Videos

I thought it would be fun to try Dabble to group together a few videos I have enjoyed from YouTube. I tried adding a video two different ways (first without, then with, the toolbar tool they provide), but neither way worked for me. There are tutorials on the Dabble website; not enough time to look at them now.

Jumpcut seems kind of like a Google Docs for video format: it provides a way to share and group-edit videos online. Even if you don't have film to upload to the site, you can create a video from clips available on the site. Strangely, most of the clips I've found so far are still photos; I've seen only one moving clip (of a kayaker). Here's a little test slide show of clips I created with Jumpcut.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a handy way to keep up-to-date with programming you don't want to miss. Awhile back, using iTunes on my home computer, I subscribed to free podcasting from NPR's "This American Life" radio show. I was surprised that the weekly show downloads into my iTunes account only after I have clicked on an icon on my computer; there's a wait of several minutes before the content is actually there to listen to.

This technology could be useful for certain library applications. Staff at San Mateo County Library suggest some interesting possibilities in their Guide to Podcasting, such as services for the visually impaired, book reviews (e.g., Sam W.'s "One Minute Critic"), and poetry readings. Emory University podcasts a Library Survival Guide to help students and faculty learn what's available at the campus library, and how to use the resources there. (For example, their first episode was "a discussion of peer-reviewed journals: what are they, how do you find them, why do you care?")

Working with a blog -- creating posts, even adding photos, audio, and video -- is at a level of difficulty that hasn't seemed overly daunting for an individual. With podcasting, it seems that while recording may be something most of us could do given the equipment and some basic instructions, the jobs of editing and uploading the podcast to a website probably would be handed off to the techies in our midst.

I'm listening! (Audio sites)

Pandora is "radio from the Music Genome Project." You create a "station" based on a favorite song or artist, and Pandora provides a steady stream of music that the genome project's analysis shows to be similar. So you get an interesting mix of songs. Right now, my Beatles station is playing Pink Floyd's "The Wall," which I do like. My "Heart of Gold" station (based on Neil Young's song) just played "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, which I'm not too crazy about. Still, it's interesting to hear Pandora's range of choices. One complaint: maneuvering around in Pandora seems a little clunky, with pages taking a long time to load. I keep finding myself routed to their FAQ page, and unable to back out. Maybe this is a temporary computer glitch?

Last FM seems for the most part to allow you to listen only to parts of songs. It does have some interesting features, though. Type in an artist name, and you get a bunch of information organized under tabs, such as "Bio" and "Similar." The Similar tab for Joan Osborne lists Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Alanis Morissette and others. With Last FM you can create a Pandora-like custom radio station, but you need to download software for that feature.

IMEEM does allow you to select individual songs to listen to all the way through. I wondered if IMEEM is providing this access legally, but didn't find an answer to my question on this website. My colleague Sam thinks it may be that songs have been purchased by other users, who then share them online. Possibly it's legal to share for listening (but not downloading) purposes.

Mango Languages looks interesting, but I couldn't try one of its language lessons without first downloading updated Adobe software. Maybe later, as IT will have to enable the download.

I'd like to try downloading one of the classic, public-domain books available at the The Gutenberg Audio Books Project. Some of the texts here are read by human voices, others use computer-generated sound. The audio formats available vary title by title; I didn't see a way to search for all titles that are available in, for example, the format for iTunes or MP3.

Google Docs

I'm glad to learn about Google Docs. I can see how knowledge about this type of application could become necessary in the workplace in the not-so-distant future. For awhile now, many jobs have required you to know the basics of software such as Word or Excel. The future may be that you'll also have to know how to edit and share these formats online.

This would be an extra challenge for those who are still getting their bearings on such basics as email. Technological change has come so quickly. You just acquire tentative proficiency with one new item, when something even more innovative pops up and gains favor. Many of our patrons are struggling with computer basics. They probably won't have to worry about something like Google Docs this year, but in 4 or 5 years, if they are looking for a job, or submitting a document to a government agency, how much more will they be expected to know?

I must say, though, that Google Docs appears to be very easy to use. It's pretty remarkable, really -- the folks at Google excel at avoiding unnecessary complication in developing their applications. When I first opened up Google Docs, the familiar Word interface put me at ease. So if you know Word, creating a document isn't too scary. Sharing and publishing require familiarity with the Internet, of course, and some online reading to figure out just how it all works.

I typed this entry in Google Docs, as well as a cheat sheet for Word.

"Cool Stuff"

1) Blog Readability Test (BRT)
A couple of other people here have mentioned their blogs got a "Genius" rating from this test, and mine did too. The BRT gives no information about how it assigns rankings, so I suspected that it gives EVERY blog a genius rating. I tested it with three blogs that I thought would be readable by the average high schooler or below. Here are the blogs and their ratings:

--Paris Hilton fan blog. Rated: College (Post-grad)
--Steven Seagal blog. Rated: College (Under-grad)
--Hannah Montana fan blog. Rated: Elementary level

The Hannah Montana blog was definitely elementary level, so BRT gains a little credibility with that one. But only a little!

2) Sketchcast
I created my masterpiece, "Spring," with Sketchcast. It expresses the simple beauty of a lovely spring flower sprouting up through the ground and growing steadily in the alternating warmth of sun and raindrops from cloudy skies. Seriously, though, Sketchcast is basically an animation device for an etch-a-sketch-quality medium. Not much choice in line, color or any other effects.

3) Delicious redux
My computer's hard drive has self-destructed. Among other things, I lost all the bookmarks I had carefully saved in folders on my browser toolbar. So I feel more motivated than I was earlier to learn how to put my bookmarks on an external server. I started to set up a wiki (using Peanut Butter Wiki), but then thought I'd try delicious instead. So I'll see how it goes.

Wiki-ed

I have problems accepting a public wiki as a source of authoritative information. Although Wikipedia is wonderful in that it covers so many topics you won't find in a traditional encyclopedia, I think it's really most useful as a starting point to lead to other sources that have been more reliably fact-checked.

But a staff wiki is another matter . The example of an internal library wiki at "Wikis: A Beginner's Look" I actually found exciting (maybe I need a hobby).

Aha! I thought, as shivers ran up my spine. Now THAT could be useful! The wiki in the example is used to pull together lots of different kinds of staff resources. In other words, a bunch of stuff that I have a hard time remembering where and how to access (what folder is it in, what password do I use) could all be kept in ONE PLACE. A wiki for IS could house, for example:

-- Our Fugitive Facts file
-- A link to our blog
-- A link to our delicious account (Or here's a heretical thought: abandon delicious and add our subject bookmarks directly to the internal wiki instead. Wouldn't be available to the outside world, but does the world care?)
-- Software and other specs for SAM and PAL
-- Known machine problems & fixes (Internet, PAL, printers)
-- Resources for the homework topic of the moment
-- A link to the staff schedule (if we can link to the Yakima server)

According to the Online Community Report, 87% of organizations say they use wikis for internal purposes, and only 27% use them externally.

For me, one of the most stressful aspects of technological change here in the library over the past few years has been the proliferation of technological issues to remember solutions for, and the proliferation of places where our work-related information is now stored. (And many of those places require different passwords. AARGH@!&#) If we could get it all under one roof (and have a single password that applies to everything there?) how much simpler and sweeter life would be. And when we have something to add -- another blog, another 2.0 application of some kind, or whatever the heck else comes down the pike -- maybe we could put a link on the wiki, and not have to add another bookmark to every one of our computers.

On the downside, it would take time to set up. And if not maintained well, there's the risk that instead of centralizing everything, the wiki would become just one more place that you need to check when you're looking for some bit of information. The maintenance concern is touched upon in the report referenced above; it says that wikis work best "with a clear final product in mind," and that "aggressive co-editing of content is harder to effect using wikis."

LibraryThing

I chose to set up an account in LibraryThing rather than Goodreads only because:

a) LibraryThing claims to be "the world's largest book club." If I'm going to do this online book stuff, baby, then I'm going to do it up BIG!!!

b) The instructions were shorter, and I don't have much time.

I've figured out some basics of adding, reviewing and rating books for my LibraryThing "library" through trial and error. I do wish some things were a little clearer. For instance, there are two icons that seem to lead you to the exact same editing page (one looks like a rolodex card, the other is a pencil).

As an old-timer, I have mixed feelings about tagging. Yes, it's very useful to be able to search for books (or photos, videos, etc) using combinations of tags. But to be really effective, the tags people attach to the item need to be well-chosen. And thorough. When tagging the book "Touching the Void," I realized that to maximize its findability, I would need to use multiple tags for a single concept: mountain climbing, mountain climbers, moutaineering, mountaineers, etc. Library cataloguers address this issue by using standardized headings. I'm thinking that online tagging could possibly evolve to where a single tag could automatically link with other synonymous tags, so that if you tag a book "mountaineering" all those other tags will be searched as well. Maybe it already does this, and I just haven't noticed? Maybe later on I'll have a chance to explore this...

Anyway, here's a link to my profile on LibraryThing:
http://www.librarything.com/profile/lunamonty