August 28th, 2008 Brian Herzog
It seems like I learn of a new web tool or website feature every day.
A patron had missed seeing Hellboy II in theaters, and asked to be placed on hold for on the DVD. Since it’s not out yet, or even close to being out yet, I told him I couldn’t place a hold in our catalog.
The next obvious question is when is the DVD coming out. Usually I use the “DVD Details” section of IMDB.com for that, but in this case they didn’t have the information. So I tried Amazon, and this is where I learned something new.
They didn’t have a release date either, but they did have a record for it - and it let people add themselves to the list so they’ll be notified when it is available. Amazon calls this their “1st To Know” notification service, which I thought it a great idea.
I didn’t go through the steps, but I’m guessing that putting yourself on the list is also committing to buy a copy. But even still, I like that they are flexible enough to accommodate anticipated need.
Which is unlike most library systems. In my library’s catalog, patrons can place holds on items as soon as we put an “on order” record in the catalog, but we try not to put in on order records too far ahead of time.
On order records for books aren’t too bad, but movies are a whole different story.
Because we have different records for wide screen and full screen and director’s cut and 10th anniversary re-releases and every other possible iteration, putting a record in too early means we might end up with holds for something we can’t actually get. Or, if we buy the wide screen release and every other library in my consortium buys the full screen version, patrons with holds on the wide screen will have to wait for their turn, even if they don’t care if they get the wide or full screen version.
Being able to get an idea of demand early on would help in knowing how many copies the library should buy, but this whole version thing is something we haven’t found a good fix for yet. Amazon selling DVDs is certainly different than a library loaning DVDs, but there has got to be something we can learn from their model to serve library patrons better.
Tags: 1st to know, amazon, first to know, hold, holds, libraries, Library, on order, orders, public, request, requests See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 3 Comments »
August 26th, 2008 Brian Herzog
This email came in to my work address yesterday from EBSCO:
Dear EBSCO Customer,
Some of you have asked us to consider adding full text blog content to our databases, which would have no impact on the cost of your subscriptions.
Before we move forward with this idea, we would like your opinion. Below is a link to a quick, five-question survey. Your answers will help us to gauge the value of adding this type of content to certain EBSCO databases.
http://support.epnet.com/contact/surveys/index.php?sid=71644&lang=en
Please note that we would only consider using “vetted” blogs, and would provide you with the option of disabling access to blogs.
Thank you for your participation in this survey. We will carefully evaluate all responses, as they represent a very important part of our product development process.
I don’t know what criteria will be used in the “vetting” process, but I was very happy to see this initiative.
They aren’t saying they are absolutely doing this; they are saying they see an emerging source of potentially reliable information, and are asking us what we think about it.
Imagine - getting our input to help design a product that we will use. Thank you, EBSCO.
See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | No Comments »
August 14th, 2008 Brian Herzog
The library in my hometown has a blog, which I read because it’s well done and because it’s a way for me to stay connected with where my family lives.
I particularly enjoyed one recent post. Someone found a photo in the library’s historical archive that had been later doctored for use in a promotional book.
Check the original post for bigger photos. It is interesting to see how the photo, circa 1900, could be altered so well - as opposed to some of the bad work being done now with Photoshop.
This shows that fun can come from library archive, especially photo archives. Also, too, the subject of the photo is interesting. It’s the dock of Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, OH. And I am always amazed at how dressing nicely was just a matter of course in that era. People at Cedar Point don’t dress like that anymore.
Tags: archive, archives, blog, blogs, cedar point, historical, libraries, Library, oh, ohio, old, photo, photos, photoshop, public, sandusky See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 2 Comments »
August 12th, 2008 Brian Herzog
My Library subscribes to a lot of periodicals, but the one I always make a point of checking out each month is CQ Researcher. For professional reasons, I know I should keep an eye on current topics in as many of our periodicals and resources as possible, but CQ Researcher is usually interesting beyond professional reasons.
I like the format, too - the entire slim issue is devoted to a single topic. The most recent issue, August 1st, was devoted to Internet Accuracy.
The section I found particular interesting, titled “How to Evaluate Blogs and Online Information Source,” can serve a good checklist for anyone doing internet research. I wish I could reproduce the whole thing, but here’s me paraphrasing:
- Look closely at the URL - the domain name can sometimes tell a lot of about the nature of the website
- Locate the main website - try deleting everything that comes after the domain suffix (the .com or .edu, etc) and see what the rest of the site is like
- Can a real person be contacted? - if there isn’t an “about me” page or way to contact the author, there’s reason to be suspicious
- Are there additional links? - reliable websites usually link to additional resources, or at least other pages within that site
- Are there misspellings and typos? - lots of grammatical errors can indicate untrustworthiness, because little errors often coincide with big errors
- How long has the blogger been at it? - reliable bloggers usually indicate how long they’ve been writing, and as with anything, bloggers get better over time
- How many topics does the blog cover? - if the blog has too many categories, then this person is certainly not an expert
- What is the blog’s format? - websites that use the default look or theme may indicate that not much effort has been put into the project, whereas a personal brand shows the blogger cares enough to establish an image
I like this list so much that I’m going to co-op it into a post for my Library’s blog - and maybe a bookmark.
The rest of the issue is good, too. The major article talks about the reliability and use of websites like Wikipedia, traditional news outlets, blogs, and what turns up in search engines. There are also sections on where people go for answers (58% go to the internet, 45% to friends and family, 13% to the library), where the most well-informed people get their information (with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report out ranking every other source), and a bibliography, position papers on current topics, and more.
All in all, definitely an issue worth reading. Sadly, their website does not allow open and free access, but check for it at your local library.
Tags: accuracy, blog, blogs, cq press, cq researcher, cqpress, cqresearcher, internet, libraries, Library, public, reliability, trustworthiness, truthiness, website, Websites See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 1 Comment »
July 24th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Last week, I was invited to participate in the first Simmons Tech Summit.
Organized and hosted by a few instructors in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, it was a small unconference of tech librarians discussing using web 2.0 tools to reach out to patrons.
It was fun. I was the only public librarian there (and, it seemed, the only one without an iPhone), and it was interesting to hear how academic librarians approach web 2.0 tools. Also, I like meeting other librarians, especially when they’re doing cool things.
We created a del.icio.us account for the tools we covered - a lot I don’t use, a few I’d never heard of, and some I need to investigate further. Check out the full list, but here’s a few highlights:
- VoiceThread and Animoto are different, but similar in that they are both easy tools for creating videos. Animoto puts music over photos, to create fun music videos. VoiceThread is a bit more powerful, and is a tool for creating presentations with slides and voice - but best of all, viewers can leave comments on the slides. Great for interaction in the classroom, but questions/feedback is also great for instructional screencasts or collaborative creativity
- LibraryFind came up early in the day, as any meeting of tech librarians will quickly turn to lamenting the state of ILS software. LibraryFind is an open source metasearch/federated search tool developed (and in use!) by Oregon State University - definitely worth some play time
- ChaCha was new to me - it’s basically a reference service for mobile devices. Send them a reference question via text message or phone call, and they send you back an answer. Registering your mobile devices means it can log the questions you ask, so you can see who answered it (the “Guide”) and where they found the answer. It looks like Guides can be anyone, and are paid $0.20/answer
- Wordle.net was new to me, too - upload a block of text to it and it creates a pretty “word cloud.” Like a tag cloud, but not linked, so it can be eye-catching but not inherently useful. But I like the concept, though, and it’s fun: here’s a wordle of the Tech Summit delicious feed, this blog, and the White House’s news feed
Keeping up by reading journals and blogs is okay, but I usually learn a lot more by talking to people and hearing their ideas on tools. Yay for sharing and working together.
Tags: 2.0, gslis, libraries, Library, library 2.0, public, simmons, simmons tech summit, tech, Technology, unconference, web 2.0, web2.0 See Also
Posted under Conferences, Library, Technology | 2 Comments »
