I chose this video on the subject of copyright to share. At a copyright workshop several years ago, Ruth Dukelow from the Michigan Library Consortium gave us the background on the changes in the copyright act which prolonged the length of time things can be copyrighted for. A chief culprit was the Disney Company whose big moneymaker Mickey Mouse was nearing the end of copyright. They didn't want their cash cow to go into the public domain and so we all pay the consequences.
This clever but rather long video uses clips within copyright to make a point. Watching it is kind of choppy, but someone put a lot of time into making it.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Thing 17 - ELM Productivity Tools
If interlibrary loan staff thought that ELM was going to endanger their jobs, this picture of Roxanne of the Arrowhead Library System staff behind a new bigger cart of materials (right) because the old smaller cart (left) wouldn't hold everything, shows they were mistaken. And this is only the stuff delivered by the courier from Minitex. The ALS van stuff comes in later in the day.The ELM databases have periodical articles, citation information, newspapers, and more. One I use on a daily basis is the OCLC Firstsearch database for verification of citation information sent by member school, special and academic libraries.
I know that many of the schools don't take the time to search these databases as I often find materials that they are asking for in them. We've had workshops in the past as well as webinars offered through Minitex, pushed the availability in our newsletter, and yet I think that many teachers and librarians don't think to use them. The ones who do love them and do call for help if they are having difficulty with them. I've even had teachers not allow students to use the materials in the databases because they consider them resources found on the Internet and inferior to print materials. Go figure!
NetLibrary is sometimes the only way some titles are available for some of the more specialized requests in health sciences. It is inconvenient that you must visit a public library to sign up for an account in order to use the resource even if you have a library card. And the page to sign up for an account is mobile...it doesn't seem to stay in the same place and depending on how you access the Netlibrary page, it might not be there at all. Definitely a hindrance for the average user. Make it difficult enough and they won't be back. Even the librarians have trouble finding it sometimes.
That said, there are many features and ways to search these resources. You just have to be smart about what it is you are looking for in order to know what databases to search. Each database offers different resources which some users don't seem to fathom. You do have to have some technological savvy to be able to use the RSS feed feature that is part of this thing. It all depends on how you are accessing the databases and what kind of set up your ISP uses. This can be enough to defeat anyone without a lot of time to figure it out. I used a different topic to follow for a request I was working on and having difficulty finding much about. It will help me monitor when something else becomes available.
Thing 16 - Student 2.0 Tools (RPC & AC)
Both the Research Project Calculator and the Assignment Calculator are designed to help students manage the time they have to effectively use it and finish their assignments on schedule.
There are lots of print outs to help them and their teachers get this accomplished. Two of the handouts are particularly useful for students even if they don't use the calculator as designed. These would help them focus on what they are to do and how to go about it. They are: The research process: questions and answers and What's my angle? Generating topics and research questions. These should get them organized and help move them along. The printable material under brainstorming would also help them find a topic that interests them which always makes the project more fun.
The Assignment Calculator does much the same thing, but assumes some familiarity with the process. There are lots of links to online helpful sites to get them going based on the subject area assigned.
The trick with both of these would be to introduce them to the students and get them to use them. Great tools that need to be introduced to students and probably show them how to be used to be effective.
They would be great assets to a self-directed learning project too.
There are lots of print outs to help them and their teachers get this accomplished. Two of the handouts are particularly useful for students even if they don't use the calculator as designed. These would help them focus on what they are to do and how to go about it. They are: The research process: questions and answers and What's my angle? Generating topics and research questions. These should get them organized and help move them along. The printable material under brainstorming would also help them find a topic that interests them which always makes the project more fun.
The Assignment Calculator does much the same thing, but assumes some familiarity with the process. There are lots of links to online helpful sites to get them going based on the subject area assigned.
The trick with both of these would be to introduce them to the students and get them to use them. Great tools that need to be introduced to students and probably show them how to be used to be effective.
They would be great assets to a self-directed learning project too.
Thing 15 - Gaming
I read most of the linked material on this thing. I was already familiar with the Pew study. I watch for those as they are released as they contain a lot of information that is useful for library planning. While I had intended to explore Second Life, having recently read about a place there devoted to autistic users that sounded interesting, I decided instead to explore Puzzle Pirates. I created my character and quickly completed bilging and not as quickly, learning to carpent. I was all thumbs when carpenting. I kept mixing up my mouse buttons. I went from learning to neophyte status in both. I loved the graphics and there were over four thousand people playing when I was there. It's mind-boggling, more than the population of my hometown. I was a little apprehensive about playing after reading 23 Cats blog where she had to walk the plank, but I ran into some very helpful people who helped me know what to do, not that I talked to any of them as I was pressed for time. Bilging reminded me somewhat of Tetris, and carpenting was a familiar variation as well. I think that it would be a fun pursuit on a snowbound day.
Thing 14 - LibraryThing
Well, this one was really cool. After doing the retroconversion of over 100,000 library items with cataloging tools provided in various library software and OCLC, some of them not really easy to use, adding books with LibraryThing was as simple as falling off a log--maybe easier. I added fifteen items just to see how easy it really was. Nice that you can add tags to enable finding them that way too.
There is really a lot of stuff at LibraryThing, book discussions, groups, and more. Since some of the books I added were J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, there were lots of others who had them. I used the widget to put a selection on my blog, but it would be a great tool for libraries to use to put a special collection on their web page. It will be interesting to see how this site develops if they really are interested in cooperation with libraries.
I can see using it to make available the small collection of materials that NCLC has available for use by member libraries and putting it on our web page so members would know about them.
There is really a lot of stuff at LibraryThing, book discussions, groups, and more. Since some of the books I added were J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, there were lots of others who had them. I used the widget to put a selection on my blog, but it would be a great tool for libraries to use to put a special collection on their web page. It will be interesting to see how this site develops if they really are interested in cooperation with libraries.
I can see using it to make available the small collection of materials that NCLC has available for use by member libraries and putting it on our web page so members would know about them.
Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools
As it happens, having recently gotten a new laptop for work, I had just set up my homepage to have handy those things I use frequently or like to have at my fingertips. I used Google and my home page has these things on it (with more to come as I have room to spare): notes (like stickies), cat of the day, T olkien quote, Ebay search box, Betty Crocker recipe of the day, Wii news, Gmail, Dell support, online English grammar, news, gmail tools, word of the day, google calendar, google map search, babblefish translator, lyrics search, youtube videos, tetris, google search, weather, wikipedia search, dictionary/thesaurus, and still have lots of room for more. The widget supply seems unending.
I investigated Pageflakes and my Yahoo in addition to Google and they look just as easy and similar. I chose Google because Dell had made it easy for me to customize and their link were already in place, besides having accounts with them already meant no new passwords to create and remember.
The lists of other tools available had lots that I had already looked at or bumped into, but have more to investigate. One tool I have used quite a bit is tiny url. This has made it easier to refer long web addresses when doing reference work for others so they can see the results for themselves.
Remember the Milk and some of the other list applications look interesting, but you'd have to have almost a constant ability to contact it to be really useful. Seems like it might be kind of labor intensive to me. I think I will stick with my handy "filing cabinet"(pants pocket) where I put the notes of what I need to remember and then pull them out at night before they hit the hamper. It's worked pretty well for as long as I've worked in libraries and I am accustomed to using it. And, you don't lose access in power outages.
Backpack looks like a great management tool for group projects and includes a calendar feature. It might have worked well for something like planning the 23 things project, or when working on selecting an automation system with the ability to share documents and input with others in your group.
Going to have to come back to these tools and investigate more possibilities to add to my homepage.
I investigated Pageflakes and my Yahoo in addition to Google and they look just as easy and similar. I chose Google because Dell had made it easy for me to customize and their link were already in place, besides having accounts with them already meant no new passwords to create and remember.
The lists of other tools available had lots that I had already looked at or bumped into, but have more to investigate. One tool I have used quite a bit is tiny url. This has made it easier to refer long web addresses when doing reference work for others so they can see the results for themselves.
Remember the Milk and some of the other list applications look interesting, but you'd have to have almost a constant ability to contact it to be really useful. Seems like it might be kind of labor intensive to me. I think I will stick with my handy "filing cabinet"(pants pocket) where I put the notes of what I need to remember and then pull them out at night before they hit the hamper. It's worked pretty well for as long as I've worked in libraries and I am accustomed to using it. And, you don't lose access in power outages.
Backpack looks like a great management tool for group projects and includes a calendar feature. It might have worked well for something like planning the 23 things project, or when working on selecting an automation system with the ability to share documents and input with others in your group.
Going to have to come back to these tools and investigate more possibilities to add to my homepage.
Thing 12 - I Don't Diggit
I looked at Digg, Reddit, Newsvine and Mixx. I frankly found the stuff at most of these what I would rate as lowest common denominator pop culture junk. Maybe I just looked at a bad time. I did find that I like the layout of the Newsvine page, kind of neat and like MSN's page. For content topic, I guess I would have to go with Mixx. I did join and recommend a story but found it had already been recommended and had 28 votes. The choice of topics at Mixx seemed to be more in tune to what I look for than some of the other sites. It's plainly laid out, but clearly divided by category topic and best of all uses fairly large print.
I can see how these sites might drive reference requests at the library. Things do seem to come to the top about which you might not know a lot and would be seeking additional information. Kind of like the trivia requests that come in via phone to settle a bar bet, if you've ever had those. Seeing how many votes a story has might be a way of deciding whether or not there is enough interest in a topic to add a book about the subject to your collection as well, even though it wouldn't necessarily be your patrons who are the respondents.
I also signed up for StumbleUpon which seems to let you be a little more specific in defining your interests. That one lets you click the stumble tab and brings up something you might like and so far based on my input hasn't been wrong yet. It's brought me some humorous pix of cats, a diagram of a cat brain (fun) and clear instructions for creating a self-watering device for the garden, among other things. So far it's been entertaining and instructive. I think I am going to continue to enjoy that. I chose it mostly because that is how I have often found nifty stuff, I've just "stumbled upon" it.
I can see how these sites might drive reference requests at the library. Things do seem to come to the top about which you might not know a lot and would be seeking additional information. Kind of like the trivia requests that come in via phone to settle a bar bet, if you've ever had those. Seeing how many votes a story has might be a way of deciding whether or not there is enough interest in a topic to add a book about the subject to your collection as well, even though it wouldn't necessarily be your patrons who are the respondents.
I also signed up for StumbleUpon which seems to let you be a little more specific in defining your interests. That one lets you click the stumble tab and brings up something you might like and so far based on my input hasn't been wrong yet. It's brought me some humorous pix of cats, a diagram of a cat brain (fun) and clear instructions for creating a self-watering device for the garden, among other things. So far it's been entertaining and instructive. I think I am going to continue to enjoy that. I chose it mostly because that is how I have often found nifty stuff, I've just "stumbled upon" it.
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