Sunday, June 27, 2010
Development of software for a children's online social space
The International Children's Digital Libraries project hosted at the Maryland University has developed a social software program aimed at creating an online children's social community. The front end of the site is a colorful and user friendly environment that allows the user to easily choose the language and type of desired book. The website directs the user to pick the age group appropriate books the user is interested in as well as what the user wants the book to do for them. Meaning do you want the book to make you happy or scared. It allows the user to choose what color or what size the book should be. The user interface is easy to navigate. The designers have done a great job of creating a social environment that is usable by the focus group which is of course children. It was a pleasure to search the catalog for books of all sorts. There are over 1,000 books listed in 158 different languages. The URL is www.icdlbooks.org
Friday, June 25, 2010
Drupal
The LIS 2600 lecture for this week discussed the content Management system, Drupal. It is a back-end system that be used to manage all sorts of internet activity such as blogs, discussion threads, Wikis, files sharing and RSS feeds. Since it is open source software there have been many modulars written to extend the capabilities of the Drupal core.
What I found most interesting was how a few organizations were using Drupal to wrap around library content using SOPACS. A social library environment is created for users who have an account on the library system. This allows the user to participate in library associated activities beyond the usual search of the catalog or the reservation of a book online.
Drupal gives the administrator the ability to create a site suited to the focus of his/her particular project.
What I found most interesting was how a few organizations were using Drupal to wrap around library content using SOPACS. A social library environment is created for users who have an account on the library system. This allows the user to participate in library associated activities beyond the usual search of the catalog or the reservation of a book online.
Drupal gives the administrator the ability to create a site suited to the focus of his/her particular project.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Social OPAC
When I began the library science studies at Pitt I had my own idea what librarianship was all about. I had created my own "library world" in which librarians were the rulers of the universe and I wanted to be one of them.
The more I learn about librarianship in the 21st Century I realize that my ideas must change. A good example is the use of social network software in conjunction with library cataloging and searching. I was not able to think about relinquishing bibliographic control to the masses.
I am now convinced that the "mash up" of library bibliographic info, social data and interactive conversation on "favorites" and the "best of" lists is one of the very important ways that libraries will move forward and become a player in the information game.
The audio from the Library 2.0 Gang on the idea of a social OPAC was impelling.
Weinberger's Miscellaneous makes more sense to me after reading/listening/learning about the products that organizations in Canada and US have developed and are continuing to tweak such as the Canadian, Bibliocommons and the US, SOPAC software for library Internet interface.
The advantages of how such software draws users into the library environment was obvious, but not so obvious is how the use of this type of software might change the internal workings of the library (or how the utilization of personnel might be changed).
I believe it is an exciting time to be a librarian. Exciting and Exacting.
The more I learn about librarianship in the 21st Century I realize that my ideas must change. A good example is the use of social network software in conjunction with library cataloging and searching. I was not able to think about relinquishing bibliographic control to the masses.
I am now convinced that the "mash up" of library bibliographic info, social data and interactive conversation on "favorites" and the "best of" lists is one of the very important ways that libraries will move forward and become a player in the information game.
The audio from the Library 2.0 Gang on the idea of a social OPAC was impelling.
Weinberger's Miscellaneous makes more sense to me after reading/listening/learning about the products that organizations in Canada and US have developed and are continuing to tweak such as the Canadian, Bibliocommons and the US, SOPAC software for library Internet interface.
The advantages of how such software draws users into the library environment was obvious, but not so obvious is how the use of this type of software might change the internal workings of the library (or how the utilization of personnel might be changed).
I believe it is an exciting time to be a librarian. Exciting and Exacting.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Omeka
The Omeka project was actually fun. It is wonderful that you can create a collection of information that is so explicit. I am sure that there is a set of rules to create meaningful metadata with which I am unfamiliar, but it was a great learning experience trying to imagine the best tag which would allow myself or someone else to find the information.
My entries haven't shown up on the collection list. I hope that is a technical glitch that will be fixed with out my having to go back and redo the work. There is enough of that already.
My entries haven't shown up on the collection list. I hope that is a technical glitch that will be fixed with out my having to go back and redo the work. There is enough of that already.
Friday, June 4, 2010
The Magically Shrinking Video
I figured out how to shrink my Zotero video down to size. By altering the embed code that shows the height and width of the video in four places (following the given example). I did this in the edit posts/edit html mode of the 6/1/2010 post.
Things don't look so good at the moment
Oh well, My attempt to embed my Zotero video was not exactly successful. I will get to that in a moment, but first I wanted to post another NPR spot that caught my ear this week.
It was about an article Nicholas Carr wrote for the Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid. Carr believes that reading on the Internet is changing the way our brains assimilate information. He specifically used the reading of a book as an example.
Knowledge and wisdom Carr believes comes from "deep reading" and the Internet thrives on interruptions. He believes that we are losing our power to concentrate.
Who knows maybe one day when we enter the digital world via our home computers we will be faced with this... WARNING: Reading On the Internet is Bad for Your Intelligence
or
Dumb Down: Use the Internet!
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=6-2-2010
It was about an article Nicholas Carr wrote for the Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid. Carr believes that reading on the Internet is changing the way our brains assimilate information. He specifically used the reading of a book as an example.
Knowledge and wisdom Carr believes comes from "deep reading" and the Internet thrives on interruptions. He believes that we are losing our power to concentrate.
Who knows maybe one day when we enter the digital world via our home computers we will be faced with this... WARNING: Reading On the Internet is Bad for Your Intelligence
or
Dumb Down: Use the Internet!
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=6-2-2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Attempt to embed Zotero video
This is my first attempt to embed my Zotero video into my blog. Oh dear!!!
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