One New Thing

2007-10-15T23:03:00.000+10:00

It's Blog Action Day today!

Here are some questions to ponder, inspired by Blog Action Day: how environmentally friendly is your library? Do you...

turn off lights and computers and printers when they are not needed, such as overnight?
Donate discarded items for re-use?
Recycle holdings lists, picking lists, all those other lists that accumulate in libraries?
Have a recycling bin in the lunchroom?
Have water-saving fittings in the bathrooms?
Look for companies producing products that have the least environmental impact?

There's lots of tips on the web for making offices more environmentally friendly; have a look around and see if you can apply any of these strategies to your workplace. The InterALIA newsletter from September 2004 has a few tips specifically for libraries; so there might be a good place to start! :)

2007-09-16T20:24:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: reCAPTCHA.

Well, it's been a long time between posts. But I've just found something very cool I'd like to link to: reCAPTCHA. CATCHPAs are those images with words in them that you have to type into some webpages - reCAPTCHA is a project that takes words that can't be read by OCR software when pre-digital-age books are being digitised, and displays them as CAPTCHAs in places where real live people can identify and type the word correctly. Spam prevention and book digitisation combined!

Link via EcoGeek, which is a very interesting blog that you should check out if you don't know it already. :)

2007-03-12T21:27:00.000+10:00

Some New Things: More choir library tips.

I know there are lots of choirs, orchestras and other musical community groups out there, so I hope some of the things I post on here will be useful to those people who are the “librarians” for their societies. My group has just had a concert where lots and lots of music got loaned out then returned (over 800 individual scores, in fact), so here are some of the new things I've learnt from that experience:

In community groups where you are loaning out your own resources to members, you have to look out for people who run out of time to participate and stop coming to meetings or rehearsals. I'm thinking two weeks missed in a row, and then I will be calling them to check if they plan to come back – with our music!

When making lists of who has what music, I had been making one list per score, but this got silly if we gave out multiple pieces of music in one night (i.e. “Can you please write your name down on these seven lists for me?”). So I have designed a new loans form which is in the form of a table, where the names of the people go down the side, and the titles go across the top (printed sideways to allow for more columns). Then I can write the score number in the appropriate boxes – every second row is shaded, to make this easier. One double-sided sheet can have about 60 names and 12 individual pieces of music. It should also make it easier to see if someone didn't receive a piece, and is also easier to back up.

My group returns music directly after concerts, which means the librarian gets a very big pile to sort through. Bringing many small boxes seems to be the trick if there are multiple pieces of music being returned, because that way people can sort as they return and when everything is back, you'll actually be able to lift the boxes.

2007-02-08T23:01:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: To do lists.

It's probably very obvious that I need to be better at making useful to-do lists: for example, writing on this blog is one to-do list item that I haven't gotten to in months! I also need a list at work, to make sure that I remember all the little things I offer to follow up do get done. Having one slip of paper for each task worked quite well for me for a while, but became chaos whenever a breeze blew past my desk. So I made an actual list... half the stuff got crossed off in a day, the other half is tasks that will take several days or weeks to get through. That was when I realised that I needed professional help with list-making and ended up at 43 Folders, Building a Smarter To-Do List.
My big error was putting single tasks on my lists that actually involved a bunch of smaller tasks. e.g. If I was moving house, it would be silly to make a to-do list that included tasks like “Pack everything”.
I'm still trying to find or design a nice to-do list template that works for me...it's on my to-do list. ;)

Meanwhile on the topic of being organised I really want to share a very cool little app that I just discovered. PocketMod is a way of creating a little pocket-sized disposable organiser. All you need is one sheet of paper and a printer. Try it – it's fun! (Also a good way to use up old paper with only one side blank!)

2006-09-05T23:01:00.000+10:00

One New Thing:Where to find fundraising ideas.

Some time ago I made the comment that for those of us on library committees – ALIA ones, or otherwise – it can be hard to come up with different events. I finally went and researched events, particularly fundraising events, right where I should have started – in the library! I found a book I got a few ideas from, although of course it wasn't a book about library events; it was actually aimed at sports clubs. So if you're looking for ideas for next year there is stuff out there, it just may not be where you expect it to be.

I'm still hoping to have the Library Olympics – shelf hurdling, trolley races, relay races with a book balanced on your head...

2006-09-04T22:30:00.000+10:00

One New Thing:Guy Kawasaki's Ten Things to Learn This School Year. (found via Stephen's Lighthouse)

This is a great list. :) I remember what I learnt at uni, and I know what I do in the workplace now, and these are so very useful and so very true! Read and learn.

2006-08-29T22:07:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How to Make Friends and Influence People.

More from the recommended reading list from my leadership course – I think this one's a classic now, although it doesn't read like it was written 70 years ago!

My first impression of this book was probably established back in high school, when we found it on the library shelves and laughed at the title. When I picked it up a few weeks ago and looked at the chapter listing, it all looked a bit - submissive. Now after reading it, I see the point. Rather than actually just being friends with everybody, it's about getting to the stage where you and other people can comfortably communicate. And then, so that you can achieve what you set out to achieve and have the other person feel they have achieved their aims as well. If you work in any sort of client support role, or you have friends, or a partner, or children, read it. ;)

What's funny is that I picked up and flicked through a few more recent books on communication and dealing with people at the same time as this one, and although the terminology was different and the scenarios more up-to-date (e.g. emails), the concepts were pretty much the same. People mustn't have changed much...we've just given them technology, so they can have more avenues in which to be frustrated. :)

2006-08-28T23:09:00.000+10:00

Several New Things: Communicating with Clients Using New Technologies: Reprise and Update.

That's the title of the QULOC workshop I went to today. As the program (PDF) indicates, there were some presentations then some workshops. I found the presentations most interesting and useful. (I guess if you're a librarian but work in IT you need to look a bit harder to find library-focussed workshops on technologies you haven't come across before. Or, start running workshops!)

Anyway, some glimpses into how libraries are using the technologies at their disposal to communicate with their clients. Specifically, people talked about blogs and wikis, PDAs (mobile access to resources), instant messaging, webcasting and podcasting. There was a lot of discussion throughout the day regarding the generational issues when it comes to using these technologies – that for me was almost as interesting as the use of the technologies themselves. There were comments about the clients – whether universities with a high proportion of mature aged students would really benefit; if communicating in new online spaces is really what those clients would be demanding – but also from within the profession. I didn't see who in the room asked it, but my favourite question of the day was: how does Librarian 2.0 convince Librarian 0.9 that Library 2.0 is the way to go? :)
(Related statistics: someone on the NewGrad list posted a link to the Librarian occupations page on the Australian Jobsearch page. The median age is quite high. And only around 10% of us are under age 34! Not that age alone makes Librarian 2.0, but that's a low number for digital natives.)

A few of the ideas I heard today that stuck out for me were:

using wikis for FAQs, bibliographies, help pages etc – allowing visitors to edit them so you get more ideas about what they want to know
using podcasts to deliver training, e.g. for infolit-type workshops, or self-guided library tours. Also to promote library services throughout the year. (Check out what UNE's radio station TUNE!FM does to help out during university orientation!)
using webcasts to share information about specialist collections
making sure you search student blogs for unsolicited feedback on your services – students in some courses are given the task of creating blogs for assessment, although you might find personal blogs from students out there as well.

The overall advice I picked up from the day was:

if you want to use technology, first make sure it will meet your needs and your clients' needs – then don't release anything until you have thoroughly planned and tested and prepared
use the technologies to be where your clients want you, when they want you
don't forget to apply traditional principles when you're using a new technology: evaluate the value of the content often, and have a weeding policy
involve your IT people early! The IT section's security and policy needs seemed to be an issue for everyone.

Hope this post isn't too long and boring – might make up for a few missed weeks, again. :) I'll end with what would normally be a Friday link, but is more relevant today: Dave Pattern's Library 2.0 Idea Generator. (Warning: may make you laugh out loud...better not read it on the ref desk!)

2006-07-27T20:50:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: A small triumph with a favicon.

I'm pleased with this because I tried it in the past and it didn't work; today it did. I made myself an image in .gif format and using the online tool FavIcon from Pics I converted it to an .ico file. Put in the two lines of HTML code that Wikipedia recommended for favicon standardisation, and now when you visit my webpages or bookmark them, you see the image beside the URL.

I forget why I wasn't able to do this before – I think I got stuck trying to create an .ico file.

2006-07-24T23:28:00.000+10:00

One New Thing:Skills for the 21st Century Librarian, by Meredith Farkas (link via librarian.net)

I like this list – could be just the area that I work in now, but project management, technology and software evaluation, and evaluating user needs are skill requirements that tend to come up a lot. Every time a client says “Hey can I use *insert name of new technology or software* here?” you're on the road to evaluating user needs, evaulating and comparing available technology or software, and setting off on a project to implement something!

I decided today that my old trend of only posting amusing links on Fridays isn't going to work anymore...so I'll just be random and post them as I find them. :) Recently I've come across two very catchy songs which have both come into being due to the Net Neutrality issue (this guide was produced by Google). One of these song says it all...Broadband's God Save the Internet. The other...well if you haven't heard the whole story, it's great, chase it up! Senator Ted Stevens features in the techno track A Series of Tubes.

2006-07-12T22:13:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Seven habits!

I've just finished reading Stephen Covey's “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. I realise it's not the sort of book you're supposed to read cover to cover in one sitting but I had to (because I have to take it back to the library!) and I actually found it quite easy to read and understand this way – lots of examples to make it easier to understand how the habits can actually be used in real life. I like the fact that it's not just about managing people in a workplace, that it also covers relating to friends and family- I should have read this book when I was working in childcare years ago, it might have made it easier to settle playground arguments!

I particularly like the Circle of Influence, which I've come across in other courses before; but right at this moment I'm still pondering on the bit at the very end of the book where the activites of a day are prioritised according to different management theories. I'll let you read it rather than go into detail, but (spoiler approaching) I'm still trying to determine if it's really possible or practical to organise a day so that none of the “urgent” stuff actually gets done as listed on the to-do list...? (I hope I'm right in assuming it gets harder to work this way when you have to do client support. Even in the midst of creating new was of streamlining workloads...I still have to answer my phone!)

If you're wondering why the sudden interest in reading books on management theory - I'm doing a course on Fundamentals of Leadership through work, and this was recommended reading.

2006-07-11T21:51:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: More advanced SQL.

I saw a colleague do something with an SQL query today that I didn't know you could do: return a count(*) column for every row in a query that returns several rows.
For example, if you had a table of data on books of varying topics, you could query the number of books in each topic by using SELECT topic, count(*) and making sure you GROUP BY topic.
I've only ever used count(*) to SELECT one total count for one column, so this is a very exciting discovery for me. :)

In trying to learn more I googled around (this depth of information isn't in the w3schools SQL tutorial) and discovered this Word doc of SQL Tips. I have no idea what the context of the document is, but it's from a university website and the structure of the queries looks vaguely PeopleSoft-ish to me. If you're interested in learning SQL (or more SQL than you know already) finding pages of queries like this is a cool way to pick up how it works.

2006-07-10T22:59:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Budgeting and finance calculations made easy....or at least easier!

Some wonderful tools for Australians to use to set up their personal budget and calcuate other financial information is availabe at FIDO, the Australian Securities and Investment Commision (ASIC) website for financial tips and safety checks. Look for Calculators – Other Calculators for the list. There's lots of other useful info on the site as well – if the financial books are always out on loan in your library, stick this URL to the shelf where the books ought to be!

2006-07-09T13:35:00.000+10:00

Some New Things: On Friday I went to two presentations sponsored by QUT's Information Use Research Group:
Blogs, wikis and reference services: Discovering the Australian library context by Kate Watson and Chelsea Harper. Kate and Chelsea are doing a study into the use of blogs and wikis in reference services in Australian libraries. The results of the finished study will be presented at conferences at a later date – so I can't reveal what they told us. :) They did invite us to play on the wiki for the project at http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/libraryblogswikis.

Also Bill Johnston and Sheila Webber of the Information Literacy Weblog presented on their findings of UK academic conceptions and pedagogies of information literacy. Some of the points I found most interesting is that teaching info lit skills as well as the actual subject matter for a subject can be quite challenging; also, when it comes to using technology, the person teaching really needs to be comfortable with using the technology themselves before they can be critical about the way it is used.

How true this is for learning management systems. ;)

2006-07-05T23:21:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: A brave new way of sharing teaching resources.

Found via KeptUp: a setup like eBay, but for teachers. Teachers who design and develop their own original teaching resources can register and sell these resources to other teachers via the site at teacherspayteachers.com

Anyone working in educational technology can tell you about the learning objects trade – e.g Blackboard's Course Cartridges – but this site is different in that there are all sorts of resources, designed for use in various ways in the classroom, so they aren't necessarily going to be electronic. I like the idea of current classroom teachers being able to share their everyday teaching tools with wider audiences.

2006-07-03T22:57:00.000+10:00

Hello. Remember me? I used to blog here. :)

The initially unplanned hiatus was due to a combination of holidays over the Christmas period and then a truly spectacularly busy period at work until about April. Now I have a little bit more time, I'll see how I go with keeping things going blogwise.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed my New Librarian's Resource Page going for a bit of a wander. The site is now back up at my ALIA webspace: http://www.alia.org.au/~lreville/nlrp

Hard to think of all the new things I might have learnt in six months – so maybe I'll stick to the things right in front of me tonight! My drafts of blog posts are now being written in Open Office – I reinstalled my computer and can't find my MS Office disk! - and I'm a convert. Particularly that one little button that instantly turns your file into a PDF. Very nice indeed – everything I write is going out as PDF these days.

In a completely unrelated topic, I've just stumbled upon and been reading the Second Life Library blog. I'm not a Second Life user yet, although this little project is interesting enough to make me consider visiting.
Does anyone know if there are libraries and info lit courses happening in World of Warcraft too? :)

2005-12-20T22:46:00.000+10:00

Some New Things:

I’ve been busy with many things of late – namely, the following:

At work I’ve been helping out with the web (catalogue) interface to the library system. Having had library experience, then systems experience, it’s good to come to a point that the two areas combine – for one thing, my memories of MARC (learnt at library school but not used much since then) came flooding back pretty quickly. My skills at navigating through a UNIX environment are improving a lot because I am doing it more often than ever was necessary before, and I have mastered the art of not messing up files when editing with vi (the UNIX file editor). Practising vi by using WinVi proved quite useful. I’m only making one constant mistake when editing files now: and that is if I’m using the “L” key to scroll right, when I want to scroll up, I tend to reach for the “I” key. If you know vi, you’ll understand why this can be a mistake. ;)

At the other end of the library scale, I came up with a loan-tracking system for the choir library, which works by having the choir members as well as the choir librarian keep a list of the music that is borrowed, and when music is returned, the choir members must get their list stamped/signed by the librarian. Time will tell how well this system works, so I’ll update on that in the new year. The catalogue will remain in its current format: a list in an Excel file. Why? Because it is easily created, easily maintained, easily backed up, easily sorted / searched, not likely to have its compatibility affected by updates to the Excel software for a few years to come; and most importantly, can be printed out and taken to the library, which doesn’t have a computer in it.

I’m quite enjoying this pre-technology approach to managing a library (well, except for the Excel file). This month it is five years since I completed my Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies, with so much focus on how to work in a digital environment; and here I am trying to remember how library loans and card catalogues worked before they brought computers into my primary school library!

2005-11-29T00:51:00.000+10:00

Some New Things: It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of my ‘discoveries’ on this blog, so here you go: did you know that in a PowerPoint 2003 Shows you can right-click on the slide, use the mouse as a pen to draw diagrams or highlight things, then save the scribbles as part of the file? I wonder if that is making life easier for people who do presentations with non-standard characters or diagrams – being able to draw them right into the slides?

I have just taken on a new library project, which is doing an overhaul of a small library of music owned by a choir. This is the second time I have had the opportunity to voluntarily take on a small collection and work on all aspects of it, from looking at the cataloguing system and storage requirements to developing loans procedures. I had a quick look online for information on what other librarians have done to organise such small collections and couldn’t find anything easily: so in the interests of finally finding a use for the Wiki I set up many months ago, if you have a story you would like to share about setting up a very small library, please add it to the Very Small Library Collections – Stories.

So far, I have learnt that sheet music ought to lie down, not stand upright, and that it needs to be in some sort of archival-quality storage in order for it to last: such as these The Best Box music storage systems. Real archival quality is far beyond the budget I am working with right now however, so I am investigating other options, and open to ideas! Sheet music is particularly problematic because musicians need to write on it, and it can be quite fragile as it isn’t protected by bindings (even before people take erasers to it). I can already advise that you shouldn’t secure it with paper clips before putting it in storage.

2005-11-23T00:29:00.000+10:00

Updates to this blog will resume shortly!!

2005-10-31T22:07:00.000+10:00

One New Thing:Thoughts on changing teaching methods, and libraries.

A new-to-me blog I stumbled on tonight (following more links from Teach and Learn Online) is Dave's Educational Blog. Looks like a good place to go if you are interested in thinkings and theories of education and e-learning. As a librarian I’m intrigued by Dave’s idea of the feedbook. We already have the technology, and judging by the blogs, Wikis, and wikibooks that are already being constructed by experts in their fields, this is the kind of proposition that could be put into practice any day now.

In any library, could librarians be involved in the selection or dissemination of information provided via this or a similar model? It bears a vague resemblance to a scholarly journal: one “publication”, multiple authors. In the same way that online provision of course reading lists, lecture notes and assignment topics has made it easier for academic librarians to find out what resources students need access to throughout the year, imagine being able to quickly access exactly what they are covering in class on a day-to-day basis. Imagine, in fact, “books” where the information is up-to-the-minute. (Imagine a bibliography where timestamp is a required annotation!)

I can think of many impacts on libraries when would-be library patrons can have more direct access to information straight from the experts – widening of the digital divide, information literacy needs, fee vs free publications - all of which we are already aware of and will probably hear a lot more about as technological and pedagogical opportunities present themselves.

I hope the librarians, educators and IT staffers in institutional environments are chatting to each other about…possibilities. :)

2005-10-25T00:08:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Evidence Based Librarianship.

The EBL (Evidence Based Librarianship) conference was held last week in Brisbane and although I didn’t get to go to the actual conference, I was able to see a couple of the presenters doing a shortened summary of their papers. The concept of EBL is fascinating to me: it’s really so simple – practising librarianship based on evidence revealed through research, statistics, and client feedback. Yet applying EBL theories to particular projects for the libraries and librarians who presented has been very successful for them. My particular favourites of the papers I saw presented were Transaction log analysis @ State Library of Queensland (pdf) by Scott Hamilton / Helen Thurlow, and What can students' bibliographies tell us? - Evidence based information skills teaching for engineering students (pdf) by Fei Yu / Jan Sullivan / Leith Woodall.

2005-10-23T23:20:00.000+10:00

Some New Things:

Leigh Blackall of Teach and Learn Online has some interesting thoughts on Everything You Need to Teach and Learn Online (there’s a part 1, 2 and 3 – this link is to Part 3 so you can work backwards). If you’re delivering course content online, you could do it entirely using freely-available tools such as Blogger, Gmail, Flickr…the list goes on. Interesting thought, particularly for those of us involved in any way with the world of commercial courseware.

Leigh always has lots of interesting stuff popping up on his blog: this essay on Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age is an article which extends on some themes about learners and how they learn that I remember from my studies in teaching a few years back: except this looks at how this fits into the trend towards the use of digital resources in teaching.

Another interesting article is Lawsuit Charges Online University Does Not Accommodate Learning-Disabled Students, a story about a student filing charges against an institution following their implementation of WebCT, because he has learning difficulties which made it hard for him to learn to use the software. It’s thought-provoking to look at how many web standards are in place for users who have physical disabilities, and then to think about the lack of guidelines for users with other disabilities. Particularly with commercial learning management software, where end users don’t really have a lot of choice in the way the courses or the communication/assessment tools within them are accessed are constructed: you have to take what they give you, for better or worse.

2005-10-16T22:18:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Firefox, Google and Prefetching.

Google has introduced a new “feature” for those using Mozilla browsers: prefetching the first hit in your Google results list.
A post from LISnews on the issue points to: Google's new feature creates another user privacy problem. If you’re a Mozilla user, read it now!!

2005-09-28T18:15:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Where to find info on preservation of library materials.

Looking for resources on preservation of books and paper documents, I’ve found a site that has an incredible amount of information on preservation of library and museum artefacts. It is the Conserve-O-Grams from the U.S National Parks Service Museum Management Program, and the site includes not only your traditional library items such as books, tapes, photographs, but also furniture, biological specimens, textiles, and even stone. There’s also some “Salvage at a Glance” material that could be very useful in the case of an emergency – bookmark this site now, just in case!

I found the wonderful Cyndi’s List has a good list of links for Preservation and Conservation if you are looking for more.

2005-09-16T23:16:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: New technologies in libraries.

Last week I went to a half-day information session on new technologies in libraries (PDF). Definitely some interesting concepts for libraries to consider trailing for themselves: including ideas like using a wiki to build your FAQs on your website, so your clients can add/edit information as they wish; providing RSS feeds for new titles and items out on loan; and providing reference services and library hold/recall notices via SMS. What is great about these services is not only are they something that clients might use because the technology is already part of their everyday lives, but that the costs and maintenance of these services don’t cost all that much, according to those who have trialed them: some are even set up completely in-house by IT-savvy staff. (The libraries involved are listed on the flyer, if you want to visit their websites and find out more about what services they offer.)

2005-08-29T22:09:00.000+10:00

I know it’s been awfully quiet around this blog recently…give me another few weeks to see how things look before I decide whether I need to change the concept to One New Thing a year, or something. ;)

Some New Things:
Making Online Information for all Australians a Reality is an issues paper presented by a reference group with the support of the National Library of Australia. The paper brings together the objectives and benefits of the idea of creating a national consortium of libraries, across sectors, to negotiate national licensing for information identified as relevant to all Australians. It seems this has been done successfully in other areas of the world, and would certainly be a great help to small libraries – giving them access to resources they would have no way to afford otherwise.

Speaking of papers, the ALIA Interlibrary Lending Expert Advisory Group is doing a review of the Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing Code. They’re also calling for comments (well for the next 2 days!) so take a look and see at what changes are being proposed.

Just in case you have been under a rock (much like myself) and haven’t heard, there have also been meetings of the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. A key part of the revision is the proposal for RDA - Resource Description and Access – “RDA is being developed as a new standard for resource description and access designed for use in a digital environment.”

And I’m sure some of you are missing my end-of-week links; I know I am! Here’s two:

Library offers imam, gypsy, gay person for 'loan'- What a great idea – borrow a person to chat with for your 45-min loan period. This would be a good idea for regular research projects too – for example local history libraries could get longtime local residents in. You could even catalogue local experts, and have library staff contact them if a patron wanted a chat. But I wonder where they’d put the barcode? ;)

Can't Wait for a Book? Paris Can Help - If your public library isn’t open every day, or your academic library doesn’t stock a lot of popular fiction – what are you waiting for? I would love one of these wherever you find softdrink vending machines!

2005-07-10T13:47:00.000+10:00

Busy, but still here. :)

Some new things:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is now in a position to allow free access to electronic publications. They are available to everyone with access to the Internet.

A blog for those in teaching and learning: Leigh Blackall’s Teach and Learn Online - "Things to do with network learning, flexible learning, and online teaching and learning."

ASC Online points to LISWiki. From the About page: “LISWiki was established to give the library community a chance to explore the usefulness of Wikis.” Clicking the Random Page link gives you a pretty good idea that this Wiki could end up being pretty broad in topic range!

A BoingBoing post on a bakery that will no longer put “outside” images onto children’s birthday cakes has an interesting list of reponses on the concept of “fair use”: Copyright cops crack down on cooks over cakes

And an end-of-week link for the first time in a long time: Marianne of Library Supporter made a passing comment about Hope’s Little Library. It’s quite cute – check it out. :)

2005-06-21T22:41:00.000+10:00

Some New Things:

A post on Duelling Databases from TechnoBiblio covers the story of the National Institute of Health’s freely-accessible database facing a call to be shut down – because it is challenging the earning ability of a similar commercially-available database. Keep an eye on the outcome of this one if you can; it will be interesting.

From Blind Chance, a link to a nifty tool that strips web pages down to plain text. Loband works very well as far as I can see, and it turns my blog into…actually, it turns it into something where all the supplementary information (rather than the important stuff) is at the head of the page. Hmmmm. Possibly useful for testing accessibility as well as recommended to people who need text-only or low-bandwidth webpages.

Catalogablog on del.icio.us shows how you can combine tags with a + to show posts with both tags. (Is it my imagination, or is the “New+York+City” example picking up people who tagged things as “New York City” without realising the tags were separate?)

For myself, I quite like the new del.icio.us posting screen. If you haven’t used it before, or just haven’t posted anything for a while – take a look.

And for the sysadmins amongst us, have a go at coolcommands, a search tool for UNIX commands. Very neat!

2005-06-14T23:44:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Regular Expressions.

Well it may sound sad, but I am amazed at all the things I can do with search and replace using regular expressions. It’s basically just pattern matching to do find and replace, or format data for importing and exporting elsewhere, but since I wasn’t aware of how easy it can be to get a chunk of text and format it into something I could read I think I could quite happily start doing these the same way other people do crossword puzzles. ;) Textpad and Dreamweaver are the two programs I’ve been able to use this strange new skill in.

2005-06-07T22:50:00.000+10:00

Thanks for being patient with longer-than-intended silence – back now!

One New Thing: The strange thing about changing Word to PDF with images.

I ran into a problem recently where if you have a Word-created document that has non-bordered images in it, when you try to make it into a PDF with Acrobat, a thin border sometimes appears around the outside of the image. After much experimentation and unsuccessful searching online for the problem (e.g. this post from Planet PDF forums which reports the same issue with borders), I worked out I could prevent the borders by changing the image format of the inserted file from a .jpg to a .bmp file.

Planet PDF has proved quite useful in answering PDF questions – bookmark it in case you get a burning PDF question!

2005-05-09T21:48:00.000+10:00

Just an update: you'll have noticed posts being a bit sporadic of late. I'm going to take a short break from the blog, and work out where all my time has gone. I'll be back in a week or two!

2005-05-03T21:52:00.000+10:00

Some new things:

I’ve thought a few times in the past week – as I point to the same service point in the library over and over again – that robots in some libraries simply for directional purposes would be a very cool idea. Googling “robots in libraries” finds a link to Robots get bookish in libraries which I’m sure most librarians have heard about by now: robots that can go and find a book in the stacks. But really, for now I’d be happy with one that can have all the major locations in the library programmed into it so it can lead people directly to where they want to go. I’m a little concerned about the time when people decide it is too much effort to actually locate the book on the shelf and pick it up unassisted (although for patrons with a disability, that would be a wonderful service to be able to provide).

Another thought I had was that it seems to be quite unnerving for new undergraduate students to try and determine if they are using an article from a “scholarly” journal. Perhaps there are ways in which to manage a student’s expectations of what researching an assignment is going to involve? Maybe we can show them how a librarian finds a relevant journal article in an appropriate database and check that it is from a scholarly publication in a few minutes at the desk, or even in a 1-hr class, but I get the impression some students expect that once you have found one article, all others are just as easy to find.
How about producing appropriately-themed bumper stickers for O-Week: “Research takes time!”? (You see why I am writing a blog, not bumper stickers.)

I spent some time today learning how to write more in-depth queries in SQL, with the helpful support of DbaSupport.com and some nice co-workers (thank you, to all the nice co-workers who have been answering my SQL queries…er, questions!) The way tables are joined makes much more sense to me these days, so I’m starting to look at what data is available in the database and how I can string it together to make some of the daily administrative things I do a bit easier.

And an end-of-week link (for last week I think!): Librarian in Black pointed out that Amazon.com has a Free Music Downloads page. Nice!

2005-04-25T21:51:00.000+10:00

Some new things:
Via Kept-Up, When iPod goes collegiate. If you have heard that some colleges are giving out iPods to students but didn’t know why, this article covers some of the uses students and professors are putting them to. The idea is to use the iPod as a portable storage and audio recording/playback device, not as something you use to play music on – although professors concede that this is what most students do with them when the iPods are off duty as study aids.

Via LISNews, Does more IM = a lower IQ? You’ll be glad to know the reported effects are only temporary, and really due to more to lack of focus on one task than an actual loss of intelligence.

Both of these articles bring up a point to ponder – the methods people use themselves to integrate newer ways of communicating and sharing knowledge into their everyday working or studying habits. For instance, students that meet in person on campus and exchange IM details can then reach each other from where they are studying at home and discuss classwork and assignments online. But one would imagine that these students also need the discipline to turn off IM programs when they become a distraction. The students with iPods need to recognise when to switch from music to course content. It’s a whole new set of study skills to learn.

And I wonder if academic libraries are having to come up with new sets of infolit classes on how to use an iPod?

While I am thinking of it, I came across this page with lots of resources for Instructional Improvement in Academic Libraries. Useful if you are looking for models of programs and schemes on teaching and learning.

For end-of-week links, here are two readers advisory type sites you may like:
- StoryCode.com - I was emailed a link to this site, which looks like it has the potential to develop into a useful tool. Reading the Help pages will give you an idea of how it all works.
- Smart Bitches Trashy Books (worksafe warning on this one) - You probably don’t want to send the majority of your romance-reading public to this site, but for those of you sneaking romance novels home for the corny entertainment value, this site is great fun!

2005-04-19T21:52:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Getting the balance right with ESL clients.

ESL clients being people who speak English as a second (or third, possibly) language. With any client there is always the need to determine exactly how much help you need to give them: when they come in and ask “where are the journals?” you need to judge whether they seriously want to be pointed to a collection that covers a large amount of floorspace, or if they want a rundown on how to search in ProQuest. With ESL clients, you also need to become a good judge of whether they are able to clearly follow your meaning.

When I studied French at uni, we were taught how to read and listen the same way as you would in a native language, that is by hearing unfamiliar words in context and deriving their meaning, rather than running for the dictionary. I know one person asking for directions was confused by my instruction to “come back across the walkway”, never having heard of a “walkway” before. But if someone comes to the reference desk and asks you to look over their 500-word essay for grammatical errors, are they looking for an expert opinion or a native speaker who will pick up basic mistakes? I helped someone today with a question about reference lists, and when I had answered her questions , she carefully began numbering the items to show how she would alphabetise them, and numbered two the wrong way around (e.g. putting Johnson before Johns). I think it’s more these little unknown things, not the “language barrier” as a whole, that we need to be aware of when assisting ESL clients.

2005-04-17T23:26:00.000+10:00

To try and make up the appropriate number of One New Things, here’s a roundup of all the things that caught my interest most on others’ blogs over the past few days:

Via explodedlibrary.info, and confirmed when I checked my email, Meetup.com is starting to charge for services. This is a shame, because Meetup is one of those simple yet great services that may just be too simple for people to pay for. At least Australian readers can do what explodedlibrary suggests instead: use Getalife.

Via LibrarianInBlack, a link to this Web Builder’s Toolkit and specifically to some CSS templates and tools and generators. I can see where my next lot of free time is going. ;)

Via Catalogablog, this link to the Library Clips blog and a post on Social bookmarks so far… Social bookmarking seems to me to have sprung up out of nowhere and taken over the online world of late. This is a nice collection of thoughts on where tagging is, where it is going, and the folksonomy angle. (I’ve also just realised how many tools people are using that end in “.us” or “url”.)

Via Researchbuzz, a lesson in making sure you use multiple search engines: Yahgoohoogle.

And finally, my end-of-week link (yes you counted right, the second one): a story, Experience required, from the Feel Good Librarian. I hope someone makes the post’s last sentence into a T-shirt. :)

2005-04-12T21:09:00.000+10:00

Sorry about the larger-than-usual gaps between posts – it’s caused by general busyness. I don’t plan to give up the blog! If you are one of those who visits the page to read, try signing up for Bloglines or another newsreader so you don’t have to visit to see if I had time to post.

Some of the things I have been learning:

I’ve been looking at some of Eric Meyer’s CSS stuff, and there is so much of it to take in! Having originally learnt CSS to take the place of HTML elements on my web pages, I’m now working out what you can do with it that you can’t do at all in HTML – particular styles and functionalities, like menus and layouts in particular. Most of what I am doing at the moment is copying and pasting other people’s code and then customising it, but since I am starting to remember some of it and also just be aware of what sorts of things can be done, it’s working for me!

Discovered a use today (some things I access at work) for those Unix commands that I had to learn at library school for reasons that were never quite clear to me. Finding out that I may be able to use that information is reassuring, now I just have to find out if I can cope using text-only commands and no Microsoft “Are you sure?” warnings. ;)

Since I missed an end-of-week link I’ll try and squeeze in two this week, the first being NationStates. A friend introduced me to this online game where the only participation that is required is that each day you make a political decision which affects the direction your nation takes. When you read the FAQ, you find out that the game was actually developed as advertising for a novel, and the person responsible was the author himself Max Barry. And he has a blog which discusses the book, too, for all of us who have ever wondered what happens once a novel is released into the wild.

2005-04-06T21:44:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Firefox and CSS.

I’ve discovered that when you are using CSS in your webpages, you should test their appearance in Firefox over any other browser. Firefox seems to be particularly picky about having code down to the standard letter, and will display things exactly as you have written them, rather than overlooking your errors like IE and Netscape do (or do to an extent).

Since I missed last week’s amusing link, whilst you are installing Firefox, you should also install the Firesomething extension. Much better to have a browser you can have fun with – it might take some of the frustration out of trying to work out what is wrong with your CSS. ;)

2005-03-31T13:49:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Backing up Photoshop Elements.

Back on the topic of my latest software distraction: I was trying to use Photoshop Elements 3.0 to do the backups of all the cataloguing you can do on your photos. Thing is, you can do incremental backups straight to CD / DVD – however to be able to import off these media to do a restore, you have to use a blank disc and have nothing else on it but that one incremental backup. If the backup is smaller than the size of the disc – say the 200mb of photos you take in one afternoon and want to backup to a 4 gig DVD – you lose the rest of the disc space. And tricky things happen to the filenaming convention when you backup to your hard drive then burn that copy to CD/DVD, so you still can’t restore off the removable disc.

However after a night of experimentation, I find no problems with doing the backup to hdd, burning to a rewritable disc, and then if you need to do a restore, copying the files back off the disc before attempting to restore them. Then I figure I can overwrite the previous backup on disc every time I want to do a new backup.

I’ve just realised I’ve spent an evening cataloguing and archiving my photos. Once a librarian… :)

2005-03-25T01:09:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: The costs of learning.

Found via Issues in Scholarly Communication - Georgia State University Library, this article from the Harvard Crimson Online - Attack of the Wallet Killers. The article points out the prohibitively expensive prices attached to the required textbooks of some university courses. From experience I know this is true across all universities and all fields – in academic libraries, we get students every day desperately chasing copies of books they can’t afford to buy. There are only so many copies a library can purchase of a book that may only be used for a year – or even worse, has already been superseded by a new edition, but the old edition is being used as the prescribed text. It’s disappointing to know that in a world of information and online course delivery, the majority of students get the best access to required course information by splitting the cost of one book with a few classmates and timesharing that book through the semester.

2005-03-22T22:25:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Music access models.

Interesting article from The Register, a keynote speech given last September: How the music biz can live forever, get even richer, and be loved. The ideas for rights management and royalties are something to think about, as are the glimpses of the future of music devices.

2005-03-20T17:04:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Photoshop Elements.

I’ve just spent an afternoon learning to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. It’s fun! (P.S. I won my copy of Elements at a seminar at work – so I feel justified in promoting it by telling you this!) I think it would be a great tool for doing photographic presentations – much better than that other program people create photographic slideshows in. ;) It has a lot of the plain Photoshop editing tools available in it too, so if all those tools in full Photoshop scare you, there’s a lot more simplicity in Elements.

I’ve been a lot busier than I expected to be this week, so I don’t think I’ve seen anything suitable for an end-of-week link. But if you’re looking for something that is interesting and also reference-question-related: just go browse through Snopes.com. There’s never a dull moment there. :)

2005-03-14T23:42:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Other ways of thinking about website navigation.

In this month’s inCite, “Webb’s Web” mentions the article Thinking Differently About Site Mapping and Navigation. There are some interesting ideas about website navigation in this page, which lead to some even more interesting ideas down in the comments! The main point I picked up is that “home” is not necessarily where your users start their searches on your pages – Google is more likely to dump them in an internal content page if your site comes up in a search, and your site should be structured so that they can navigate further without having to return to the home page to do so. It’s also important to remember that although grouping pages in similar locations can be useful conceptually in a site map, you can have the same page grouped in multiple locations, because on a website, it doesn’t matter.
For a really interesting idea for website navigation check out this, which was linked in the comments: Beautification Revisited (smart URLs and smarter 404s).

2005-03-13T22:40:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Some databases are really different.

Like the AustArt database, an Australian art journal index database, which gives you a citation that doesn’t include an article title. Am I missing something here?

I’ve finally made my way back to a library front desk this week and mostly gotten back into the swing of having people standing in front of me instead of just a voice on the phone. For all of us out there serving clients: next time you need a break, read Clientcopia. Just try not to laugh out loud at the front desk. ;)

2005-03-09T22:24:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Google AutoLink.

Seems like some people are getting a bit concerned over the new Google Toolbar (version 3.0, beta) and it’s new feature of automatically providing links to things like street addresses and ISBN numbers. In some cases, from a user point of view, that’s fantastic – being able to get instant info where a link has not been provided by the creator of the site. But from the point of view of the person creating the site…?
Read this article from WebProWorld: What Traffic Google Giveth, AutoLink Taketh, and also the article on the Toolbar from SearchEngineWatch.

2005-03-08T23:10:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Thoughts on creating useful online interfaces.

Working this week on how best to make it easier for people to find information in a long list of FAQs, I’ve discovered there isn’t really a way to have a “Search this page” box that you can just code into your HTML. I know you can use Ctrl-F, but I discovered that makes people get lost searching in other pages in my frameset. It seems to me that the kind of search box you get when you hit Ctrl-F should be able to be embedded in a page, since every browser I have come across has the find-in-this-page functionality…

2005-03-04T18:53:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: SQL queries across databases.

Finally I can write queries that work! And yesterday I was shown how to make them pull data from two different databases – we use an @ to tell it where to look.

Friday link (yes, I’m blogging on a Friday!): you may have read David Facheux’s blog, Blind Chance. I came across an article David wrote about himself becoming a librarian that brings to light some pretty important issues: Is There a Place for Us? Toward the Full Inclusion of Blind and Other Librarians with Disabilities.

2005-03-03T00:11:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Firefox security, and other browser musings.

Still hunting for clues on the right-clicking problem, I came across Three Flaws Surface For Firefox. The link-could-not-be-saved issue is the one I’m wondering about…and this article seems to be saying that this is a security feature. Odd, since some of the files I can’t save are very definitely .htm files (I know, because I made them). I’ve read in a few forums that you can open a .htm or .html file and right-click in it to save, but I’m not sure that will work for the other filetypes I’ve come across – must wait till I get to the PC with Firefox and Netscape on it. Strange to think how I now regularly go across using IE, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, Mozilla and Safari – in the library context, I can’t remember ever needing to know more than IE. Just out of interest, are there any libraries out there offering browsers other than IE on OPAC computers located in the library?

2005-03-01T23:11:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: MIME types.

I’ve been having issues lately with Netscape refusing to allow right-clicking and saving a file, and I’d love to be able to work out why. Webopedia will happily tell me that my browser will support different MIME types, but unfortunately not why it won’t let me save them. I’ll have to keep looking. Good thing I’m a librarian – you spend a lot of time researching strange anomalies, in IT support. ;)

2005-02-27T18:54:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: SQL Joins.

I’ve gotten the hang of looking up data in individual tables (well that’s not too hard, the program I’m using drops in most of the syntax for me!) and I can do simple adds and deletes without too much trouble. Now to start heading into joining tables, with the help of W3Schools SQL Tutorial:
Since their example is pretty straightforward, referring to two tables isn’t as hard as it looks when you are trying to return more than 2 columns (which I’ll have to work on doing later). The query is just
SELECT column1, column2
FROM table1, table2
WHERE table1.primarykey1=table2.primarykey1
Whether or not I will be able to get what I want from that query will have to wait till tomorrow. Next I’ll have to get into sorting and removing duplicates and other fun things. :)

End-of-week link: This is a very funny piece from a blog called Complete Tosh, about the interaction of people and their toys: "My iPod has a personality!" No, really. It doesn't.

2005-02-23T23:57:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Look online where you think it should be.

Trying to find a list of Australian government jobs classification levels tonight, I Googled for every phrase I could think of and came up with nothing useful (well except for salary information on the ALIA website, strangely enough) I eventually decided that really where I should look is on the Australian Government website, and there was the link on the front page. Silly trick to forget!! (Google – no, I am not feeling lucky this time.)

2005-02-22T00:00:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Plugging in drives.

I think I am almost getting to the point now where I would be willing to try opening my computer case and changing CD-ROM or floppy drives or adding RAM sticks on my own – I’ve watched someone else do it a few times, and it isn’t as mysterious as I always suspected it might be, having not seen the interior of a computer until I acquired one of my own a few years ago. You just have to know what plug to put where, and for the most part all the plugs are sized and shaped only to fit the bit that is supposed to plug into them. I think they are, anyway. It might be a good idea for me to start on old broken computers and work my way into still-functioning ones. :)

2005-02-20T22:10:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: SHN – Shorten audio format.

I noticed that on the Live Music Archive page, many of the downloads are available in .shn format. According to the Shorten entry for Wikipedia, it’s a lossless method of compressing CD quality audio, quite common for live show tapings (which is what you will find on the Live Music Archive if you go there. If you’re a music fan, go there as the end of week link!).

Here is A Small SHN and MD5 FAQ which is pretty useful, and most people on forums are pointing to Etree.org for answers and software.

2005-02-16T20:11:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Doing things the Macintosh way.

The first computer I ever learned to use was a Mac: I was about 9 years old, and we used it for playing some sort of maths game. Then I think I mostly ignored all computers, until I decided to become a librarian and couldn’t avoid them. Now, I support people who are using both PCs and Macs, so I have had to become aware of what the differences between them are. After using a PC, many things on a Mac seem odd…but I’m told that to Mac users, many things on a PC seem odd! The Macs I have been playing on lately have been using PC mice, so I haven’t had to be confused by the right-click / ctrl-click issue. I’ve established that the little traffic lights you use to minimise/ maximise/close programs are on the opposite side to what you think they are, and that when you minimise, programs don’t disappear into a void – they are also just on the opposite side to what you think they are, and then are subtle icons not rectangular boxes. And I managed to install a browser – after I dragged the icon from the desktop around and around for a bit, I found the Applications folder and dragged it there, and it installed! A small step maybe, but quite exciting for me. ;)

2005-02-14T19:11:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Wiki making!

Thanks to the SeedWiki people, I can now learn what happens when I try to make a success of having a Wiki. I’d like to open the New Librarian’s Wiki to anyone who wants a stab at playing with a Wiki…and perhaps help me (and anyone who uses it) with my sadly-neglected-of-late Resource Page. I wrote a little instruction page to the Wiki once I worked out what was going on, so please, go forth and create!

2005-02-13T23:42:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Short jobs.

I think I might start making one day or half day a week my niggling-little-things day, and set it aside for doing all the really easy simple things I’ve been thinking I ought to do – those things that you know will only take an hour, and aren’t urgent, so you put them off for a few days, weeks, months etc. It’s nice to get to the end of a day and tick multiple items off a to-do list!

End-of-week link: I can’t remember if I have posted this one before, but this is a very addictive (and vaguely library-related!) game: Bookworm

2005-02-10T23:57:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Blogs as research notepads.

Kept Up linked to Academics give lessons on blogs, an article describing how some academics and students are starting to use blogs as a way of recording and distributing information about and keeping track of their notes on their topics of interest. I’ve posted before on how useful personal pages kept by experts can be – the ease of publishing of blogs will probably make this more apparent, I think. So I hope academic librarians at institutions that support their staff keeping blogs are adding these to their library catalogues, particularly if they are hosted on non-institutional servers. I’d like to think that if librarians can be aware of information and resource sharing trends like these that are likely to grow, at least in the short term, that we can keep track with them as they develop. Imagine having to rely on Googling for a blog on a topic, then having no information on who the author is to judge whether the information they are blogging is reliable?

2005-02-07T18:40:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Knowing what people know.

I may have written this before: but I’d just like to point out again how difficult it can be when you don’t know how much people know about something when they ask you a question. It’s particularly noticeable via email questions – they ask, you ask what they are asking, they rephrase what they are asking, you ask them to clarify what they are asking…

2005-02-06T17:52:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: SQL querying.

This may sound odd, but I’ve discovered that doing things via SQL is actually easier than it looks – the syntax is pretty simple. Perhaps this is the librarian in me being accustomed to using endless conditions in a search string to try and find that one perfect article. ;) Of course there is still the challenge of wrapping your head around a big complicated database with an unexpected number of primary keys to overcome, but I expect that will get easier with practice…well, I hope so!
There’s a W3Schools SQL tutorial which I am intending to go through when I have a chance, but since I have real techie people around me to do the hardcore techie stuff, I’m just picking it up as I go for now.

End-of-week link: Jessamyn pointed to this one a week or two back: Wacky and Weird Subject Headings. Surely the list can be made much longer (and weirder) than this? :)

2005-02-02T22:51:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Where they are asking the questions.

I read an article called “The fact finders” in the Icon liftout of the Sydney Morning Herald (written by Nicole Manktelow, published Jun 19-20 2004). It discusses three services that people can use to have tricky questions answered: Vodafone 123, the NLA’s Ask Now, and MoJoKnows.
(Read the PDF of "The fact finders", archived on the MoJoKnows site.)

Rather than discuss the actual article, it’s my own librarian reactions to it that I’d like to write about.

First thing I noticed: the people on 123 and MoJoKnows “aren’t necessarily librarians”.
My reaction: what?? How then do people know they are getting the quality and reliability of service that librarians concentrate so much on?
Thinking further: I realise that these are sort of quick-answer services. The impression I get is that they are asked mostly ready reference-style questions, which anyone with a telephone, a decent amount of Internet savvy, and training could answer in a few minutes of searching. (I do also wonder if the quote means some of them *are* librarians.)

Second: MoJoKnows is a service anyone can use - questions are sent via SMS, and if you are willing to pay $3, they will reply within 15mins.
My reaction: that’s a lot for one question. Do people not know public libraries will answer for free?
Thinking further: But people will pay for the convenience. Mobile phones are everywhere: sure, you can be surfing the web (or perhaps making phone calls?) on your phone as well, but if you’re arguing with a friend over the name of an actor in a movie you saw years ago, do you ever think, “Well, here’s my mobile phone, I’ll call the library?” I don’t!

Third: It’s pointed out in the article that with the Ask Now service, people have usually already gone online and done a bit of searching themselves, so the questions people ask via the chat service tend to be a bit more in-depth.
My reaction: Reading about it, and looking at the website, Ask Now looks pretty boring - something you would only use if you were doing an assignment or a thesis.
Thinking further: It’s a service that comes across as geared more towards researchers, not regular people who just have a question they want answered. I imagine I would use it and love it if I were sitting at my computer and working - it looks very useful, but it doesn’t look fun.

Is “fun” is a word that people are comfortable using to describe reference desk services? As soon as I read the article I felt like sending a message to MoJoKnows just to see if they could answer, because it sounds like fun. And next time I’m in a café with friends trying to remember something and failing, I might do that!

2005-01-31T23:36:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How Livejournal editing works.

Oddly, is how. If you don’t have a paid account, you pick some basic layout options for certain elements on the page, then you type in some hex codes for page colours, then you have a box containing HTML/CSS code which you can use to change the attributes of the specific elements.

So now I can edit Livejournal templates as well as Blogger templates…I think these skills qualify me for a job in the Young Adult section of a public library, right? :)

2005-01-30T22:12:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: The worth of PHPs (Personal Home Pages).

Webology, the new online LIS journal, has an article in the first issue about Personal home pages as an information resource. It outlines some of the studies that have been done surrounding PHPs, and discusses their value as an information resource.

There’s a suggestion that librarians might be discounting information on someone’s personal page simply because it is a personal page – I hope not! Often I’ve found information on personal pages, written by professionals and hobbyists in their out-of-hours lives, which gives new opinions on the topic or is much easier to understand than similar information from more overtly-reliable sources. (Of course you would want to check the author’s credentials and the date the material was posted, same as you would on any webpage.)

End-of-week link: Left-handed? There's college money for you. I’m wondering now what I might have missed out on when I started studying…

(Link via The Kept-Up Academic Librarian)

2005-01-26T21:53:00.000+10:00

Australia Day (and a public holiday) today!

I did a quick search to see if any libraries stay open and do activities on Australia Day, but I couldn’t find any – if your library does, leave a comment and we can all learn about it from there. :)

2005-01-24T22:19:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Nofollow.

Since I have HTML tags on the brain, it seems fitting that a new tag has been conveniently introduced over the past few days for me to blog about. :)

Six Apart has a short and sweet introduction to the nofollow tag and its uses. Basically, it’s a way to mark links on a page that the page owner has put there, and links that visitors leave in comments. Why? So that search engines become less likely to index comment spam, and it becomes less useful for comment spam to exist.

(Link found via TechnoBiblio)

2005-01-23T22:55:00.000+10:00

Just for kicks, I’ll skip the One New Thing banner today. :)

Sorry that my posts have been a bit vague lately – I’ve been working mainly on building one website at work (from that I have learnt to use caption tags in my tables, and to always check the source code when deleting things in Dreamweaver because “delete” rarely means “gone without any trace of any code associated with that element”). I’ve also had very little time to read any blogs or mailing lists – the number of unread items in my email and Bloglines is starting to look quite daunting. ;) However I’m hoping to catch up over the next few weeks!

On another note, I realised today that I began this blog a year ago this month. It’s had just shy of 10 000 hits to the index page, and I (and all of you reading!) have learnt about 160 new things. Thanks for your support and comments over this time, I really appreciate it! I’ll be continuing this year, staying with 3 posts a week for the moment.

End-of-week link: Icon Story is strange, but sort of cute. (Be prepared for sound when you open the link.)

2005-01-19T22:40:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: The librarian committee way of life.

The beginning of the year: the time when all librarians who are into the networking and professional development of librarianship are getting together to work out what they are doing all year. And it’s really hard to think of events! Has anyone ever come across a website (ok, or a book!) which has a list of things librarians in social/professional groups can do? I think “library tour” is a great staple, but unless your town has an amazing commitment, there can only be so many new and impressive libraries going up each year!

By the way, if you are a library student and have heard that you should join groups for the networking and such, it’s true, you should. :)

2005-01-17T23:22:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Scholary publishing and re-publishing.

Issues of Scholarly Communication pointed last week (I’m a bit behind) to this (word doc) link: Article duplication in Emerald/MCB journals is more extensive than first reported: Possible conflicts of financial and functional interests are uncovered. It’s pretty self-explanatory: and raises a lot of questions…

2005-01-16T18:24:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Metadata musings.

Looks like this document has been around for a few years, but is still very relevant: Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia by Cory Doctorow. It’s seven basic reasons why metadata is never going to work. My personal opinion is that it metadata would be the answer to cataloguing the internet only when everyone publishing information online becomes a librarian. Check out the article: it’s also an amusing read so it can be the Friday…um, end-of-week link. :)

2005-01-12T22:13:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How not to go insane at busy times during semester.

I may be overdramatising. :) But we have been very busy since coming back after Christmas, and I have found that the best thing I can do to keep track of all the new issues that come to light in the course of answering questions is to write them all down in the procedure manual. Because when you forget things, where is the first place you look? It’s also not likely to go out of date when I’m referring back to it every few minutes. :)

2005-01-10T23:36:00.000+10:00

Welcome to 2005!

One New Thing: Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Or, more precisely, having a go at the work other people in your area normally do - to become more aware not only of what they do, but how long it takes and what it requires. I’ll be leaving the Blackboard quirks I discovered to the experts to fathom out: but I feel that having tried it myself and knowing the specifics will make a difference when it comes to liasing between clients, and the people who do the work for the clients.

2004-12-21T23:04:00.000+10:00

Well, it's that time of year again! Since I am away from work now until the New Year, I'll be taking a break from the blog too. Thanks for reading this year: it's been very exciting for me to know that there is an audience out there, just as interested in learning One New Thing as I am.

Have a great holiday, and I will be back in early January!

I'll leave you with my favourite Unshelved! strip for 2004. (We should all get one of those for ref desk...just in case.)

;)

2004-12-17T23:34:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: I-wish-worked-there phenomenon.

Two pieces of news from LISnews: the first being an article in Library Journal, Library Buildings 2004 -- Great Libraries in the Making. Institutions that are building new libraries (or doing major refurbishing of existing libraries) are coming up with such fantastic ideas! The trends I have noticed in recent literature and local libraries include opening spaces to get more natural light, paying greater attention to the visual impression at the entrances to libraries, and wiring (or should that be wireless-ing?) for better access to technology. I’m glad that we are now hearing more and more about library spaces being designed specifically for their user groups; I think it demonstrates that the profession is highly committed to serving each community as best it can. I’ll bet every librarian reading this post is looking at the first library in this article and thinking, wow, I wish I could work there!, because although all the ideas are being used in other contexts in other service industries, it’s something groundbreakingly new for a library. (Teaser: there will be no circ desk!!)

This Friday link is something that caught my eye because it is another wonderful and beautiful way for libraries to draw the external community in. Barks of approval for literacy explains how Douglas County Libraries have a program where children have the opportunity to come into the libraries and read books – to dogs. The kids love the chance to entertain the dogs by reading to them, and the dogs never complain when someone gets words wrong, or goes too slowly, or reads the same book over and over and over again. The kids are improving their reading and speaking skills as well as seeing the library as a fun place to be. What a great idea!

2004-12-15T22:38:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How to rove.

Roving reference was being discussed on Libref-L over the past few days. The consensus seemed to be that roving is a great idea, as long as you aren’t pushing too much in people’s personal space. I agree with the person that said you don’t even need to walk around asking everyone if you can help – you can just go past and say, how are you going, or is that working ok for you? Or even just walk past and check the paper in the printer, as long as you don’t look too busy to be asked anything. I’ve found tidying things up works pretty well – walk around and straighten things, push in chairs, pick up the bits of scrap paper with call numbers on them – no one thinks you’re too busy to interrupt when you’re working hard at lining up the edges of the pamphlets!

2004-12-13T23:31:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: IM / Email.

I realise this article sounds a bit too much like an advertisement, but I found that the gentleman from ICQ quoted in E-Mail And IM Get Closer is right in suggesting that email and IM can and should become more converged. Speaking from the point of view of someone who is used to talking to and working with people located in different geographical areas: email is what you use when the person you want isn’t online. I notice the article mentions instant email translation: imagine a world where you could IM someone who doesn’t speak your language and have instant conversations with them – now that would offer some amazing possibilities for collaboration! (I found the link to this article on TechnoBiblio.)

2004-12-10T18:46:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Library toolbar!

Librarian in Black pointed to this: the Jackson Library at Stanford Graduate School of Business has its own library toolbar. How fantastic an idea is this! We’re always thinking of the best way to place links to resources in places where students will learn to find them, or in places they are likely to use them, and a toolbar is a fantastic way to accomplish this. I’d like to download it to try it out but I don’t think it would work well for me (not being a student): however, it looks like you can search the library catalogue from the toolbar, link to lots of resources and services, and there’s a link straight to Ask a Librarian. Wow, I’d love one of these for my library! :) Even better would be if there was search functionality built in for databases as well as the catalogue (yes, that would require a bit of federated search technology) - and it would also be great to have it compatible with more than just IE.

Friday link: someone on NewGrad this week pointed to My Favourite Book, an Australian Top 100 list from the ABC (that’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation). It’s different to any other Top 100 book lists I’ve read lately – I'm not sure how they collected these titles, I was a bit surprised by number 16, but then I’m not a public librarian, so what would I know? :)

2004-12-09T19:06:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Free Trade Agreement amendments to the Australian Copyright Act.

Just when you thought you were beginning to grasp copyright, The Free Trade Agreement results in amendments being made to the Copyright Act, mostly to bring it in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). You can read an overview of the changes in the Free Trade Agreement amendments - Information Sheet G85 from the Information Sheets of the Australian Copyright Council. We’ve probably all found out by now that the copyright term is, generally speaking, increasing, because works take longer to come into the public domain. Something I’ve just learned is that there are now sanctions against the use of devices that circumvent technological protection measures (TPMs), but apparently there are provisions for libraries and other institutions to use such devices for certain activities.

Thanks to those people leaving nice messages in my comments this week. And I hope all those who went to NLS in Adelaide had a fantastic time: I wish I could have been there! I’ll have to track down some papers and see what I missed - if you guys could just provide incriminating photos from the social events, that would be great. ;)

2004-12-05T15:41:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the lack of posts in recent days: I have some things happening that are going to make it hard to keep the blog updated. So please check back in a week or so when I should have more time.

Thanks for reading!

2004-11-29T23:17:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Plagiarism debates.

Found via the Kept-Up Academic Librarian (this is one of my favourite blogs, by the way) was a story about two Harvard academics: one who in a “rush to meet a final deadline” accidentally plagiarised large chunks of someone else’s work, and one, the article suggests, whose previously published work put under scrutiny after he spoke out in defense of the first professor. The issue is not that plagiarism occurred, (because accidents can happen and it is easy to lose track of sources, particularly if there are multiple people involved in producing a work). The article questions how lenient the college is on students who plagiarise accidentally in their work (rather than deliberately) compared to staff. It’s an interesting question to think about in any university context where teaching staff are publishing. With the introduction of so many plagiarism detection tools to check student’s assignments, shouldn’t the same procedures apply to staff when they submit work for publication? Should the penalties for confirmed plagiarism be similar for both staff and students? And can it really be determined if plagiarism is deliberate or accidental?
The story is online, When Plagiarism's Shadow Falls on Admired Scholars, but is via the NY Times so a login is required.

(By the way, Google Search seems to have stopped wanting to tell me when I have already blogged about a topic before: so please excuse me for any duplication. Normally I do a quick search of the blog before I post, but I’m getting no hits on anything I search for right now.)

2004-11-26T21:48:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Wiki, and information wanting to be ‘free’.

This article was discussed on Libref-L this week: The Faith-Based Encyclopedia. It’s a review of Wikipedia, by a former Encyclopedia Britannica editor. What makes it interesting is that is from someone with a professional standpoint on encyclopedias – it’s very, very critical, but interestingly enough, he doesn’t discount it completely – just finishes with basic librarian advice: use it, but be aware that the source may not be reliable.

I’ll make Friday’s links relevant to this post: first, how about this page at Wikipedia of Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica which have been corrected in Wikipedia http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Errors_in_the_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_which_have_been_corrected_in_Wikipedia. Also there have been a few experiments done by people testing the integrity of Wikipedia – some errors stayed in Wikipedia, other errors were fixed straight off (but the errors were more prominent).

2004-11-24T18:58:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Interactions between library systems and Learning Management Systems.

I found this article from Library Journal: Learning Systems & Us. It’s an overview of what kinds of interactions are possible between a library system and online teaching software (such as Blackboard or WebCT). Beyond just making better links from students’ course material to journal articles, there are suggestions such as having the teaching staff design a search strategy specific to a course, which can then be run automatically using a federated search product, straight from a link in a course site.

The librarian in me has two thoughts on this. One is, great, very easy for students to find higher quality resources than they might if they used a plain old search engine. The other is, when no such link exists, or they want to write an essay or a thesis about a different topic later in their academic career…do we have to wait until then to teach them plain database searching skills?

2004-11-22T22:58:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How to write support material.

By checking with the people who are going to be using it, to find out what is actually difficult for them, and why: in addition to trawling through previous questions and identifying current trends.

I also see the irony in confusing people further with the way the support material is set up. It might be worth running new material past unsuspecting colleagues beforehand, to see if they can understand what you are intending to explain. :)

2004-11-19T19:35:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Google Scholar.

Google releases a beta version of something all reference and systems librarians should keep an eye on. Google Scholar searches for articles from “scholarly” sources, including those from within subscription databases (although you will need to authenticate or pay in order to get hold of those ones – you can see the abstracts). The beta search seems to work well enough based on my brief experiments, I wish I was still doing reference so I could test it further! It could certainly has the possibility to make life interesting for companies producing link resolvers. One to watch! Read the Resourceshelf post about it, Big News: "Google Scholar" is Born.

I almost forgot it was Friday today – that’s a first! :) Take a look at what artist Chris Cobb did to a bookstore, now imagine it in your library!

2004-11-17T23:24:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Changes to domain transfer procedures?

Without really reading anything online today I came across this link on my first visit to a blog called Caveat Lector. Domain Transfers (and Hijackings) to Become Easier - read it and you’ll get the idea.

2004-11-15T17:22:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: OCLC Top 1000.

Top 100 book lists always disagree, as they depend on who constructed them and how: but now, OCLC’s Top 1000 lists the 1000 books that are most owned by libraries worldwide. I know 1000 items means there are lots of choices, but there are still some surprising items in there. Garfield makes it into the top 20!

2004-11-12T18:40:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Free culture!

A few library bloggers are linking to freeculture.org, “an international student movement for free culture”. These groups are voicing their concerns about copyright and intellectual property, and raising awareness amongst their fellow students about Creative Commons licensing and similar, e.g. open source. It’s all about making sure that creativity, expression and individual industry doesn’t become swamped by all-encompassing legislation. Take a look!

Friday link: needs no explanation once you go there…Building with Books.

2004-11-10T22:40:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Open vs. Closed stacks.

Reading a bunch of things via my Bloglines I saw this link fly by…Will Robots Kill Joy of Browsing? It’s about a library that is automating the retrieval of books in closed stacks.
I hope this idea makes more than a few librarians nervous, and no, not because we might suddenly become less useful! No matter how brilliant cataloguing is, there will always be items that clients and librarians will not pick up in a search of the catalogue but will find on the shelves between two other useful items. Can a robot find those? Automation such as this could do wonders for space problems, I imagine, but I’m wondering how the researchers that use this library will find it. Or not find it, as the case may be!
Also, what happens if technology gremlins strike? “I’m sorry, you can’t have that book…yes, it’s checked in, but the robot is down for maintenance.”
I’d love to see this sort of system in action, actually. Anyone going to be demonstrating this at a tradeshow near me sometime? :)

2004-11-08T21:22:00.000+10:00

One New Thing:Thoughts on knowledge uses.

This was actually just a random thought I had today: working as I do now supporting a particular software product, it’s interesting reading about other people using the same software in other institutions and finding out what different ideas they have had about to best apply it to fit the needs of their users. The software I am talking about is Blackboard, and a very cool tool that the author posted to a mailing list today was this Blackboard Browser / Computer Diagnosis tool. This is such a simple idea, which could make solving a multitude of content access problems over the phone so much easier!

Now, just a few administrative notes:
Since working in the support role (for Blackboard) I’ve found that I’m learning less to do strictly with libraries, since I spend my work hours learning other things (except for the mailing lists which I wouldn’t want to give up!). I originally set up this blog to write about and reflect on things I had learnt, but so far I’ve kept it mostly focussed on what I did in a library role. I’ve decided to stretch the boundaries of what I blog about further, to cover more of what I am actually working on, even though it isn’t strict librarian’s business. :) I do hope the librarians among my audience are just as interested in what a librarian venturing outside of the library learns, just as much as one who sits behind the ref desk.

2004-11-06T23:43:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Wiki ideas.

I discovered a post that was on Catalogablog about possible uses for Wikis in libraries which when you track back seems to have stemmed originally from a post on Advanced Wiki'ing with Library Tools by the Digital Librian. These are wonderful ideas – use a wiki for subject pathfinders, so that local experts in the field who aren’t library staff can add their ideas, experience and search tips. I also think using wiki for the staff procedure manual is a fantastic idea – so much easier to keep updated, and what better time to identify and fix unclear or incomplete info than when the new hires encounter it for the first time?

Just so you know, I think I’ll start calling the Friday link the end-of-week link. ;) I’m picking one that I found some time ago but have recommended to a few people of late because it is very funny. (It’s probably something you want to save for home rather than work, though.) Shakespeare as you’ve never known: Pericles, Prince of Tired Plots.

2004-11-03T23:14:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Online Teaching and Learning.

I went to my first non-library-centric conference today: being about online teaching and learning, which is kinda the area I am working in now. What I mostly got out of today was a sense that there are a lot of people out there who are really trying to make online delivery work at its potential, which is of course fantastic. However there were multiple presenters who discussed their attempts at trying and failing to deliver courses in online modes before they were able to make it successful. It seems that pedagogy is still trying to catch up with the technology
I’ll list some of the major topics that came up:

an online course is in a broader context than that of just information delivery (i.e. they are more than just a place to keep the Powerpoint slides)

students expect interactivity from courses that are delivered online

students won’t use online material unless it is clearly tied into course objectives, or even better, forms part of their assessment

student access to the technology is still a concern

technological skills of teaching staff can be a barrier to the uptake of online teaching (and one would imagine this also can affect the quality of an online course)

developing successful online courses requires extra preparation and a lot of time

2004-11-01T22:33:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Job application documents are done differently in different countries.

Once again from the NewGrad list (it isn’t the only list I’m reading: obviously just one of the most memorable!). Someone asked about writing cover letters / selection criteria for the Australian job market, because it seems that it is done quite differently overseas. From a quick and dirty search I’ve found this page on international CV and resume writing from JobERA which outlines what to put on your CV from country to country. Although I’d probably doublecheck the information elsewhere before sending off overseas applications, it’s interesting to note all the small and not-so-small differences.

2004-10-29T17:27:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Impressions and approaches.

I got an email today, which I have investigated a bit, and it seems to be legit. It looked like it was from an author of a new book, and said that since he thought librarians might not hear about his book through normal channels, he would like to introduce it himself, and he would only email the once and not give email addresses to anyone else. The press release for the book was included.

Whether or not this email was for real, this approach made me question how useful the book is, how reputable the publisher is, and even if I had been responsible for selection (which I am not) I don’t think the email would have swayed my opinion toward purchasing the book. More than anything, it just made seem the author and the publisher look unprofessional. You’d think that getting kind of image would be something people would be trying to avoid. I try and remember to think twice about everything I send, or post, or communicate to the world at large in any way – once from my point of view, and once from the point of view of the receiver. Maybe email programs should come with a popup warning – “Are you really, really, really sure you want to send this message?”

And now for something completely different – Friday link! Apparently, in some places, squirrels are considered a pest. But we don’t have squirrels in Australia so when I saw this page on Squirrel Fishing - A new approach to rodent performance evaluation, I thought it was just too cute for words!

2004-10-28T14:05:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: The wonders of technology!

A coincidence that a technology-related post on librarian.net is vaguely similar to what I was going to say (!). We all sat in the dark for a short time today, when something to do with the electricity supply made the power cease to be. Really makes you realise how much you rely on technology (and lights, particularly in the bathrooms). It demonstrates how difficult it can be to manage client expectations in a service environment, because you can’t always control the unexpected. It also made me more aware of
what things I still don’t know about the system I’m currently working in
a support role for – not that I *need* to know these things, but I do know
that the greater your awareness of the technology that surrounds you, the
less likely you are to get tripped up when it all goes horribly wrong. :)

Addendum: Blogger was down when I tried to post this last night. My point demonstrated! :)

2004-10-25T17:36:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Kinetica is getting a facelift!

Did I hear cheering? :) I love Kinetica as a reference tool (oh and it’s kinda useful for those of you using it for ILL too!), but as it stands now it is a bit cryptic to operate. Particularly as from an ILL point of view you should really only need to search on a few fields before you can determine if your details are correct or not – title, ISBN, author. The new interface looks a lot more fun to use! There’s a powerpoint showing the new Kinetica, or you can check the Kinetica redevelopment site for updates.

2004-10-23T01:04:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Longer ISBNs?

From LISnews: It seems that ISBN numbers will be changing from 10 to 13 digitsin about two years’ time. Do we really have to update all the 10-digit ISBNs to 13 digits? It’s conceivable we might run out of 10 digit numbers…but why change the existing ISBNs to 13 digits? Won’t that just cause of lot of confusion within library and publisher database systems?

Friday link: this is very frustrating to play along with, but brilliant to watch. Just Letters is like those magnetic letters you stick on your fridge and make words from. If you had about 100 people in your kitchen, that is.

2004-10-20T22:58:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: New Graduates.

It’s getting close to the end of the year, and to exams for those who are library students, so while I have that in mind I thought it would be a good time to wish everyone good luck. :) Oh, and to let you know that when your lecturers, or other librarians, tell you to start networking: listen to them! I heard a few people talk to some soon-to-graduate librarians tonight, and every one of them mentioned how important it is. Start somewhere non-scary like joining the new graduates elist, and work up from there. Believe me, you’ll soon get over that great feeling of not having anything to do at night once studying is over, and be glad you have some more interesting events on!

2004-10-18T21:37:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Some librarian things, and some Adobe things.

The Adobe things were because of a vendor session I went to at work – I mostly use Acrobat and Photoshop, and there were lots of tricks I saw today that I would never have found myself. Have a look at some of them on Russell Brown’s homepage. (Go to What's New then to More Tips.)

Next: the librarian things. Listening to some people talking about ALIA 2004, a) I am jealous since I didn’t get to go to any sessions but b) am very glad that we have the internet on which to put conference papers. Those recommended by the small group of people I was listening to today were the ones by Pamela Leuzinger, Eric Wainwright, and Sue Hutley. (These are PDFs.)
Sounds like it might have been fun to be a fly on the wall in some of the sessions as well! It’s always great to have people coming back from conferences and telling you about the people they meet from all around Australia as well: you never realise how different libraries can be until you dump all their staff into a room together. ;)

2004-10-16T14:47:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Thoughts on cross-skilling.

The ALIA Newgrads were discussing what subjects people studied at uni in addition to their library subjects. It makes you realise that librarianship attracts people from a range of backgrounds, and that librarian skills have such broad applications across topic areas and across careers, particularly when combined with skills you can gain from other areas of study. I get the impression, though, that for new librarians, it will be many years before they can build up the experience and credibility to get accepted for the jobs they set their sights on at graduation. Did everyone see Marylaine’s article on recruiting new librarians, The Right Hand Knoweth Not… ?
Anyway, I hunted around yesterday for blogs to help me keep up one of my university-learned skills: I studied French, and it turns out I can find blogs by French librarians. :) They’re on my Bloglines public subscriptions.

Friday link this week is actually a Saturday link (because somehow it got to be Saturday already!): obviously they weren’t as strict on chasing down missing books in the past, because a Scottish library has just recovered a Library book '100 years overdue'.

2004-10-13T22:09:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Why techie people argue against Internet Explorer.

As a librarian, I never felt the urge to use any browser bar IE – for the simple reason that everything I used was designed to work with it. It’s only now that my workday is filled with techie people and problems that I’m starting to see what a difference non-Microsoft browsers can make. For one thing, I’ve been sucked into Netscape because I need a tabbed browser. But also IE is more geared to have weird inexplicable problems occur with it, as I’ve discovered in trying to work out why some computers can’t access hyperlinks on https pages…when using IE (other browsers work fine). Just look at the list of some reasons why Internet Explorer Cannot Connect to Secure Sites!

2004-10-11T18:14:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: How the world Googles.

Librarian.net pointed to this post from LibraryTechtonics about a site called Can’t Find on Google. The About Us page says that the site is the project of one person, helping Google out by letting them know what people can’t find: as Andrea points out in her post, it’s also useful for us as librarians to see how people search. Some of these are obviously not serious posts, but you can get the idea.
Coincidentally, someone made an interesting comment on the Libref-L list today about using Google as a research tool (I hope that link into the archives will work for everyone). It was in response to comments about how people will come to a librarian for help after finding nothing with Google. I agree with the point that if they come to the desk and all they have tried is Google, and even if all they have tried is 2 or 3 combinations of search terms, at least they have tried *something* on their own, and have come to someone who can help further. Which, in a way, makes sense…after all, not everyone is a librarian. :)

(P.S. Anyone tempted to add some cheeky comment of thankfulness about my last sentence, see me after class!)

2004-10-08T16:52:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Creative Commons licensing.

Seen the little button on many webpages, but what does it mean? A Creative Commons license is a type of copyright agreement creators can choose to have applied to their work so that you can offer some of the rights to the work to anybody, under certain conditions. A rundown of the types of license are available on the Creative Commons Licences Explained page. And, I am pleased to see, there are projects happening to import the Creative Commons license to Australia.

Friday link time: I had to go find one today, I haven’t run across much interesting this week! But I noticed that other people than me using del.icio.us have started using the tag “amusements” (only a few people though!) and that a lot of people pointed to the Scribbler. It’s like Mr Squiggle, but without the puppet. ;)

2004-10-06T23:49:00.000+10:00

One New Thing: Researching music files.

I have some sheet music for a choral piece, and want to know how the music sounds without going to the effort of learning how to play it (don’t judge me, I gave up piano lessons many years ago!). Quite often using Google and typing the song’s name plus the word “midi”, to find a MIDI file, is an easy way to find out how songs go. This piece is pretty obscure though I think, so I’ve had to expand my searching techniques, and found that although there are quite a few MIDI search engines about (none of which found this piece, so I won’t recommend any yet!) the bigger search engines (Google, Teoma, Yahoo) don’t have an option to limit to a MIDI filetype. I would have thought the filetype limiter would just look at file extensions and match them to whatever text you type into the search box – but apparently not. AltaVista and Lycos both have an Audio/MP3 search function but it doesn’t look like they extend to MIDI files specifically. There’s an article at SearchEngineWatch about finding multimedia content, from which I was led to try SingingFish (don’t you love the name?), and it seems to give a pretty decent number of results – although I don’t see any MIDI files in their drop-down search box, or listed in the results.

OK, back to the piano…