Loved Google Docs. Loved it. And I suppose I agree with the thought that these freely-available, no need to install software on your computer, apps will be the wave of the future. They may, in fact, be the ultimate downfall of Microsoft's software arm. But they (Microsoft) are quite resilient, and they'll no doubt find another buoy to attach themselves to in the techno ocean.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Packing a lunch... PB Wiki and Jelly
Good ol' PB and J. Always a favorite of mine. Right up there next to mana pua or lomi lomi salmon. And I kinda like PB Wiki as well. Not much to say about it. Fun posting on those already-created blog pages... and easy. That's always ono (good). Aloha.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Aloha! Wiki Wiki
Ah, eventually all things come back to their Hawaiian roots. Before there were online wikis, before there was Wikipedia, there was the Wiki Wiki Shuttle! Honolulu's airport shuttle. Heck, it's fun riding the thing if only for the opportunity to say I'm going to ride the Wiki Wiki Bus!! In fact, there's even a Wikipedia entry about said shuttle. Pretty neat.
Getting down to the business at hand, it was interesting searching the various wiki examples given in the Learning 2.0 lesson. I could not view a couple of them due to blockage by City internet filters. But I believe that I received a fairly good education on wikis from what I did read. It was interesting to note that the Bull Run Public Library wiki is actually maintained by one library user. It's not a library product at all!
I could see that libraries could find many interesting ways to utilize wikis... a book lover wiki in which individuals could post comments on various favorite books, a today in the library informative newsletter wiki, and so on. The former could provide open posting, and the latter could be edited by library staff only.
Watch Out for the Icebergs!
My favorite section of the OCLC newsletter was that of Rick Anderson:
The three icebergs that he mentioned: the just in case collection, reliance on user education, and the come to us model of librarianship--really set me thinking. I have heard much about the just in case collection and the come to us models, but the notion that we should not rely on the necessity of users to be educated in order to use our tools was novel in my mind. Having come from the world of community college librarianship, teaching customers to use library tools is what we do.
But it is essential for today's hurry up lifestyle that we create online tools (and in-library tools, for that matter) that are intuitive and easy to use. Yeah, we want to be loved and feel needed by our customers, but we're doing them a disservice to not allow our children to empower themselves with our great tools.
The three icebergs that he mentioned: the just in case collection, reliance on user education, and the come to us model of librarianship--really set me thinking. I have heard much about the just in case collection and the come to us models, but the notion that we should not rely on the necessity of users to be educated in order to use our tools was novel in my mind. Having come from the world of community college librarianship, teaching customers to use library tools is what we do.
But it is essential for today's hurry up lifestyle that we create online tools (and in-library tools, for that matter) that are intuitive and easy to use. Yeah, we want to be loved and feel needed by our customers, but we're doing them a disservice to not allow our children to empower themselves with our great tools.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Tag. You're It! [aka You Put the Lime in the Coconut and Drink It All Up]
Technorati... The stairway to my 15 minutes o' fame in the blogosphere. I tagged a few of my posts and checked them out on Technorati. In my Technorati search, it was necessary to change the search limitation so that any and all blogs would be searched. It worked! Neat! Technorati definitely provides a service not available with such tools as Google.
While exploring Technorati, I discovered a link to the most popular blog in the world: Boing Boing!
http://www.boingboing.net/
"Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony."
Boing Boing features so many interesting posts, not the least of which is one that takes us back to the islands, yet again. It's about a gentleman pursuing the idea of using coconuts as containers for his electronics projects!!
While exploring Technorati, I discovered a link to the most popular blog in the world: Boing Boing!
http://www.boingboing.net/
"Boing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony."
Boing Boing features so many interesting posts, not the least of which is one that takes us back to the islands, yet again. It's about a gentleman pursuing the idea of using coconuts as containers for his electronics projects!!
Del.icio.us and Nutr.itio.us
Before we get into the meat of this discussion, let's talk about what's really delicious. That's right, Shave Ice from Matsumoto's on the North Shore.
http://www.matsumotoshaveice.com/
Or how about some kalbi from Ono Hawaiian BBQ right here in Scottsdale.
http://www.onohawaiianbbq.com/menu.html
I'm getting hungry!! Okay, so back to the subject at hand. I agree with what was said on the 8+ minute del.icio.us tutorial. This is a fantastic tool for performing research. And the rss feed feature is great... it enables you to easily locate new and wonderful sources of information from the links of individuals who are respected in the industry (library or otherwise). The ability to create unique tags that mean something to you is a great outside-the-box feature as well.
http://www.matsumotoshaveice.com/
Or how about some kalbi from Ono Hawaiian BBQ right here in Scottsdale.
http://www.onohawaiianbbq.com/menu.html
I'm getting hungry!! Okay, so back to the subject at hand. I agree with what was said on the 8+ minute del.icio.us tutorial. This is a fantastic tool for performing research. And the rss feed feature is great... it enables you to easily locate new and wonderful sources of information from the links of individuals who are respected in the industry (library or otherwise). The ability to create unique tags that mean something to you is a great outside-the-box feature as well.
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