Curious Veronica Finds Some Friends

I'd wager that most reference librarians are curious people. Spend any time with us on the reference desk and you'll find us hunting for answers long after the customer has left. Even when the question has come to one of our colleagues, our curiousity is whetted and we start the quest.

That being said, Project Play has done wonders for me in terms of curiousity. Once I'm started with a question or a thought, I move right along. But sometimes I need that initial goose to get me started. A few years ago a friend and I took the train from Chicago to Flagstaff. Once there we spent time at the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and various other places. And as we travelled, questions arose. How do water towers work? (That one on the train ride out). What's the difference between ravens and crows? (This came at the Grand Canyon). Since my companion was a librarian as well, you can guess she came up with a plan. She made note of our questions and when we got back home we researched the answers.

That's what Project Play has done for me. It's helped set me on course to find the answers, or if not the answers, at least the beginnings of how to think about the resources we've studied. By posing the questions, you've jump-started my thinking. And for that I thank the designers of the play and the players.

All Mashed Up with Nowhere to Go

I love the idea of mash-ups and I generally think the ones I've seen are clever or amusing or even useful. The problem is in coming up with ways in which I could use a mashup in my working world (or even in my private one).

I think of this as being like cooking. In general I have a small list of dishes I can make without consulting a recipe. These are things I've made many times and because of my familiarity with them I'm able to change things up and still have some success. These would be the mash-ups I'm knowledgeable enough to improvise and create. In the library world they'd include the things talked about in Project Play. Library catalogs that add data from LibraryThing or maps that combine census information with geographic layout. Both are familiar to me and could be possible suggestions I'd make for my own workplace.

The problem is, that list of known mixes is small. And when I venture out, I get the same results as with my cooking. If I don't know the recipe for something, I need the recipe. I'm not intuitive enough (or experienced enough) to move past the recipe. When I most frequently err on the side of adding too many ingredients to the point my dish is inedible. But more often, I can't think of things to add. I can't brainstorm it on my own.

That's what mashups seem like to me. I know there's a world of possibilities out there but because my knowledge is so limited, I can't envision them. I welcome the chance to explore them more because familiarity will hopefully bring some creativity. But as it is, unless someone gives me the exact recipe for mashing something together, I'm probably not going to be able to come up with it.

Just What are those InterTubes?

Back in the early stages of my blog I made my first attempt to embed (sounds so militaristic!) a YouTube video of Elvis Costello singing my theme song in the blog. And I found the task pretty simple. This pointed up how easy it would be to include this kind of content in library endeavors. The handy thing about YouTube is that it serves as the host for all the videos your library might want to create. This means less server space used on your end. As an example one of the MPL branches did a video about a music program they had for kids. Once the video was done, how easy it would have been to load it onto YouTube and make it available on the library's website. What a nice way to promote your library, not only to your own community but to the wider web world. Think of a fundraising effort you may be undertaking and making a short film to sell the idea. The possibilities are immense.

All my cogitating aside, I'm not going to embed a video from YouTube today. Instead I'm going to embed an episode of my very favorite SF show from the new movie/tv service called Hulu. Hulu in their own words: "Hulu offers full-length episodes of not only current hit shows like The Simpsons and The Office but also classics like The Incredible Hulk, Miami Vice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in some cases, as with Arrested Development, Firefly, and Friday Night Lights, we have every episode ever aired. Our expanded library of full-length movies has something for everyone, from The Usual Suspects to The Big Lebowski, Me, Myself & Irene, Mulholland Drive and (one of my personal favorites) Three Amigos!." Their movie selection is still pretty small but I'm thrilled with the tv shows on offer.

And without further ado here is one of my favs (and with this tip for embedding - paste the embed code into a Word document first otherwise the full code doesn't always come through):

Casting for the Screen

Of all the things we've looked at this semester (and we've looked at some fun things), I think screencasting is one of the most potentially useful for libraries. Being able to wed sound and slides in an instructional way is perfect. Screenshots with a voice telling you where you would click and what to look for is great for the learners who learn visually and those who learn aurally. Think of talking someone through setting up an email account and how often you do that in a week or month. I know some thought a podcast would be the way to go, but a screencast does it one better. The uses are limitless for instructional purposes.

And to prove it, I'll admit that this week's shiny object wasn't limited to the screencasting software. I was also thrilled with Cueprompter. Just seeing the demo via screencast gave me ideas for future presentations. Nice.

Are You Talking to Me?

I've really enjoyed the podcasts I've listened to, but as with everything else in the wide, wide world of the web, there are just too many of them. I find myself weeks behind in listening to the ones that interest me and then just skip them. I've enjoyed All About Books from NET Radio (an NPR station) and the Atlantic Free Press always has something interesting to say, but... Where do I find the time? In theory I like the idea of using my Ipod, but in practice that takes too much time too. So...

For libraries I have thought it useful to have a podcast that walks a patron through a process. Think of museums and the walkmans they give you to listen to as you walk through an exhibition. That would be helpful for larger libraries in a physical sense. But also helpful would be online podcasts to help a patron search for job sites or walk them through setting up a Yahoo email account. Would they solve everything? Probably not, but they could certainly become a tool in our arsenal.

My Space or Yours?

I used to be more of a proponent for libraries creating a presence in these social realms but in thinking about how much libraries should participate, I kept coming back to a comment I read somewhere. Could have been on a blog or in an email or something a project player said. I don't remember that, but the comment stuck.

Their analogy went something like this: Having a library presence on MySpace and Facebook or other mostly social networks was like being a librarian walking into a bar and giving a presentation about library services. Certainly you may find customers who've never used the library or don't know about your services, but are they people who want to be found? Do they want to hear all about your library while they're socializing?

I'm not arguing against all efforts to network in these social settings. We do visit groups to tell them all about the library when we're asked - the key is being asked. But I don't expect much from them either. What I do argue is that there are networking places that may be a better fit for libraries. If you want to catch people socially, how about meeting them through books on GoodReads?

Am I off the mark here?

Keeping a List and Checking it Twice

I'll admit that while I think Jott and Remember the Milk are cool online gadgets, they don't do much for me. The issue is probably in how many things they do rather then in how few. Both have lots of fun aspects and with a little more exploring I'd probably find even more, but when I need to list something, I really just want the list - on the back of a bank envelope or a scrap of paper usually. In the past I have played around with Ta-Da Lists but even that - which is a little more basic in its service - is one of the online tools that I've left behind.

I will keep these sites in mind and will perhaps come up with a use for them in the future. But for now I think I'll stick to the scraps of paper I can stick in a pocket.

Writing the Web Way

I've been using Google Docs for a while now and have been happy overall. In the past, at my library I might find myself on any of four or five different desks and my work tended to get spread out. If I wanted to work on a particular project it always took me a minute to figure out which machine or floppy disc I'd stored it on. When we first got USB's, my problem was mostly solved. They hold a lot of data, are small and portable, and can be plugged in to all the machines. But...I still had to remember to unplug it at this machine so that I'd have it handy for the next. And if the PC I was on didn't have the application I needed for my project, then I was out of luck. To add insult to injury, I lost the darn thing (I think I left a pocket on my backpack unzipped!) and there went all my work. Luckily most of it was also backed up on the PC at my desk. Unluckily my updates weren't all as updated as they could be.

Given my experience I decided to give Google Docs a try. Voila! Problems solved - for the most part. Is Google Docs perfect? No. It sometimes has some wonky editing and formatting. And experimenting with the slideshow in this week's coursework made me realize it can freeze up as well (as Pinky said). And transferring back and forth between Google Docs and Word and other applications doesn't always go as smoothly as I'd like (formatting again). The other reservation I have relates to the security. Though I love the ease of access and use, I don't include any documents that are confidential or extremely private. Do I think Google Docs is secure? Sure. But only in as much as anything is secure out there on the big bad web.

But small issues aside, it's been great to have my documents available whichever machine I happen to be on. I like the blending of blogging tools with the word processing. I also appreciate the ability to share documents with co-workers for collaborative projects.

As a final note, may I suggest that those who are new to this Google tool check out some of the other tools also available. I'm regularly using the Google Calendar as well.

And on the Eighth Day, God Created Instant Messaging

I didn't have much luck with Meeboing Me, but was able to successfully chat with a co-worker. Of course our chat went something like this:

Me: hey, I'm chatting with you
Her: cool
Me: look I've changed the color of my font
Her: me too and look I'm typing it with my fav font
Me: cool man i see why people give up on the caps and use lol's

Well, you probably get the picture. First chats are always about as edifying as that, but having practiced a little bit now I can definitely see the benefits of connecting with co-workers or the public using the easy Meebo interface. Madison might use it as a way for the lone reference worker in a branch to get additional assistance for tough questions if the staff at other locations were online in Meebo. For the public it's got a couple of benefits, the first would be the easy access to staff if we started using it. The second could be to use Meebo to cover their chat if they're not able to get into Yahoo or AOL from the public machines (which are usually a mixed bag in terms of the updates).

Good opener for semester 2 and thanks to the Sloganizer for my blog post title.