Sunday, December 12, 2010

Twenty-Three and Feeling Free

Not to imply that I've felt burdened by completing the 23 Things blog assignment; quite the opposite, in fact.  I now feel more "web-free" than ever in completing each of these tasks.  I've broadened my horizons, dissolved my rigidity/reluctance towards Web 2.0 tools, and have thus launched myself well-equipped into my newfound role as a graduate student in Library and Information Studies at Kent State University in Ohio.  I've felt that my shift from working full-time at a non-career job back to student-hood was inevitable, and this component of LIS 635 has been invaluable in getting me to a point where I feel prepared in moving forward.  I've learned to embrace tools that I had previously shunned (mostly because I didn't care to understand them), that I need to just explore and put myself out there, and that librarianship really is the right career for me.  Thanks to my instructor, my class mates, and NEFLIN for helping me get to where I'm going.  Here's to progress!

Rollyo! (AKA #15, slightly dazed and out of order)

Rollyo is something that I think could be a very, very cool tool.  Basically, all you do is list a few websites to search a common query, group those websites together in one Rollyo search, and voila! -- instant results from the sites you have specified to search.  I am a huge music fan, so something I am constantly doing is shopping for music online, whether it be mp3, CD, or LP format.  I'm CONSTANTLY toggling between Amazon's MP3 store, the iTunes store, 7digital (a UK mp3 store), as well as a few others looking for the best price on mp3 albums.  It's really a fairly manageable task, and it's a challenge I don't mind undertaking being such a music freak (and bargain hunter)!  However, if I were able to type in a single query on a single site and have the results for all three (or more) sites pop up in a single location? -- well, I'm down with that!

It seems like Rollyo is something that may require a bit of fine-tuning (my search for the new album by John Legend & the Roots resulted in WAY too many links - I mean, really, 30k results of links for the same item?!), but this is something I could really get into.  Relating it beyond personal gratification, I can see tying in several different libraries that one may have access to (public, academic, institutional, etc.) to find a resource that quite possibly could be available at any one of those facilities.  The library I completed my practicum at this semester has the equivalent of Rollyo (as do many libraries participating in regional state or university systems): a database called  CONSORT that links five liberal arts colleges in the state of Ohio that have an interlibrary loan agreement so that students may have access to each school's resources.  I think I will probably explore Rollyo a bit more in depth for personal use to see what criteria may be required to limit search results (its creators seem to still be tweaking it as well, seeing as how it's still in Beta), but this seems like a tool that could be pretty great and versatile in the long run!

(See the Rollyo searches I created below: one for music, one for cycling/outdoor gear.)



Powered by Rollyo

XXII

Looking back on my first few entries in this blog, I know that my mindset at the time was a bit reticent.  Mind you, my reticence wasn't solely in regard to taking on the tasks of the blog; it was mostly due to my pre-existing condition of overall reluctance to embrace many aspects of the Web 2.0 world in my own personal life.  Ignorance was bliss, and I had survived just fine on my own without exploring and expanding my knowledge base into the current plethora of tools available out there.

I think the key word when describing Web 2.0 is "options", but a close second would go to "selective."  Prior to exploring 2.0, I simply felt overwhelmed and honestly didn't really care about learning what exactly "deli.cio.us," "RSS," or "mashups" were.  I thought that I had no use for these things, so learning about them would be a waste of time.  While I still might be hesitant to use many of the tools I learned about through the course of the 23 Things blog, there are a few that I found really useful -- which leads back to the words "options" and "selective." Yes, there are an exhaustive number of options out there, but being selective and knowing what is the most useful for your own purposes is really the point of Web 2.0.  The secret is possessing at least a vague knowledge or awareness of many of the tools out there so that when they come up in conversation you don't completely feel out of the loop.  And therein lies the key: simply check things out to see how the function, weigh the usefulness of the tool for your own purposes, and, if nothing else, you at least come away with a base knowledge so you won't feel like the last to join the conversation!

The main tools I've discovered that I know I will employ are: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Delicious.  I like organization, and each of these resources make organization incredibly easy!  The tools I had previously used or was aware of but gained a greater appreciation for are: Flickr, YouTube, image generators, chat/instant messaging, wikis, podcasting, and Facebook.  So, as you can see, I learned a lot!  I look forward to continuing through my Library Science course work and being able to apply the knowledge gained in this course and through my blog in the future.  I know I can go about this without the insecurities and hesitations I've previously felt.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

XXI

The Student 2.0 Tools detailed in NEFLIN's 23 Things blog actually seem pretty cool and useful.  I wasn't expecting much prior to looking at the University of Minnesota's open source code Assignment Calculator and the Research Project Calculator, but came away pleasantly surprised.  I think that one of the toughest things for college students (particularly incoming freshmen) to embrace is time management, especially when it comes to mid-term or final projects, when it seems like they have all the time in the world to work on them.  In addition to freshmen, I believe these tools could be useful for any student finding themselves panicky and in a time-crunch.

Just to give them a test ride, I input dates for my upcoming final report just to get an idea for what I would need to do if this were a traditional research paper I'd be working on.  I liked the prompts telling me I should have (x) completed by Dec. 12th, then (y) and (z) completed by Dec. 13th, so on and so on.  Spelling it out so clearly gives students clear deadlines which they should be able to abide by without getting ahead of themselves and freaking out, regardless of whether they have a week or three months to complete a project.  The only limitations I see in the Assignment Calculator (which seem to be resolved in the Research Project Calculator) is that these guidelines seem to pertain only to written papers, although the open-source nature of Assignment Calculator would seem to be a resolution in and of itself.

Just like LibGuides can be an incredible resource when executed well and utilized by students, the Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator can likewise be tremendously useful.  These tools can be used to instill good future practices among younger students, while aiding more seasoned students with better time-management skills who may find themselves in a time-crunch or having difficulty with a particular project.  Teachers and librarians alike could use these tools to help pace students, adapting various criteria as needed to suit the tasks or assignments at hand.

XX

I still read actual, physical books...and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.  Love of reading and books is one of the main qualities that brought me and my wife together almost six years ago, and we've both opined in recent history (in light of the e-book technology boom) how much we still (and probably will always) love the physical aspects of reading.  One of the key components of reading for us is the satisfaction felt from the progression through the pages of a book; the anticipation of what's on the next page, turning that page, reading and finding out...all culminating with closing the back cover and forcing our bookmark into a (temporarily) homeless state.  I'm not saying that e-readers are a bad thing -- it's just not for me, not at this time.

The point of Books 2.0 is not necessarily to enjoy or advocate it, but to be aware of the options available, the benefits and limitations of those options, and evaluate the impact such a movement can have on libraries and general readership.  Much in line with a classmate's motivation (discussed on her 23 Things blog), I opted to explore Booklamp, a self-described Pandora for books.  I previously discussed my use of Pandora and others like it, so the appeal of Booklamp seemed obvious to me.  I've never really asked for a recommendation for a book to read.  Certainly, I've had books recommended to me by my wife or friends, sometimes based on something else I've read, sometimes not -- but seeking out recommendations is kind of foreign to me.  BookLamp claims to recommend books based on writing style, pacing, length, subject, genre, and countless other data.  I tried a few searches: one based on the author Michael Chabon (one of my favorite fiction writers), and another based on Stephen King's Cujo.  The results for Chabon resulted in a number of other writers who I didn't recognize, and probably will not pursue (I actually think a lot of the recommendations were based on name similarities rather than writing style); Cujo posted no results.  I'm not sure if it's just that the site is in its Beta version, but based on the bulk of user feedback it seems that many classic books are not in their database yet.  I like the idea of this site, but am not sure I'll ever come back to it.

Since I've now become familiar with RSS feeds (and have continued to enjoy mine regularly throughout the semester), I opted to check out DailyLit.  This service's modus operandi is exactly what its name would suggest: a daily feed of your chosen book.  There seems to be a fairly wide variety of books available (I was impressed to see Tolstoy's War and Peace -- although I probably shouldn't be surprised since it's public domain!), many of which are current titles made available for free from publishers.  Since this service is based on daily segments (or every other day, or only weekdays -- based on preference) sent to the reader via email or RSS feed, I chose a non-fiction "arts" title that I felt could be easily digested segmentally and possibly irregularly: Stewart Copeland's Strange Things Happen.  This book, by the drummer of the band The Police, is a memoir recollecting the days in the 1970s and 1980s when the band was first around, then covers Copeland's various endeavors in the years between then and the band's reunion tour in 2007.  I'm a fan of the band at least marginally, and am interested in Copeland mostly based on his drumming style, so I think giving this read a whirl (in a free, RSS feed format) is a no-skin-off-my-nose approach.

I think Books 2.0 is an interesting trend.  I'm not sure if audiobooks were ever considered a threat to traditional bound books when they first were introduced, but they have certainly not replaced them (and never will).  I don't think e-reading devices like Kindle and Nook will entirely replace books, either.  Since I'm currently an employee of a Barnes & Noble bookstore, I've gotten closer to the Nook phenomenon.  The store manager has said that most Nook customers say the device hasn't replaced traditional books for them; it has merely enhanced their reading experience, with folks choosing to use the Nook at times when needed or convenient (while travelling, for instance), and going back to books at other times.  I know this is the stance I would take should I ever employ such a device, which is similar to my stand on mp3 players.  I love my iPod, but it hasn't replaced physical music formats for me (VIVA LA VINYL!) -- it has enhanced my music experience by making it more portable than it was previously.  I'm 33, which makes me old enough to have grown up prior to all these fancy new devices (but not old enough to not embrace them!), so I wonder how younger (and future) generations feel about physical format vs. digital when it comes to music and books.  Is physical format media something they could ever miss?

#19

I've been a Last.fm user since 2008, constantly toggling back and forth between this music streaming site and Pandora.  These have both been serviceable tools for me at my old job or when working around the house while needing some tunes in the background.  I hadn't previously thought of these as social networking tools, although I had linked Pandora to my Facebook account for a time, allowing friends who cared to see what I'd been listening to, or "liking," etc.  This is not something I kept up with as I mostly viewed it as inconsequential (although I should note that one of my wife's best friends had apparently listened to my station and picked up on a lot of new artists she hadn't previously been into, so that was cool -- and the one and only time I'm aware of such a thing happening!).

For the sake of this task, I decided to explore my Last account in a bit more detail.  Last functions in much the same way that Pandora does (allowing users to customize their listening experience by inputting a song or an artist's name, and subsequently "loving" or "liking" songs played that have similar quantifiable qualities to the original), but I have no idea of the similarities and differences -- nor are they important here -- in the programming that goes behind these respective personalized music services.  Like other social networking sites (on their main profile page), users can view their recent activity (songs "loved," friends made, stations shared); beyond that similarity, however, the site unsurprisingly gets pretty music specific!  You can view artists saved to your library, recently listened to tracks, and running play count. Top artists, top songs, and number of plays per artist/song are another cool detail.  If you dig a little deeper into your library, you can even see a list of every song you've listened to complete with date/time stamp to satisfy your inner nerd's thirst for details!  Other features include: artist bios, links to purchase tracks/albums, and tagging ability.

The social connectivity aspect of Last is what I hadn't really previously explored.  I hadn't a single "friend" on the site prior to yesterday, when I added a friend who I just happened to know also had a Last account.  Upon us becoming friends in the Last universe, I unsurprisingly found my musical compatibility with him to be "VERY HIGH"!  (I would imagine this to be the case with most of my real-life friends, though it would be interesting to see how compatibility is rated with someone with different tastes.)  Like other social networking sites, one can join groups, see neighbors, and view lists of events (concerts/shows).  I've always been a bit of a loner when it comes to attending live shows (so I'm not sure how useful these features would be to me), but if one were a bit heavy with the tech hand and looking to meet up with others with a common music bond, I can see how these tools would be very handy.  As useful as these qualities are, I think most folks probably do not utilize them much here.  There are so many ways to share so many different things, I think the main problem is that it doesn't occur for people to try sharing via a different medium when others that they have used are perfectly serviceable in accomplishing the task at hand.  Last.fm's features are nifty (and worth playing around with occasionally), but ultimately kind of inconsequential in the land of Facebook and so many other social media sites.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Nine in One, Three-Fourths of a Dozen in the Other?

Facebook is nothing new to me (I joined after my wedding in the summer of 2007 to keep in touch with all the wonderful new friends who shared in me and my wife's celebration), so this exercise merely involves continuing to expand my FB boundaries from personal/social to academic/professional.  In the past few months, I've begun "following" a couple libraries or library organizations on Facebook to stay in the loop with news and developments in the field and specific to these groups.  The library I follow is the Doane Library at Denison University in Granville, OH (where I'm completing my semester-long practicum for LIS 635), and I'm also a member of the Kent State University School of Library and Information Science group (where I'll be starting my master's degree program in January).

Like listservs have (and continue to) serve as resources for current and future library professionals, Facebook groups can serve as an additional means of communication among those in the field regarding job searching, current topics of interest, extracurricular organizations, etc.  Following the guidelines of NEFLIN's recommended FB groups for librarians, I joined Library 2.0 Interest Group and Future Librarians and Those Who Love Them! (which has the best "profile picture" ever -- an anime-style librarian illustrated with the text "She Blinded Me With Library Science").  It's interesting to note that NEFLIN's blog as of March 2009 proclaims that "MySpace is the most used social network, but Facebook is currently the fastest growing social network": anyone can tell you that technology trends can change in a heartbeat, and here, 21 months after this statement, I think anyone could guess that Facebook has far surpassed MySpace's popularity.  This entry from Newsweek's 20/10: The Decade in Rewind reinforces this opinion, stating that Facebook's membership now doubles that of MySpace.  (I particularly appreciate the writer's comment on MySpace's "garish fonts and epilepsy-inducing images" -- one of the many reasons I never liked MySpace: its lack of aesthetic appeal.  The only reason I ever do use MySpace: to check out new musical artists!)


In addition to allowing ways for folks to maintain connections to friends and acquaintances near and far, Facebook has expanded its user base to organizations, groups, small (and large) businesses, and beyond in ways I don't think anyone ever could have conceived.  I thought hell froze over a couple years ago when one of my closest, and oldest (freshman, junior, and senior-year college roommate), friends grudgingly joined, unjoined, then rejoined Facebook.  He has never been one to follow trends, but I welcomed his presence there as it allowed us yet another way to connect (classically, we've been intermittent phone buddies).  But, hell really did freeze over when I received an email notification a month ago that my sixty-three-year-old, technology-reluctant mother, requested my friendship on FB!  Granted, her impetus to join was really great for her -- to stay in contact with friends from her high school (they'd had a recent collective reunion that she enjoyed) -- but I just about fell out of my chair before quickly accepting her friend request!  From its humble beginnings as a social network for MIT students, Facebook's ubiquity has virtually made it the de facto standard for social interaction, be it personal or professional.