Whoa!

Have I really not posted since Christmas? Oops. Well, the good thing is, my life is going full speed ahead. I’m in the middle of moving to a fabulous new apartment, and today, I’m actually in a WordPress workshop taught by the super awesome Polly-Alida Farrington, so I’ll be messing around here more as I get re-inspired.

Oh, and Patch 3.1 is out for World of Warcraft! Miriella’s new goal? The sea turtle mount of course! I spent a solid 4 hours or so fishing last night, so I do believe I’ll be documenting my fishing adventures once more.

Stay posted!

Yoga

Strength. Grace. Balance. Flexibility. Stamina. Power. Elegance. Yoga. It makes me feel beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, flexible, stiff, pliable, sexy, not-so-sexy, stressed, and relaxed, all at once, all at the same time.  It’s exhilirating and intimidating. I love every second of it; I love challenging my body to balance, twist and turn in ways that few others can achieve.  I’m getting back into the swing of life, and one of the things I’ve enjoyed most is yoga.  As I was doing yoga last night, for the first time in months, I thought of all those aforementioned emotions and feelings I felt during my session.  I just needed to pass that along, thanks for listening.

For my faithful readers wondering where I’ve gone off to, well, my life got quite the upheaval in 2008, and completely turned upside down a few months ago.  I don’t want to jinx anything, but so far, it seems for the better.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to blog, even though I should have, because I’ve had so many emotions, thoughts, feelings rushing through me all at once.  I couldn’t quite figure out how to express it all in one sitting, so I didn’t even try.

I’ve got a few passing thoughts though, and perhaps down the road I’ll elaborate more. For one, there’s quite a debate about getting a master’s degree online, and getting one IRL – that is, In Real Life – in-person, if you will.  I have had the fortune (but currently paying it back…) of experiencing both. Contrary to what most may think, I actually had a closer-knit group of classmates getting my library degree online than I did with my classmates in person while getting my computer science degree.  While part of it can be attributed to the nature of the classes themselves (you can’t have as many lively discussions and debates on how your animation is portrayed during your Flash presentation as you can with say, a banned book), most of it is, quite frankly, what you personally put into it.  Much like anything else in life, your results are the product of your efforts. 

Secondly, Apple’s released some new iPod stuff – one of which is the purple Nano.  And yes, it’s being shipped on its way to me now.  And Dell also has a 15 inch laptop available in a very girly purple/flowery cover.  So it seems the business world is hearing my pleas of “TAKE ALL MY MONEY NOW!” and bringing the purple out. 

I had a few more thoughts that I was thinking, but they seem to have gone into hibernation for the evening.  It is, after all, almost 3am – an early night for me!

It seems I gave myself an early birthday present – I swore I’d blog again, for my birthday – and my own present’s arrived a few days early.  How thoughtful (and surprising) of me to treat myself so early!  Happy Birthday to me! And to you, my dears, thanks for reading on with me.

CiL2008 – Google

Greg Notess – SearchEngineShowdown.com

Google Database Spread: integration: images, news, video, etc.   Most users don’t bother clicking on anything up top (web, images, maps, etc).  So it tries to change the algorithm to help users find what they really want.

Database changes to Google:

Dec 2006 – web, images, video, news, maps, blogs, books, froogle, “even more”
Nov 2007 – added blogger, documents (but blogger took us right to blogger and not search)
April 2008 – shifted names around, brings the more popular, more important ones up like video, groups, scholar. – will always shift things around in the best interests of the user and/or sponsor

Remember that Google can be customized – you can change filtered search, the number of items that are displayed, etc.  so if you say “go to google and search for xxx” you two would not ever necessarily get the same results. 

More google changes: google ui tests, moving content blocks, added related searches, scrolling ads, removed rss & atom feeds from web. expanded sub-site links.  Fresher results (thought that doesn’t necessarily work), date search limits, added more file types like Google Earth, Flash, Autodesk. 

Advanced search has been streamlined and works much more smoothly and makes more sense to people.  Not so complicated.  Can add licensing, languages, etc. 

Google Book Search: added worldcat records. added links to implement into your own website.

Google News: duplicate stories removed, new sort options, video news, hosted ap news, advanced source suggestions as you type

Google Reader Searches: subscribed feeds (about 500 posts) – lets you search through all the ones that you’ve fed, and the ones you’ve already read as well.

Google Scholar: added elsevier titles, most frequent authors list.

Zero Phrase Search: Google change – they’re working on changing results – sometimes it will say No results found and will just search for the phrase without quotes - sometimes it won’t tell you no results found.  Many other sites will give suggestions, tell you what else to search for, or just say not found.

Yahoo! directory categories gone from results. support of semantic formats. stopped numbering results. added “more from this site”. Search assist.  Images - includes Flickr!

Ask.com – good to get overview, extra privacy sessions.

Exalead – allows truncation, proximity, but has not expanded too much yet and database a wee bit outdated – still has great options to narrow down and limit results.

Gigablast – new launch, freshness dating.

Cil2008 – Learning From Gaming

Presented by Chad Boeninger, Ohio University Libraries

Libraries:
What do we do now? borrow ideas from facebook, myspace, youtube, amazon, ebay.
Provide services with blogs, wikis, im, video, podcasts, SL, more.

We need to understand games – what makes them so engaging, why do we play them? how do games change players’ views of their environment.

April 29 – Grand Theft Auto IV comes out!

Giles Whittel: Video games, I’ll never buy one.

Video gamers can perceive reality much more differently than non gamers do.

From Steven Johnson: Everything Bad is Good for You: “what you never hear about mainstream coverage of video games is that it’s hard!  How much time do you spend and you don’t have fun – you may be confused, disoriented, you may be stuck?  If this mindless escapism, it’s a strangely masochistic version.  Who wants to escape to a place where you are frustrated 90% of the time?”

What’s our Job as librarians?
Figure out: Who plays games, what are they playing? what can we learn? how can we apply gaming concepts to library services and functions.

Who plays games: more male – 62%.  Age of gamers – 18-49 (large pie slice!)

Average gamer: 33 years old, has been playing for 12 years.  Women over the age of 18 represent 30% whereas younger males under 18 are only 23%.

Lego Star Wars Video!  Princess Leia and Chewbacca – Encourages exploration and to test things out – touching switches opens doors or drops cash! – rescuing Han Solo. Lego Star Wars – using the movie – a concept that we already know to apply and to defeat rancors – you know 3PO and R2D2 can control machines.  Use that knowledge to accomplish the missions. 

Ohhh God of War looks like fun.

Games are immersive environments, encourage learning while doing. 

Libraries have always been places to explore information – how can we encourage more exploration in libraries?  We need new nonmenclature: information literacy, reference, catalog, periodicals, reserves, databases, stacks, bibliographic instruction.  We need consistent interfaces across libraries!

What do we expect from our users? Users are accustomed to exploration, exploration in games yields feedback – positive or negative – gamers learn through tiral and error.  What does exploration in libraries yield?  We need to expect that they have “tried and died” so they come to us on the ref desk.

Immersion in libraries: How do we create environments that attract, engage, and retain our users?  The library as immersive space: Learning/Information Commons – make it more inviting to users.  Add a cafe.  Lots of technology.  Movable furniture encoruages customization of the workspace.  Does your library have wireless?  Do we offer laptops for use?  Wireless connectivity allows users to go to the spaces they prefer.

Customizable interfaces – make it your own.  My EbscoHost, MyYahoo, Facebook, My Library.  Customizable search interfaces.  Allow users control of their virtual library environments.

Learning While Doing: Practice Makes perfect.  Games encourage mastery – multiple difficulties w/unlockable content – how can we take advantage of this in libraries?  Library Instruction: Must incorporate hands-on experiences.  immediate application of content.  Relevant and timely – no more generic orientations.  Try experimenting with different methods for different subjects and classes.

Flickr – displays tagging in use – helps them to understand (sorta) library subject headings.  We need smarter systems in catalogs.  In the absence of smarter systems, we need point-of-need help – screencasts, like in games – they often have quick tutorials on how to accomplish something you’re on.

People want interactivity – not just be spoken to.  People want instant help.  Libraries’ best options for Instant help: embed chat and widgets all over the place on your site!  Email just isn’t good enough – it’s not quick enough, and maybe you’ll get an answer back some day….maybe you won’t.  Must also provide ways to help them to help themselves!

Leveraging games in libraries – why haven’t we talked about designing video games for libraries?  Do we have time and money? is a game scalable to what we try to teach? would they really want to play? what would this game look like?

Second LIfe – low initial investment, easy to start.  But do your patrons even care about virtual worlds? – In his survey – not really.

Librarians make great gamers:

1. We enjoy great fetch quests!  What? You want this? Here’s 37 ways to retrieve this article!

2. When we level up, we face another boss!  Vendors, new ways of getting what you need with new versions.

3. We like trial and error approaches to solving problems! 

Suggested Readings: The kids are alright by John Beck.

What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy by James Gee.

Everything bad is good for you by Steven Johnson.

“Don’t bother me mom, I’m learning!” by Marc Prensky.

Fast and Easy Site Tune-Ups

With Jeff Wisniewski: Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh

Slides available at conference website about a week at the end of the conference.

I think I missed a few because I came in late…

• Add photos to contacts – it’s quick, easy, adds a personal element.
• Change boring old contact info into exciting hCards at http://microformats.org/code/hcard/creator
• Replace every instance of “Click here” with something like “blah blah is available here”
• Firefox extensions: Tails and Operator(?)
• Help your server – if you use directory links add a “/” at the end of your links.
• Web 2.0 Stylr for creating nifty logos and text images
• Be an icon icon!  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Clear for tons of free icons
• Firebug + YSlow
• Cache – get as much content into caches as possible.
• For server admins: Server config files: set certain file types to stay fresh and not expire:  Image file types, css, js files, pdfs.
• Yahoo! High Performance research shows that combining small images into an image map: combining multiple smaller images into a single image speeds downloads due to fewer http requests.
• Eliminate inline scripts.  Calling scripts from external files will speed page download time. – Except for your homepage: inline scripts for your homepage – making http requests is much more expensive than the size of the data coming down.
• Spring cleaning: tidy your homepage: http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_uri+with_options
• Does your CSS overfloweth?  Use CleanCSS!
• Move important information out of the “blindness” zone – important information should be mid-center. 
• Google webmaster tools – page titles – site link > Diagnostics > content analysis > title tag analysis – tells you pages w/duplicate titles, non-informative titles, titles that are too long, etc.
• Global find and replace: Rewrite page titles with the following format: Document title | Section Name | Library Site name (i.e. Interlibrary Loan Policies | Library Services | Danbury Library)
• Forms: Add labels to your forms: 1) Accessibility: read by screen readers and 2) user friendly: check box text and not just text box is clickable
• Use radio buttons and check boxes appropriately (one option only or multiple options allowed?)
• Add social bookmark links: http://ww.toprankblog.com/tools/social-bookmarks/

Looks like I’ll be putting a couple of these things to good use.  I wonder if I can get the staff to have their pictures taken.

 

Computers in Libraries 2008!

Whee!  Tomorrow I’ll be headed down to Virginia for this very cool conference.  First though, I’m making a pit stop down in Virginia Beach.  I’m taking my cousin with me, and we’re meeting up with her sister + family who are driving up from Florida to meet on the beach Friday night for a mini-fam reunion.  Sometime Saturday I’ll head back up north to Arlington for the event.

It’ll be my first time at a CiL Conference, and from what I’ve read, it looks like I’ll be learning so much and having too much fun at the same time.  My usual dilemma of these conferences is that I see the track listings and schedules and I always want to go to 4 presentations at the same time.  Far too much good stuff.  I’ll be attempting to keep a level head though, and stay focused on the Web Design track…though I just may need to sneak over into the Gaming track of course.

So far, my tentative schedule: 

Sunday:  

• 9:00 am – 4:30 pm: Web Managers Academy Pre-Conference Workshop.
• 5ish: Sunday Evening Gaming Session

Monday:

• 10:30 am: Hi Tech & Hi Touch (How can I pass up a session with Jenny Levine?)
• 11:30 am: Library Web Presence
• 1:30 pm: Torn between What’s New With Federated Search and The Global Librarian
• 3:15 pm: Widgets, Tools, & Doodads for Library Webmasters
• 4:15 pm: Torn between Library Staff Training and Industry Learnings & Libraries

Tuesday:

• 10:30 am: Innovation Starts with “I”
• 11:30 am: Drat! Drupal & Libraries or Libraries A-Twitter?!
• 1:30 pm: From Woepac to Wowpac (Hooray!  With Kate and John!)
• 2:30 pm: Harnessing New Data Visualization Tools or Leading Technology in Libraries?
• 4:00 pm: Video, YouTube & Libraries; 2.0 Pecha Kucha, or IM Service??!

Wednesday:

• 10:30 am: Learning from Video Games (whee!)
• 11:30 am: Open Source Applications or Gaming & Learning
• 1:45 pm: Google Tracking or Open Source Library Automation
• 2:45 pm: What’s Hot in RSS & Social Software
• 3:45 pm: Searching for Social Web

And then I drive home!  Hope to see you there!

Lol…well my decision is partially made for me.

Because Drexel’s websites (yes, they have a zillion websites and none of them make sense) are so utterly confusing, when I went to find further information on my classes, I discovered that two of the classes I chose earlier are only offered on-campus this Spring, and another isn’t available at all.  Then we decided that INFO 650: Public Library Service would not be particularly useful, seeing that I’ve worked in public libraries for the last 10 years now, and the fact that no class can ever REALLY prepare you for what’s about to hit you when you work in a public library…So lucky you guys, I’m down to the ones that everyone’s been pushing me to take anyway:

INFO 663 – Tech Process In LibrariesFocuses on management, policy, and organizational issues related to the administration of technical services in libraries. Includes acquisitions, copy cataloging, original cataloging, serials control, circulation, and preservation. Emphasizes management in an automated environment where traditional methods are being supplanted by new technologies and related organizational changes.

INFO 646 – Information Systems ManagementAddresses information technology-enabled change and policy issues in the management of information systems (IS). Stresses systems development, staffing and organization, technology infrastructure, project selection, justification and funding, and data. Studies the issues and their resolution in the context of an IS plan. Emphasizes communication about the issues to senior management.

So now, it’s really just down to professor rating and syllabus rating…though I don’t like the fact that I literally have just two to pick from.  /sigh.

A spam comment…

Not on my blog (yet?), but on my library’s:

“Hello I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been intrigued by the lure of Viagra. Now…”

I too, have been intrigued, but probably not in the same way as you, bud.

And I am probably going to be SO sorry I stuck the word Viagra in my blog.  Looking forward to perusing the search terms in the morning though. 

I need your help!

I’m winding down to my very last quarter of school – FOREVER – so I want to make sure it’s a good one.  I have to take two classes, and I’ll graduate in June.  I’m not going back to school after this, because I’ve been in school for the last 23 years of my life – STRAIGHT.  One B.S. and two M.S’s are enough.  So if I have thoughts of going back to school, please beat me over the head with a frying pan, or other hard object within arm’s reach.  For a split moment in one of my favorite classes at Drexel, my professor, who inspired me, almost talked me into reaching for a Ph.D in Library Science.  (I quickly snapped out of it when I remembered the gaping hole in my bank account.)

Anyway, I have my heart set on one class called Digital Reference – it will involve work with IPL.org, and the syllabus looks really exciting, and it’s just right up my alley.  I’m stuck on the last class though, and I just can’t decide what to take.   Here are my 6 options below.  Help me pick?

INFO  663 – Tech Process In Libraries Focuses on management, policy, and organizational issues related to the administration of technical services in libraries. Includes acquisitions, copy cataloging, original cataloging, serials control, circulation, and preservation. Emphasizes management in an automated environment where traditional methods are being supplanted by new technologies and related organizational changes.

INFO 650 – Public Library ServiceSurveys information services provided through public libraries, with attention to governmental and funding issues, determinants of use, extending services to non-users, and cooperation among libraries.

INFO  622 – Content RepresentationFocuses on fundamental decisions in designing subject access systems and alternative approaches to indexing. Explores current issues in content representation: principles of subject analysis; natural language vs. vocabulary control; manual, computer-assisted, and automatic indexing; faceted indexing and classification systems; image indexing and retrieval; indexing and the World Wide Web. Includes evaluation of indexer consistency and indexing system performance.

INFO  661 – Cataloging & Classif IIIntroduces and provides intensive practice in the fundamentals of cataloging nonprint library materials (sound recordings, films/videos, computer files, microforms, graphics), serials, books printed before 1800, and archival/manuscript collections. Provides instruction in RLIN searching. Examines major problems and routines affecting cataloging with copy. Discusses issues related to library automation, actual uses of catalog records, and the emergence of new media.

INFO  668 – History of the BookExamines the metamorphosis of written text from the Western medieval manuscript to the printed book to present-day digital media. Topics include methods of production, intellectual and graphical content, social impact, and the role of church, state, and economic factors.

INFO  646 – Information Systems ManagementAddresses information technology-enabled change and policy issues in the management of information systems (IS). Stresses systems development, staffing and organization, technology infrastructure, project selection, justification and funding, and data. Studies the issues and their resolution in the context of an IS plan. Emphasizes communication about the issues to senior management.

Thanks!

Oh sure, pressure me…

Uber Kate went ahead and mentioned me and my viciously purple (and sadly neglected) blog, so now I have to make an attempt to update it.  But I can’t, because my life is too crazy, but I’ll go ahead and give a rundown of my to-do list and give a feeble explanation as to why I have been neglecting my blog:

The Pursuit of Life, Love and Happiness:
1) Start wedding plans – sure, the wedding isn’t until November 2009, but the dress shop across the library is closing and has big 40% off signs and so what if I have grand plans of (ha ha) losing 40 pounds by then…
2) Find an apartment in Fairfield County that isn’t going to cost us both our entire month’s paychecks combined…
3) Make a scrapbook (and then make five copies of it!) from my fiance’s brother’s wedding last Saturday!

Work:
1) My position was vacant for almost 7 months, so my library’s website is in desperate need of tender loving care, and fast.

Work outside of work:
1) Get the Google calendar up and running and embedded and embraced by Website #1 so I don’t have to update it myself anymore (of course…I’m not doing it right now anyway, it still has October 07 events atm)
2) Website #2 needs to switch to a decent host server that doesn’t charge a zillion extra bucks for basic things like php and asp.  I also need to install wordpress.com (or .org, or whichever it is) so we can do fun and magical things to their website.  I then need to teach a few guys that do nothing but fix cars how to update their website.
3) (Someday) update my own website – not this blog, but a separate site so I can show off all my yummy fun web divaness.

School:
1) First class is INFO 614 – The Joys of Networking.  Okay the class isn’t really called that.  And I’m supposed to read all this stuff and also make regular contributions to the class discussion every week – and if I post at the beginning of the week I’ll get more points than if I post at the end – and the most annoying part is the professor is totally and completely absent from the entire discussion anyway, which gives me even less reason to stay on top of it, even though I know I’ll be docked…however at this point in my life I don’t give a crap about getting an A anymore (and besides last semester I got an A- which destroyed my 4.0 goal…), I just want to survive the quarter in one piece.  I also have a 15-20 page paper due, about something involving networking.  I have no idea what to do yet, so I suspect I’m in deeper, bigger trouble in the near future.
2) Second class is INFO 640 – Managing Information Organizations.  It’s a great class; it’s about management styles and the library world, and I’m reading Six Sigma for Managers.  I’m supposed to be shadowing a role model or mentor for my final paper, which would be great and all, except I no longer work for my mentor, so I haven’t quite yet figured out how I’m going to get all this information I need to fill whatever quota there is for the paper.  However, I have a big icky group project due.  Group project + virtual online class + 4 people spread across the country = massive headache.  Need I say more?

Fun:
1) I’m an Officer of my guild now, which means I get to deal with layers of tons of crap without even getting paid, in my spare time, and apparently I should enjoy this. 
2) The Officers are going to deploy a survey of all 150+ members of the guild, and they’re waiting on me to create the final list of all the members.
3) Scrabble Tournament still on hold from December!
4) Gnomish Fishing Race still in the works!
5) Find a hotel in Chicago for the weekend of July that is a two-bedroom suite, preferably with either a wet bar or a kitchen, and one that doesn’t cost a minimum of $1200.

Yeah.  So in a very large nutshell, that’s why I haven’t been updating my blog.