though it allows one-click adding of feeds). I found myself wading through posts that were just program schedules (useful for those library systems but not for me), veiled advertisements, chat threads by another name, discontinued or hardly ever updated, aimed at students of a particular college or public school (and cryptic to the rest of us), trivial, etc. Overall, I didn't find it worth my time to browse through all the garbage.

The ipl blogs were much, much better. I found links to podcasts (try MobyLives Radio!), useful and interesting reviews of books and films that added to my Readers' Advisory knowledge, and other things. Again, though, it took a little digging to find something that actually related directly to the job of being a librarian. Yet I did find things. One blog was a step-by-step guide to implementing an IM reference librarian service, while another one (by Amanda Etches-Johnson at McMasters University) was a "rant about whatever's on my mind" blog but with lots of interesting and valuable content (it spoke to me).

The third blog source is actually one person's blog, I think (blogwithoutalibrary). It was also quite interesting and useful at the same time. I found a great Flickr category there: screen shots of web 2.0 error messages. You should take a look at it--it's very funny.

Really Simple Post

I've been using RSS feeds for a long time now through my web browsers at home and work. Unlike the person who wrote the blog post about RSS (that we were directed to read--very informative!), I am content with only a limited amount of monitoring of topics and places on the web. As it is, I already spend too much time at it. My approach (at home) has been to bookmark The New York Times and The Baltimore Sun, then monitor feeds from Scientific American and Wired.com. I'm interested in lots of things, but I've found that if I set up automatic feeds about beekeeping, cheesemaking, environmental issues, etc. etc., I'd spend half my life reading things that don't interest me. When I want to know something specific, I go looking for it. The feeds I mentioned above are pure entertainment.

Having said all that, I'm having a blast working through the RSS feed suggestions on our HCPL blog (is that where they are?). I've signed up with Bloglines and have been creating a list of places to monitor, including Flickr (I'm following photos tagged with Ithaca, NY). I also made use of the feed search engine recommended there; again, I'm not likely to continue following all this, but it's fun to see how it all works.

Flickr Widgets and Such

I've tried a few of the Flickr add-ons created by third parties. Now this is what I mean about worlds of creativity out there. Flickstr is a kind of Academy Awards of Flickr--Lists and access to the most popular all-time photos in Flickr. There are some remarkable images (careful, some may be offended by some images). Also, I used a Flickr feature to create HTML code for displaying the photos I'd previously uploaded to Flickr. I copied the code and pasted it into my Blogger blog (which you can all see if you look at my blog postings). I just love these things. So much better than reality TV, I can assure you.

England Photos

About the Lifelong Learning Training Module

Well, I'm afraid I was not impressed with this training module (the 7-1/2 elements of lifelong learning). The information was both too obvious and at the same time not getting at the heart of the matter. I believe that lifelong learning, or simply "curiosity" about the world, is an attitude more than it is a set of learned steps and signed documents. If I have an attitude that the world is fascinating in every aspect of its being, if I can't get enough of new knowledge and skills, if I'm always drawn to try a new restaurant or dish, to try making cheese, to keeping bees, to reading lots of things on the Web, to stopping off at four or five media news and info sources every day, and on and on, then I'm a lifelong learner. If it's a chore, a responsibility, a means for fighting off Alzheimer's, something to get me a free mp3 player, or something I'm supposed to do for work, then it'll never take. Lots of people exercise for three days or jog a mile twice, then give it up. You have to have a passion for learning if you are going to do it--and if you have that passion, you don't need instructions on how to learn. It is all around you if you have the curiosity to look for it.

The Journey to the Land of Flickr

Flickr is a great example of web 2.0. I have never needed any of the photos on Flickr for anything; I just love browsing them, sometimes by subject, sometimes just by going to the Explore tab and going wherever my fingers take me. There's so much talent and beauty in the world that we never saw before web 2.0. Now the obscure mass of people of the world have a million outlets for their little bits of genius and artistic ability and just plain serendipity. Is the world richer now or what?

Just for fun, I uploaded a few photos from Linda's and my trip to England in 2006. See if you can find them.

Enormous Excitement

I have read through the material about Web 2.0 and the 23 things, and I am both excited and impressed. Hooray for Maryland and any other state/region/county/city participating. According to Raymond Kurzweil (Google this and find out about him if you don't know him already), the rate of technology advancement is exponential-exponential (figure that one out), which means it gets faster at an ever-increasing rate (in layman's terms). As human beings we can choose either to let the wave pass over us and continue on down the beach, leaving us lying there in ignorance, or get on our mental surfboard and see where it all leads us. It'll definitely be someplace exciting.