HRLC Technology Committee

2006-11-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

HRLC Technology Committee

Can anyone recommend a particular service that authenticates by library card number? I tried EZProxy and could not make it work and tried to sign up for the NetLibrary service but it's apparently not working properly. Any other suggestions?

What I would like to learn

2006-08-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Has anyone incorporated RSS into their website or Black Board.
If yes.

How did you do this?

Training

2005-09-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

I need to find a place that provide training on SCORM and Dublin Core. Any suggestions?

Web Clip Art

2005-07-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

Can anyone recommend a web clipart package that has a lot of good typical library art? I'm not necessarily interested in free stuff, has anyone purchased web clipart?

Digital Audio Books and Libraries

2005-04-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

At our April 18th meeting, we discussed digital audiobooks and how they might be used in libraries.

I discovered the Sno-Isle library system in Maryville, WA is using Overdrive and offers a collection of digital audiobooks to their patrons. You can learn more about it at Sno-Isle's site see this quick start guide for their patrons who want to use the service: http://overdrive-audio-books.sno-isle.org/F5CD7589-0CE9-4816-91F6-64C264619E8D/10/117/en/Help-QuickStartGuide.htm

The South Huntington Public Library in NY State bought ten iPod Shuffles and checks them out to library patrons (along with digital audiobooks). Visit their web site at http://shpl.suffolk.lib.ny.us/ and click on "Audio Books on iPod" to get their list of titles.

Two companies who offer digital audiobooks:
Overdrive: www.overdrive.com "A leading digital book vendor for libraries and retailers."
Audible.com: www.audible.com "Audio that speaks to you wherever you are."

I think that unlike ebooks, which can be a bit clunky and hard to use, this is definitely a technology that can definitely take off with library patrons.

What's new with HRLC Tech Committee

2005-04-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Minutes of previous HRLC Tech Committee meetings are posted on the HRLC web site at http://www.hrlc.org/technology/technology.htm. If you missed a meeting or want to catch up on what the committee has been doing, please check out the minutes. Our page also includes other useful information, including white papers on various technology topics.

Offering Wireless Access Across HRLC

2005-04-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

HRLC has begun compiling a list of libraries who offer wireless access to patrons. Our list of libraries in the region who offer this service can be found here: http://www.hrlc.org/technology/wireless_access.htm
If your library offers such a service and is not on this list, please let us know.

Technology help sites

2005-04-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Karen Y told me about 2 sites that she uses for tech help:
1. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/ and
2. www.webmonkey.com (she warns that webmonkey has gotten riddled with commercials)
Anyone else have sites you'd like to share?

I also recently discovered www.webjunction.org, which seems to have a lot of good content. They have an article entitled "Technology Watch List for Small Libraries" (available here: http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=7769) that points out some technology trends librarians need to be aware of, and why we might want to consider their use in our libraries.

This is a neat site and has some good stuff -- worth poking around in there. I skimmed an article that I found there on "Quitting the Technology of the Month Club" (http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=7527) which talks about how to stay on the leading edge without ending up on the bleeding edge.

Free blog sites etc

2005-03-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

Michelle,

I'd been meaning to post this link to BlogBib -- an annotated bibliography on weblogs and blogging, which is located at http://blog-bib.blogspot.com

You might also want to check out Elise Bauer's overview of the blogging tool market, which was published in August 2004: http://www.elise.com/web/a/an_overview_of_the_weblog_tools_market.php

And, About.com has a list of free blogging tools available, but unlike blogger.com, many of them require you to install software on a server or do stuff that's a bit more complicated. http://weblogs.about.com/od/weblogsoftwareandhosts/a/topfreeblogs.htm

Mary

RSS Feeds in Libraries

2005-01-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting item on the use of RSS feeds in libraries (from librarystuff).
Includes links to the feeds.
One of them is in Princeton.

2005-01-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting article from MSNBC from 1/19/05 on blogging that I thought was worth sharing.

It is called Blog Nice, Everyone - Why Credibility Matters Even If You Write For Free, by Jon Bonne, who covers business and the science of food and wine for MSNBC.com.

And here is one blogger's respose:

An analysis of the state of
blogging from MSNBC reporter, Jon Bonne, who will be at tomorrow's conference.
His dismissive attitude is characteristic of the denial of people at big news
organizations, and reminds me of what people at mainframe
computer companies said about our cute little Apples in the early 80s. Hidden
inside was a simple idea, that we can and would do for ourselves what they
wouldn't do for us. He's right to call this Promethean.
No, they haven't co-opted us. Wishful thinking Jon.

Furthermore, there seems to be an awful lot of blogging about blogging going on, or, as someone put it, "meta blogging."

Wired (an excellent source to keep up on) has this article, by Adam Peneberg called
"Like it or Not, Blogs have Legs," in which he funnily says, "I detest the word "blog." It sounds like the noise a bulimic makes after a hearty meal. " And

(b)ut in fact the blogosphere has evolved into a sphere of memes and ideas that
are constantly shaped by the millions of web users who write, read and comment
on blogs. In a sense, it operates in a similar fashion to open-source code,
where a loose confederation of programmers tinkers with software, adding to it
and sharing contributions with anyone who is interested.

WOW! I am overwhelmed!

2005-01-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

I have spent the day exploring blogs, rss feeds and other interesting web things.

Some sites interesting sites I found today and recommend:

Each one of these will lead to many, many more sites and blogs! It is quite overwhelming!

All I can say is, there is A LOT to learn! It seems that there are several library and/or technology related blogs and feeds and so on out there - we are actually "behind" the curve! But what else is new in "library land?" ;-)

Learn More about RSS/Webfeed

2005-01-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Amy K. asked me if I knew anything about RSS. I had a very vague idea of what it was, but I didn't have a comprehensive picture of it, so I went looking for some more information.

I found a good basic introduction to RSS, entitled RSS Described in Plain English, located at http://www.commoncraft.com/archives/000528.html . One of the interesting things this article says is that there is no absolute definition of what RSS stands for! It goes on to say that basically, RSS is a way for you to be notified when a web site you keep track of has updated its content.

In order for you to use RSS, two things must happen:

1) the site you're keeping track of must make an RSS "feed" available -- so that it can notify people when the content is updated
and
2) In order to access the RSS feed, you must have access to a "feed reader" (aka "news aggregator"). Apparently Mozilla Firefox has a plug-in RSS reader available. The web browser Opera 7.5 appparently has a feed reader built in.

For a more in-depth discussion of RSS, check out Amy Gahran's What Are Webfeeds (RSS), and Why Should I Care? (a well-written, 12-part tutorial) at http://blog.contentious.com/archives/2003/10/18/what-are-webfeeds-rss-and-why-should-you-care.

If anyone on the committee is already using RSS on a regular basis, let me know if you would be willing to do a quick demo of how you use it and how it helps you, at one of our upcoming meetings. Thanks!

Information about Federated Searching

2005-01-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

I did some poking around and found a few interesting articles about Federated Searching. Here's an article from Library Journal (2003) entitled Trumping Google? Metasearching's promise: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA322627. The article includes an overview of federated searching (they call it metasearching here), some information about the industry standards, and a list of vendors that provided it at the time the article was written.

I also found a good article from InfoToday (October 2003) -- http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct03/hane1.shtml. This article was compiled by Web Feat, who is one of the big federated search vendors. It's entitled The Truth About Federated Searching.

Finally, and this might be of special interest to you, Michelle, I found a brief article about a university who has made the source code of their federated search tool available. It's apparently written in Java. The article's from 2002, so I'm not sure how current it is, but it might be worth taking a look. If you play with it, let us know how it goes! You can see the article at: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/content/20020910140730/printArticle. The source code is available at SourceForge, http://sourceforge.net/projects/oaiarc/.

Going Wireless at William Paterson Univ.

2005-01-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

Heather and I were at WPU for the Going Wireless program. We had an excellent turnout and the staff there did a very nice program. There was lots of opportunity for questions and Kurt (who was unable to be there) did a helpful handout. Heather is going to as him if we can post his handout to the HRL C webpage.

Unfortunately we could not experience the wireless system firsthand, as the library had no power the whole day. The program was moved to an auditorium in the building next door.

We were able to promote the Committee and the Hot Technology tips section of the website. There is a big thirst for info on this topic and we need to figure out what else we can do help our members. I will be compiling a list of HRLC members with wireless hotspots and posting that to the website. I suggested this to the group attending the program and they loved the idea. This way members can connect with each other and ask questions.

Joanne

Blogs, Blogs, and More Blogs!

2005-01-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry to post again so quickly, but I wanted to share the blog that I look at everyday, it is Librarian.net, Jessamyn West's blog - "putting' the rarin' back in back in librarian since 1993."

Perhaps there is a way to list blogs or make lists of links of sites on here?

Does anyone else regularly read or look at particular blogs? I think it would be a good idea to share, both for information's sake (the info on the blogs) as well as for ideas/inspiration about our own blog.

Incredible Internet Guy

2005-01-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

I came across this site from a listserv I am on and I thought it was interesting.
The Incredible Internet Guy .

Here is the description:
"Tired of cruising online aimlessly like a bored teenager?" Every
week (or close to it) Ken Leebow, the Incredible Internet Guy,
selects one topic and presents high-quality Web sites related to
it. Includes archives of earlier topics. Leebow is a computer
consultant and writer.

This site was also indexed by Librarians' Index to the Internet.

Particularly of interest I thought was the archived information on INSTANT MESSAGING and MUSIC ON THE INTERNET.

Enjoy!

Quick tips for posting to our blog

2005-01-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Even though our blog's address is http://hrlctech.blogspot.com, you have to go to www.blogger.com in order to post to it. From there, you'll be prompted to log in, using the free account you created from the invitation I sent you yesterday.

After you sign in, you'll see a "Dashboard" that lists all the blogs you have the ability to post to. (You can also create a new blog, very easily, from here -- say, for your own library's staff, or your personal use.)

To post a message to the blog, click on the green "New Post" icon next to the HRLC Tech Committee link.

Give your post a title, then click in the text box and type (or paste in) whatever you want to say. You'll notice it looks a lot like a word processor, so you can change font types and sizes easily. If you type in a Web address, something that begins with either http:// or www, Blogger will automatically create a hyperlink to that address from your post.

To preview what your post is going to look like, click Preview (at the top right of the window). To publish your post, click the orange "Publish Post" button (scroll to the bottom of the screen if you can't see it).

That's the basics! Have fun, and please don't wait to post until you have something serious and high-minded to say! Part of the point of the blog, in my opinion, is to get us accustomed to using blog technology, and the best way to do that is to have fun with it. You can always go back later and delete any post that you created, whenever you want to.

HRLC Technology Committee Blog begins

2005-01-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

What better way to start the HRLC Technology Committee blog than by linking to an article talking about the use of blogs in libraries? Georgia State University has published an article on their experience using blogs to disseminate information and news about their library. The article is available in PDF format here:
http://www.library.gsu.edu/scholarship/articles/vogel-2004-11-IRSQ-blog.pdf