http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM
This is the url of a hilarious video of Anita Renfroe, a female stand-up comic. She sings, in the span of 2 minutes, 55 seconds, everything that a Mom would say to her children in the course of a day. She does this to the tune of the William Tell Overture and it is done so quickly and with such enthusiasm, that it is hard to make out everything she is saying the first time you listen to it. The more often you replay it, the more humourous it becomes because you hear new funny stuff each time.
Enjoy.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Zoho Writer is a neat tool. It is a word processor that will revolutionize the way people work with documents. You can store all of your documents online where you can have access to them from any computer, at home or at work. You no longer have to e-mail them back-and-forth to friends, co-workers or clients for them to review. There are instant collaboration, inline commenting and chat facilities that you can use instead.
Creating documents is fun with easy formatting, picture features, using tables and even posting the document directly to your blog.
Creating documents is fun with easy formatting, picture features, using tables and even posting the document directly to your blog.
Wikis
In Assignment 8, it was interesting to learn about what exactly a wiki is. I think that they can be useful tools when your are in need of finding information on a particular topic or subject.
If you have knowledge about a given subject area, you can write an entry about it. If there is already an entry but it doesn't cover something, you can edit it to add your information.
The readers or members of a wiki are continually updating the site which quickly provides all users with new developments. Because of the way wikis work, they draw on the expertise of a very broad and very deep readership.
Even though wikis are a good way of gathering facts quickly and pooling expertise from a large number of people, they do have their disadvantages. Because anybody can write a wiki entry, there is very little in the way of editorial control, which makes a wiki site prone to being subjective or strongly influenced by opinion.
In a library setting, wikis would be good for Readers Advisory of for public opinions on certain topics or subjects. They would not be good for research or verification of hard facts due to their lack of editorial control or supervision of entries. This makes them doubtful as a valuable information source.
If you have knowledge about a given subject area, you can write an entry about it. If there is already an entry but it doesn't cover something, you can edit it to add your information.
The readers or members of a wiki are continually updating the site which quickly provides all users with new developments. Because of the way wikis work, they draw on the expertise of a very broad and very deep readership.
Even though wikis are a good way of gathering facts quickly and pooling expertise from a large number of people, they do have their disadvantages. Because anybody can write a wiki entry, there is very little in the way of editorial control, which makes a wiki site prone to being subjective or strongly influenced by opinion.
In a library setting, wikis would be good for Readers Advisory of for public opinions on certain topics or subjects. They would not be good for research or verification of hard facts due to their lack of editorial control or supervision of entries. This makes them doubtful as a valuable information source.
Monday, November 3, 2008
In "The Essence of Library 2.0" Meredith Farkas states that this group of social technologies has led to a lot of libraries losing their way. It has become more about learning and implementing these new cool tools in our libraries than it has about assessing the needs of our patrons and deciding whether these tools are necessarily wanted or needed. I agree with her point of view...to an extent. While I believe it is true that sometimes we are more eager to show how up-to-date and forward-thinking we are that we neglect what it is that we are really doing for our patrons, I also think that the assumption that libraries are jumping on the "2.0 bandwagon" just because it's new, is a misleading statement. I think libraries are trying it because they recognize that there is a lot of change happening in our social environment and that it is prudent to want to be prepared for where we're headed in providing good service to our communities.
Here is an assessment of the other 3 artciles that I read which gave differing perspectives on Web 2.0:
AWAY FROM THE ICEBERGS - The author sees three "icebergs" that pose significant threat to our future success as libraries. They are 1) focusing on trying to build up our print collection of materials rather than trying to build up digital access to such things as books, journals, blogs, podcasts, etc. 2) trying to teach our patrons how to work with our systems rather than making our systems easiy enough that they don't need our training and 3) expecting our patrons to come to us the old fashioned way rather than us finding new ways to bring our services to patrons in such a way that it works with their daily patterns of work, study and play.
INTO A NEW WORLD OF LIBRARIANSHIP - This article suggests that Librarian 2.0 is the strategy guide for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content. They plan for their users, embrace Web 2.0 tools, control technolust, makes good decisions fast, is a trendspotter and gets content.
POWER FROM THE PEOPLE - Colin Delany makes the case that Web 2.0 tools can be powerful and valuable to libraries if they suit our goals. There are always costs associated with the benefits of service and his article does a good job of helping you assess which tools and strategies are likely to be worth the cost and effort. His review of blogs, online video, RSS feeds, social networking, social media and viral marketing shows just how many online communications options are open to us and explains that we have to choose amoung them carefully in order to reap maximum reward.
Here is an assessment of the other 3 artciles that I read which gave differing perspectives on Web 2.0:
AWAY FROM THE ICEBERGS - The author sees three "icebergs" that pose significant threat to our future success as libraries. They are 1) focusing on trying to build up our print collection of materials rather than trying to build up digital access to such things as books, journals, blogs, podcasts, etc. 2) trying to teach our patrons how to work with our systems rather than making our systems easiy enough that they don't need our training and 3) expecting our patrons to come to us the old fashioned way rather than us finding new ways to bring our services to patrons in such a way that it works with their daily patterns of work, study and play.
INTO A NEW WORLD OF LIBRARIANSHIP - This article suggests that Librarian 2.0 is the strategy guide for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content. They plan for their users, embrace Web 2.0 tools, control technolust, makes good decisions fast, is a trendspotter and gets content.
POWER FROM THE PEOPLE - Colin Delany makes the case that Web 2.0 tools can be powerful and valuable to libraries if they suit our goals. There are always costs associated with the benefits of service and his article does a good job of helping you assess which tools and strategies are likely to be worth the cost and effort. His review of blogs, online video, RSS feeds, social networking, social media and viral marketing shows just how many online communications options are open to us and explains that we have to choose amoung them carefully in order to reap maximum reward.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Delicious & Technorati
Del.icio.us is a cool social bookmarking manager. My favourite feature is that it allows me to access all of my favourite bookmarks from any computer. Bonus aspects of del.icio.us is that it lets me see what other people are bookmarking and allows me to search bookmarks by using tag words. I like that I can also organize and categorize my bookmarks by "tagging" them. Seeing what the most popular bookmarks are out there, is very interesting.
At the library, we have people who come in to use our Public Access Computers on a daily basis because they don't have their own PCs at home. These people would benefit by using del.icio.us because our computers are incapable of saving recently visited sites in their history. By creating a del.icio.us account, they would be able to save all of their favourite internet urls and access them on our computers. Some non-residents use our PACs only when they are visiting people in our town and want to access their e-mail or just use the Internet for interest. They took could benefit from using a del.icio.us account.
Technorati is a blog search engine where I can visit thousands of my favourite blogs in one spot. It lets me browse efficiently and gives me constant updates of my favourite blogs. The new features are neat: they make organizing your blogs easier. You can also search for blogs by category and explore their "featured bloggers" to see who the people who are making up the blogs, are. "What's the Buzz" lets us see what other blogs people are most commonly searching for. Techrati shows me which blogs have been updated and it shows little shows me little snippits of the most recent posts. Adding new blog sites are easy and organizing them using tags, is fun.
At the library, we have people who come in to use our Public Access Computers on a daily basis because they don't have their own PCs at home. These people would benefit by using del.icio.us because our computers are incapable of saving recently visited sites in their history. By creating a del.icio.us account, they would be able to save all of their favourite internet urls and access them on our computers. Some non-residents use our PACs only when they are visiting people in our town and want to access their e-mail or just use the Internet for interest. They took could benefit from using a del.icio.us account.
Technorati is a blog search engine where I can visit thousands of my favourite blogs in one spot. It lets me browse efficiently and gives me constant updates of my favourite blogs. The new features are neat: they make organizing your blogs easier. You can also search for blogs by category and explore their "featured bloggers" to see who the people who are making up the blogs, are. "What's the Buzz" lets us see what other blogs people are most commonly searching for. Techrati shows me which blogs have been updated and it shows little shows me little snippits of the most recent posts. Adding new blog sites are easy and organizing them using tags, is fun.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Library Thing is a very handy tool for those who want to keep track of books they’ve read especially since many libraries do not offer this service.
Library Thing allows people to connect with other members by joining or creating a group. They can make a group for a club, a place, a subject, or even a private group for just their friends.
Library Thing Local will connect members to local bookstores, libraries and book festivals— and to all the author readings, signings, discussions and events they host.
The statistics page contains an overview of the member and their library. It also highlights members with similar libraries, and lets them keep up with their friends' recently added books, reviews and ratings.
Facebook is a social networking website. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website currently has more than 100 million active users worldwide.
Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to increase productivity. Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times.
So, while Facebook could be a useful tool to use at RWL, the controversy would cause issues and problems that we are not likely equipt to deal with at this point.
Library Thing allows people to connect with other members by joining or creating a group. They can make a group for a club, a place, a subject, or even a private group for just their friends.
Library Thing Local will connect members to local bookstores, libraries and book festivals— and to all the author readings, signings, discussions and events they host.
The statistics page contains an overview of the member and their library. It also highlights members with similar libraries, and lets them keep up with their friends' recently added books, reviews and ratings.
Facebook is a social networking website. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website currently has more than 100 million active users worldwide.
Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria and Iran. It has also been banned at many places of work to increase productivity. Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times.
So, while Facebook could be a useful tool to use at RWL, the controversy would cause issues and problems that we are not likely equipt to deal with at this point.
Monday, October 6, 2008
RSS Feeds and Bloglines
I find it very cool that we can use internet feed sites to receive constant updates over the Internet. The fact that we can get new information as soon as it comes available means that we are continually informated and up-to-date with respect to web sites we're interested in.
Bloglines is a great time-saving tool that we can use to aggregate our internet feed sites into one web location. Creating a blogline account and adding or subscribing to any site that we're interested in getting feeds on, means that we don't have to visit the many different web sites individually.
I had fun creating the bloglines account but did find the process of subscribing to a few of the suggested sites frustrating because it was time-consuming and in some cases, impossible.
The tools used to locate newfeeds such as topix.net and sydic8.com were neat to explore. I found all suggested tools equally simple to use...some were a little easier to navigate such as Blogline's search tool.
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Bloglines is a great time-saving tool that we can use to aggregate our internet feed sites into one web location. Creating a blogline account and adding or subscribing to any site that we're interested in getting feeds on, means that we don't have to visit the many different web sites individually.
I had fun creating the bloglines account but did find the process of subscribing to a few of the suggested sites frustrating because it was time-consuming and in some cases, impossible.
The tools used to locate newfeeds such as topix.net and sydic8.com were neat to explore. I found all suggested tools equally simple to use...some were a little easier to navigate such as Blogline's search tool.
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