I'm currently experimenting with many, many things. My thoughts, because you want them.
Facebook: Blech. Though I might be interested in a fannish version of this, to hang out with fellow SW fen and fandos. I apologize in advance to anyone who tries to contact me and/or friend me through facebook--I just really dislike it. In fact, I like Myspace better, and I hate Myspace (other than the fact that some of my favorite bands are on it--which is why I like Myspace better than Facebook). Ugly. Messy. Blech.
Twitter: Haven't updated since I opened the account. I couldn't get the IM updater to work, and I barely have phone reception, let alone enough to send a txt. If I still had the ogo, I'd be twittering up a storm, but unfortunately, the ogo is a tech dead before its time. I could see the fun in it, though.
LibraryThing: But I already KNOW what books I own. Why do I need to put them in this? If anything, I need RFID so I can know the exact location of the books, rather than which ones I own/don't own. I spent three days trying to find where I put my copy of Clive Barker's Tapping the Vein graphic novel--how should I know that I put it in with the Star Wars graphic novels rather than the Hellraiser Collected Best? It's a nice idea, but I don't see a use for it in my current situation. Maybe if it was used to suppliment a catalog, I'd use it more.
Vox: *waves at current experiment* So far, so good. I like the photo uploading, though I mostly use Flickr. I hate the video uploading, though--I can never tell when some setting or type is wrong for the uploading, it takes forever, and the video is pixelated and audio is messy. I haven't played with the audio uploading yet, and my brief experiment with the book collection made me want to run to librarything. However, I like this as a workblog.
GoogleDocs: My experiments with the forms function have all failed. Dear me, why is it so ugly and crashy? I may experiment with this again soonish. However, I am liking the spreadsheet, and the regular docs (though I still giggle at the various "writely" mentions I still come across, since I was a writely user before they were bought) continue to be good and bad. I wish I could upload larger documents with the images intact. Tried to mess with their presentation thing, but the space limitation is frustrating my efforts. Ugh! I'll take OpenOffice's version of PPT over it, right now.
GoogleMaps + Blogger + Flickr = Unisex Bathroom Maps with extra information!: Pretty successful, and except for finishing the Toilet Tours, it's pretty much DONE. Woo! I really like using the MyMaps function to create the points of interest, then flickr to include pictures in the googlemap detail, and a blog to post the in-depth info on the particular bathroom. I already posted about this, though, so I won't talk about it much here.
Google's 3d software which I'm doing this too quickly to look up right now: I need permission to get it installed on the work computer. I thought of putting it on the good computer at home, but I don't want it to accidentally mess up anything. I got it set up perfectly for my video editing right now, and I don't want to sacrifice it for building 3D versions of blueprints. However, I am interested. Very interested. Very very interested.
Delicious: Love it. Keep it. Feed it. Made it my own. Though the EEE PC is set up differently from my other computers, so I'm always flailing when I try to post a link on the EEE--I like my settings set up the way I like them.
Linux: Fun.
Wikis: Still debating over a free service or to just toss it up on some of my space now. Especially if I want someone else to eventually take it over. If I weren't in the middle of a giant life chance right now, I'd probably have this situation resolved by now. Looking at either a PHP wiki (if I go private webspace) or wikia (if I go free provider). Need to finish doing the research portion and go into the experimentation mode. Only have about a month to complete this project.
Toaster Painting: Toaster disassembled. Briefly entertained the thought of becoming a professional toaster builder, before deciding to stick with my current profession. Hid small screws from the kitties. Looking for the proper primer for the metal and plastic bits. Can't decide to go all one color, or to experiment with the internals (optimally, I'd love to paint the inside matte black, with metallic red/orange on the glowy bits, while having the outside gold, but I might not have that much time to put it all together before The Move--even if it would mean I'd have an excuse to go out and purchase those awesome "Toast-it Notes").
We still need to do the "Overflow Tour" of the last few publicly-accessible unisex restrooms on campus, but I've finally gotten the blog/googlemaps part of the project done.
Started in 2006, The Toilet Tour was a joint project of the Committee for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns and LGBTQA Programs & Services to tour the publicly-accessible gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. In December of 2006, a group of students, faculty and staff with an interest in GLBT, family and disability accessiblity issues took the first Toilet Tour of restrooms. The group took pictures of the restrooms, made notes of directions on how to find the restrooms, and made comments on the general state and location of the restrooms. In May of 2007, the second Toilet Tour took place. As of today, we have not visited and documented every gender-neutral publicly accessible bathroom on campus.
Some of the concerns we kept in mind were:
- Was the bathroom ADA compliant and/or properly accessible? (door wide enough, door knob and lock proper, bars around the toilet area, auto-flush or bar flush, etc.)
- Is the location well-travelled or in a remote location?
- Is the bathroom in a dark corner that might be unsafe?
- When is the bathroom available?
- Are there any special things one needs to know about the area before they plan on using it?
- If it is in an office area, are the people around the bathroom comfortable with the traffic?
- Is the bathroom family friendly? (large enough for several people, contains a baby-changing station, etc.)
Families, and especially mothers who breastfeed or care-givers with opposite sex children, benefit by having a single, lockable stall that multiple people can use at once, that will solve the problem of "But I'm a boy and that's the girls' room!" or taking a young girl into the men's room, and that provides privacy for expressing breast milk and other necessities.
Individuals with disabilities benefit from having a large, accessible area where they can have privacy and not have to worry about how an attendant of the opposite sex would be viewed by others using the restroom. Restrooms with sharps containers also give a place for individuals who may need an injection during the day, where they can have privacy and a safe place to dispose of used sharps.
There are many other benefits of unisex restrooms on campuses that I haven't listed. But sometimes, finding them can be difficult.
After touring the restrooms, the notes and pictures taken were turned into a report that outlined the directions, bathroom information, and location information as collected by the group. I uploaded the photos to Flickr and added in notes on the images and some of the information we'd gathered from the tours. From our information, I created a google map that points out where the restrooms are on campus. The google map includes a picture and short version of the report. I felt that this didn't give enough information, so I created a Toilet Tour blog where I created a post for each bathroom that we visited and included the information from the reports with the pictures from flickr. Then I went back to the google map and added in a link to the bathroom's post.
Now, when someone visits the google map, they can click on a location to see where it is at on the map, see a small picture of the bathroom (or the location), then click on a link to read all the information we gathered on the bathroom during our Tours.
Once we get to the "Overflow" bathrooms and get a report written up on them (and pictures!), I'll be able to update the blog and google map, and then I think I can finally call the project completed. Yay!
The LIB had posted a link to this article on "Architectures for Collaboration: Roles and Expectations for Digital Libraries."
There's a lot of good in the article, and some interesting. But I have to admit that at one point, I just sort of skipped through it, my eyes crossing, with a big "Yeah, that'll happen" slipping from my lips. I agree that we've underperformed, and spend more time trying to think about whether we should try something than just trying it, and that we could have jumped on some digital works earlier in the game, and that libraries need to work more closely with IT (or in the case of libraries with IT departments--we need to actually SPEAK with them). However, some of the library mantras of Libraries Must Change both interested me and invoked the "yeah right" response.
I liked this one: Libraries Must Be Available Everywhere.
Amen. I spent some time looking at this from the perspective of gaming in libraries a few years ago as part of a committee. One of the successful elements of gaming cited by Constance Steinkruehler included "Persistent virtual worlds perpetually accessible from anywhere." I think in some ways we do accomplish this with online catalogues, proxy-served full-text article databases and some other services offered through logins (saved searches, new items lists, article folders, RefWorks, etc.).
But the big point that Peter Brantley brings up in his article is that these things must be easy to find; they are "useless unless they're seen." I think that's right on the spot. How does the average user find journal articles in your collections? Does your website say "find articles here!" or does it say "try our many ways of communicating with us so we can gift you with the priviledge of knowing where we hide our journal article indexes and other digital stuff"? If your online presence requires that patrons go through an instruction session to figure out how to use the catalog or find a journal article, then you are definitely underusing your web presence and short-changing your digital native patrons.
Some of the other points made were a little... weird. Like this one: Libraries must tell stories.
At first, I saw that and thought about the "Tell Your Library Story" attempt made at our library. Have a good session with a librarian? Want to share a story about the local library? Here's an online form for you to submit these stories anonymously so they can be posted on the website! It's a good idea, but not much publicity around it, and not much buy-in from the librarians. Librarians in general aren't trained to work things like "If you liked my instruction on how to use PsycInfo, please fill out this form" into our reference interviews. It took me several months to figure out how to say something similar to that into my usual interactions with students at our multimedia computers, and then I only felt comfortable using it with the students I had the most interaction with. If I had just spent the past three days working with a student frantic over their upcoming project deadline, I was comfortable. If I had spent five minutes trouble-shooting a DVD-burning problem, I wasn't comfortable.
But that has nothing to do with what Brantley was saying. He talks about TV and web projects that incorporate stories and oral histories into their collections. I'm not sure what point he was really trying to make with this one, because he ends a paragraph talking about how great this one website is and how it allows the viewer to experience something that they'd never get from a book with a simple re-iteration of the mantra. I understand the flow of these mantras that he will do that for ever paragraph, but I'm not quite making the connection between an awesome historical site to what libraries need to do. Should we be going out and taking oral histories? Should we be making more video content available online? Should we be linking to and advertising these endlessly useful websites when we book talk or give readers advisory talks about a similar topic?
What stories should we tell? How should we tell these stories? How do we make these stories available, and who is in charge of them? Should At Random Librarian step up and start posting videos on youtube about their Random Library Adventures, as a way of connecting with patrons? Should the library as a whole have a Library Channel, much like ASU? Should we go out ourselves and collect oral histories?
I can understand the idea that we need to connect and engage patrons, but I'm not sure what point beyond that he is trying to make here. In comparison, his next mantra, Libraries Must Help People Learn, has a clearly outline paragraph about how libraries may connect and serve their faculty, but they must not forget to connect and serve their students.
Maybe it's just me there, though.
Another good mantra is Information Technology, Information Discovery. I made the comment in a previous post about how some libraries have multimedia labs that are completely library-run, and others just have this IT presence within their library that they run screaming away from. In my mind, I'm drawing hearts around this paragraph:
Campus library and IT collaborations have not always been successful. These collaborations need to involve more than providing repositories or haggling over who manages software implementations. Both libraries and IT must develop new policies and shared understandings for the more communal, sharable technology paradigm that users are beginning to expect. The complementary experience, expertise, and goals of libraries and IT organizations can work to the benefit of the institution.
Yes, yes, exactly, yes, and oh my goodness YES. I have more thoughts on this, but I wanted to keep it short. So I'll just raise my hands and cheer for this paragraph.
The article closes with some more Library/IT crossover potentials, and how we need to work together. I'm right on board with this. I'm just not sure about some other things.
Okay, I've lost my train of thought now, so I'll have to come back to this later. I mostly wanted to post so I'd remember to re-read this article later, in depth, and try not to cross my eyes.
Honestly, I don't even remember where I first came across TiddlyWiki. The closest I can come to figuring it out was that it was a comment on a link from a link from a blog somewhere. Possibly. I had downloaded the empty file and figured I'd take a look at it someday.
Today was that day, and I have to say, I am in love.
Immediately, I was able to do some simple editing to the template, but I really began to enjoy it when I found the Cheat Sheet. As someone who first learned html by typing out the code by hand, I started with my roots. But, roots don't work in the TiddlyWiki--they have things that work better. Instead of using the i or em tag for italics, you just put // around the area. For those of you who also lived in the old days of txt-only email, it might be a familiar way of emphasizing text (at least, in my experience). __This will give you underlined text.__ Brilliant!
I'm still working my way through this, but it's quite fun, and faster than working with php templates. Not that I don't like php--I adore php--but I am having an affair with TiddlyWiki.
I'm trying to coordinate a project of collecting information about the GLBT f/s/s, programs, services, history, and just about everything else on campus. It's a way of bringing the University Archives, the Committee on GLBT Concerns, and the Digital Commons project all together as a way of sharing the history of what we're doing here. I had no idea just how huge Lou Crompton's accomplishments were on campus until someone started talking about it. There's a lot of history in our students, staff and faculty that's locked in their heads. I want to make sure it is known, shared, and remembered.
We've been giving awards for Outstanding Work for the GLBT community on campus for 8 years now, and all we have on the website are the honorees' names. What did they do? Why where they honored? Who were they? We collect large packets of info on why they are honored, but this is not shared with the whole world.
This and many other reasons came to together to help me decide that this is one program I want to make sure is set in motion here, and perpetuated. One of the problems I was having was how to share this info, and make sure that it can last online--the Digital Commons is great for many things, but what of other things? How do we make sure it can be updated as the years go by? Put it on the website, and hope we have a webmaster? Create a wiki? Put it on the blackboard site?
In the efforts to answer these questions, I decided to try out TiddlyWiki. I sat for about an hour inputting information off the website, and I think that this is the direction we should look at. I don't know if we can put up a full wiki on the University servers, but this would give us a place to start, or, at the least, a place to collect information. And it's comfortable for non-expert users to play with, especially when the Cheat Sheat is easily available.
I'm going to experiment more while I have a bit of free time, but I had to share quickly my thoughts, so I wouldn't forget them.
Below are the links to items listed in my tenure documentation.
Queer Research Guide (Appendix One: Areas of Responsibility, Liaison Librarian, WGS)
Digital Learning (now Digital Media) Program Website (Appendix One: Areas of Responsibility, Website)
How To Guides available online (Appendix One: Areas of Responsibility, Significant Projects, Media Services Computer Help Manuals)
LI110 Video Project, 2007-2008 (Appendix One: Areas of Responsibility, Significant Projects, LI110 Videos)
CDC Library Use Only Document (Appendix Three: Service to the Libraries, Standing Committees, Collection Development Committee, Library Use Only Task Force)
CGLBTC History Project, sample organization page (Appendix Three: Service to the University, Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns)
CGLBTC Website Re-Design (Appendix Three: Service to the University, Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns)
Google Map created of Unisex Bathrooms, developed from the Toilet Tours (Appendix Three: Service to the University, Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns)
New Members Round Table Website Re-Design (Appendix Three: Service to the Profession, Nebraska Library Association, Webmaster)
In a previous post, I got snarky over the idea that "everyone" has/knows [cellphones, multimedia, etc.]. Today, LIB linked to the latest Cites & Insights where Walt talks about, well, "everybody has a cell phone, etc."
It's another fascinating look at the realities of those things we take for granted when we're looking at expanding/improving and pushing our services out to the general public. Does everyone have a cell phone? Does everyone have cable? Does everyone use netflix? He gives some interesting insight into these topics. It also speaks to a topic that I think could be in the heart of many a librarian--how much do you spend of your small librarian income on non-necessities, and how much could you be saving? I know I've been thinking about that a lot myself (mainly when I'm taking care of the monthly bills--thank goodness we don't have credit cards).
(Okay, YOUR librarian income might not be small, but for the rest of us, it's good info.)
I was looking up something in the API (Alternative Press Index), and while flipping through the 2007 book, vol 39, number 1, I found out something interesting.
They've only started indexing Transgender Tapestry since this volume. I looked in back volumes, and there is nothing. No mention of TT. Even more interesting is to look at a lot of the articles listed under "transgenderism and transsexualism", because a lot of the articles cited are not written by trans people, especially in the earlier works.
I looked around, but I also couldn't find Transvestia. I might have to do a more thorough search. I don't think the ITJ would qualify as an "alternative press" title, but I wonder about FTMI's newsletters...
I'll have to look at this more closely at a later date.
for my notes:
FTM Newsletter: 1987-current
International Journal of Transgenderism: 1997-current
Transgender Tapestry: 1978-current
Transvestia: 1960-1982
My first day back at work after a week's vacation, and I'm suddenly bursting with the need to post things.
While I wait for a student worker to come up with a nice web version of the GLBT Research Guide I put together for my university library, I decided to go ahead and throw it up on googledocs to share it with the world. One thing I like about googledocs: you don't even have to copy-paste things into a template, you just upload the file and publish it to the world. I haven't gone through and checked all the links and everything to see how well that upload-publish thing works, but for now you'll at least have an idea of what I've been able to pull together. I'll double-check googledoc's work when I have the time.
Click here to view the googledoc version of the Queer Studies Research Guide.
This has developed out of my experiences with our collections and from the various class sessions I've done for the LGBTQ/Sexuality Studies minor classes on campus, as well as other presentations I've done regarding GLBT research. I'd like to do a similar one focusing on Transgender studies here, as that's a more difficult subject to search for, but there's a bit of a concentration on trans info in the guide right now. I've already had many departments on campus tell me that they want to have a copy of it for their websites and classes, and I think some earlier copies have already been passed around. This way, even if I'm not available or a professor can't get their class in for a session, everyone interested in how to find information on Queer studies using our collections will be able to access the guide.
Hopefully, the student worker will come up with a very nice layout for it. (The library's webmaster helpfully volunteered her student when I lamented the fact I wouldn't have time to devote to such a project, especially with the other websites I maintain for various committees.)
It's statements like that in the library world that drives me nuts. Yes, the 12 year old sitting next to you has a cell phone, but that's not to say that the 12 year old across the room has a cell phone as well. But, what really cuts to the heart of me is when librarians make similar statements that all students know how to use multimedia.
True, more high schools are including digital video/image components, such as labs and equipment. True, youtube is a huge monster of amature and sometimes "young" media. True, millennials are more and more media-oriented, operating in a world of constant, accessible audio, video, and images. But false, all young people, especially people coming into college, know how to use, find, and create multimedia.
If they did, I wouldn't spend any time at all in the lab.
Not everyone knows the best places to find images or video online. I still have students who haven't even heard of things like Del.icio.us or archive.org or even google images. Someone may know how to use powerpoint to create presentations, but don't know how to capture video clips to insert into those presentations. A lot of people don't know the difference between a data dvd and a dvd that is formatted for dvd players (or even dvd regions), and why they can't just drag-and-drop the entire video from that commercial dvd they just checked out.
Even in a world filled with experts, you will always have individuals who do not have the privilege of experience. Even though 90% of an incoming class had touch-typing classes in grade school, there will be that 10% who hunt-and-peck, or maybe even don't know how to turn on a computer. When everyone in the world has a cell phone, there will honestly be people who don't--by choice, by circumstance, or by a number of other reasons.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in a reference interview with someone in the lab is to assume they know how to do it already (or to assume they know nothing at all--it's a simple thing to just ASK and then ask again, and be open and willing to explain it at whatever level they need in order to understand, then ask them again). You could be dealing with someone who had touch-type classes in 4th grade and have been editing on AVID since they were 15 but who doesn't understand how your capture set-up works, or you could be dealing with someone who has never touched a computer before (and may be a little afraid of them) and would like to turn a 30 second home VHS movie into a youtube clip.
Perhaps more important is to not forget that some people can't afford a lot of this technology that we're starting to assume is universal, even if they're going to a large state university that has a very expensive tuition. That's another scary thing I see happening as we concentrate on the students who are in the "Have" category.
I worked a summer in a couple libraries that had computer labs that were grant-funded and set up specifically for youth to use. They were located in the "scary" areas that some of the other librarians had warned me not to work in, but to be honest, I didn't see them as scary. Yeah, there were a few incidents, but I've dealt with crazy abusive psycho patrons in libraries across the Great Plains, and I have to say that I prefer working in those "scary" areas to dealing with those psycho patrons again.
But that's not the point. The point is, that many of the young people who came into that library lab said they didn't have computers at home. This was the first and sometimes only place they spent a lot of time on the computers. There was this little 6 year old boy who would come with his older brothers, and even though he was still learning to speak english, he could type it like a champ. He was very relaxed with the technology, and eager to learn things like editing images and finding new and interesting places on the web. That comfort and eagerness will serve him well in his life, and I'm glad he had the opportunity to spend time in that lab.
During my short time there, I learned a lot from the kids (though I've since forgotten how to make those cool woven/braided keychain things that we'd spend hours making), and I had the opportunity to teach them how to edit images and use templates in Word and Publisher and show them a few interesting places to find kid-friendly spaces and games. Most importantly, I have a constant reminder that even when I'm working in a privileged place, I need to remember that not everyone is as privileged as things may seem. Someone with a Vaio laptop and the newest cell phone could be struggling to meet payments and living in a terrible apartment--so they can't afford the 12$ for miniDV tape and would benefit from a hard drive camcorder.
Not everyone has a cell phone, and not everyone with a cell phone knows how to use it. We serve all types of users, and it's important to keep that in mind.
Just had to jot down and share a quick thought I had while at a meeting yesterday. Our library recently switched our approval plan to a different vendor. I've been incredibly happy about it, since it's far easier to navigate and use. There's some extra steps involved in doing things, but I'll put up with that since I can click tabs to find out if we already bought it, who else is looking at it, what the cover looks like, if there are other editions available, who sent it to me, when it was last looked at by the folks who do the selecting stuff, where it is in the ordering system, etc.
It's just... awesome.
Can I use names here? Maybe I should be politic and give them nicknames. Um... How about our old system is Weller, and the new system is Hoots? (Don't laugh, I could have went with Wells and Hooter.)
Anyway, most of the questions that came up about Hoots, our new system, were about how to find things. And most of them could be answered by clicking either the tabs or the links on the side. It also didn't seem to make sense to many of the librarians with questions that things could be in more than one place at a time, yet still connected--if I have a slip for a book, Johnny might have a slip for the book, and Sally might have a slip for the book, but they're all connected. If Sally orders the book, then Johnny and I would see the note that it'd been ordered and would know not to order it.
I was also the only person to use the "Look Inside The Book" feature, where you can flip through the ebook version before you buy it. And I love that feature.
But the thought that struck me was that Hoots is very similar to other online ordering systems, like the monster that is Amazon. You click tabs, you have tracking info, you get pictures and you can read inside the book. I've used Amazon for years, and I am just so used to the features it offers. Using Hoots comes naturally to me.
Now, our old system, I had problems with. When I really thought about it, Hoots : Amazon :: Weller : Library. It was really set up like a library--you went to acquisitions or other similar library-type areas to do things. It was highly text-based, and just a pain for me to find my way around. It didn't make sense in a lot of ways. You clicked here, and got some menus, or you clicked there and got different ones. Weller just didn't make sense to my brain.
Hoots? Makes sense to my brain. However, it doesn't make sense to many of the librarians who are used to Weller's set-up. I wonder if this is another one of those digital-generation vs. print-generation things. I think the "many places, yet networked" is a digital vs. print thing, definitely--that's a hypertext way of thinking, which more and more people are growing up using. Weller seems to me to be designed to make more sense to a librarian than an average person, but I think Hoots might appeal more to the average person.
That's not to say that Hoots is perfect. But it's very nice.
Anyway, that's my quick (not exactly thought-through) thought for the day.
