November 19th, 2009 Brian Herzog
Sometimes, being a librarian equates to being a packrat. At least in the virtual world, I can collect as many links as I want and it doesn’t take up any room. However, to be useful, it does take organization.
For awhile now I’ve been bookmarking posts about free resources for clipart, photographs and other artwork. I use them for library publications, and also for my posts here. But just this week I got my act together and started transferring those links from my Bloglines account to my Delicious account, and thought I’d share them.
If you’re curious how to do this with Delicious, check out my how-two post for creating library subject guides.
And just for good measure, here are a few web design tools I had bookmarked, too:
See Also
Posted under Library, Resources, Technology, Websites | 3 Comments »
November 12th, 2009 Brian Herzog
In honor of Veterans Day, Ancestry.com is offering free access to all of its US Military resources through Friday, Nov. 13th.
An AP story also says that Ancestry has added some new resources, including
…more than 600 Navy cruise books…[which] include the names and photos of those who served on ships…one book - a 1946 edition for the U.S.S. Pennsylvania - includes a photo of TV legend Johnny Carson.
Great idea, Ancestry - thank you. And if I may suggest another great idea: offer libraries remote access at an affordable price.
via LibraryStuff
Tags: access, ancestry, ancestry.com, database, free, genealogy, libraries, Library, military, online, public, remote, research See Also
Posted under Library, Resources | 1 Comment »
June 4th, 2009 Brian Herzog
I saw this post and liked it for two reasons:
- I use a lot of this free software, and although I trust it, for some reason it makes me feel better about using it knowing that other people do too
- For libraries looking to expand their public computer offerings or security, these are no-cost ways of trying things out. Also, resources like LiveMocha (and others) are good to know about to supplement library services
Amazon’s bestseller lists are always intriguing - putting the “buyer’s advisory” twist on it, and with all free software, no less, is neat.
Via iLibrarian (<—subscribe to their feed, really)
See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 1 Comment »
November 4th, 2008 Brian Herzog
For the third year in a row, my library is conducting a One Book program. The way we choose the book is to have a committee narrow down all suggestions to three finalists, and then let townspeople vote (today, election day) to decide the winner.
The voting is done by visiting the schools and passing out ballots, and also by setting up tables at some of the actual polling places around town. We do this not only to get the townspeople to vote, but also to raise awareness of the program and the library.
This year, we’re also doing online voting. We created a “ballot” on our website (more on this below), and also set up a “voting booth” just inside the the library’s front door. We evaluated five different options for free online polls, and in the end decided to use PollDaddy (it’s also what Elizabeth Thomsen recommends).
[Note: for the purposes of this post, I'm linking to example polls, not our real polls - I don't want our totals being thrown off, after all]
Review of Online Poll Options
I want to point out that all of these polling websites provided the code to embed the poll right in our website (an example of making the library website more interactive and interesting by providing “information in context“).
Each poll also had pros and cons, and here’s a quick rundown of what we liked and didn’t like. Keep in mind that these preferences are based on our needs for running a voting project - for a different kind of poll, we’d have different criteria.
AddPoll:
- Pro: control over layout (can add book covers or catalog links); prevents repeat voting
- Con: results loads in different page (includes ads)
FlexiPoll:
- Pro: most visually-appealing
- Con: requires flash plug-in; interface slightly confusing; can’t change look; links to other peoples’ polls; does not prevent repeat voting
PollCode:
- Pro: control over layout (can add book covers and catalog links); prevents repeat voting
- Con: results loads in different page (includes ads)
SurveyMonkey:
- Pro: most features and options
- Con: have to create an account; too powerful for this simple application
PollDaddy:
- Pro: randomizes order; results shown on same page; prevents repeat voting; can add book covers
- Con: can’t change layout after selection style; have to create an account
One Book Online Voting
So based on these criteria, we went with PollDaddy. The only major omission after I got everything set up was that there was nowhere to include summaries of the books (unless it was part of the book cover image). Because of this, each ballot had to be two columns, one with summaries and one with the voting. Not perfect, but acceptable.
Something else I liked about PollDaddy were all the options it offered, and we had to use them differently in this case. Although our website ballot and library voting booth ballot essentially look the same, I had to create different polls to run each. The reason for this is that we don’t allow multiple votes on the website ballot, but since we’re using the same computer for the library voting booth (shown here), we did need to allow multiple voting.
Other settings we’re using for these polls are to randomize the answers, set a closing date of midnight tonight, turn off comments (un-2.0, I know, but comments are not needed in this case), and to embed the book covers to make checking the right radio button easier. I really like that the results are displayed on the same page as the ballot, so the patron is always within our website, and isn’t exposed to someone else’s advertisements.
So far, the polls have been open for about four hours, and the voting is going well. The library voting booth is definitely attracting attention. Not only am I looking forward to finding out which book won, but also how many votes we get through the website.
Tags: chelmsford, free, libraries, Library, One Book, online, poll, polls, public, vote, voting See Also
Posted under Library, Marketing, Technology | No Comments »
April 8th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Last month, EBSCO announced they are making their GreenFILE database freely available at http://www.greeninfoonline.com.
According to the announcement message, GreenFILE indexes scholarly and general interest titles, government documents and reports, concerning the ways humans affect the environment in the areas of agriculture, education, law, health and technology. The database contains nearly 300,000 records, including some full text for selected titles.
I added this database to my library’s online resources webpage, but also wanted some more information. I wrote to EBSCO to ask why they are making this available free, and if they have any plans to change this to a subscription database. Here’s the response I received:
GreenFILE is a free database we provide in an effort to facilitate research and understanding on matters concerning human impact on the environment. We also offer a free database called Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts which features content that is free on the web but for your convenience we’ve created a database for it.
Since no login or IP-authentication is required, this is an easy resource on a timely subject to add to a library’s website. More information from EBSCO and The Ipswich Chronicle.
Also, for those who don’t otherwise use EBSCOhost, this database allows a look at EBSCO’s visual search interface.
Tags: database, databases, ebsco, ebscohost, environmental, free, green, greenfile, libraries, Library, online, public, resource See Also
Posted under Library, Resources | No Comments »
