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 »
January 13th, 2009 Brian Herzog
Speaking of learning things, Chris sent me a link that lists special strategies and syntax for searching Google more efficiently.
I use a couple of them all the time (especially site:), but I definitely spotted a few that will be extremely helpful:
- +[stop word] - having the plus sign before a “stop word” (such as +not) forces the search to include that word, instead of ignoring it
- inurl: and intitle: - similar to site:, but this limits the search to words just in the web address or title field. Very useful for increasing relevancy on obscure information
- related: - lists websites that are “related” to the domain you search for (ie, related:swissarmylibrarian.net). This seems just oddly interesting, but there has got to be a very good application
The page also gives some great examples of how these can be combined. It’s always good to learn how to search smarter, and it’s certainly a conversation starter when patrons see me typing in these weird codes and getting better results than they do - always on the lookout for those teaching moments.
Thanks Chris, and to the faculty of the Valencia Community College for compiling the list. There are also other lists, too, but this one was very helpful.
Tags: codes, engine, google, libraries, Library, public, search, searching, syntax, tips, tools, tricks See Also
Posted under Technology | 3 Comments »
April 17th, 2008 Brian Herzog
Here’s a neat web tool I’ve been waiting to use ever since I read about it a few weeks ago on the Library 2.0 Ning group - the Awesome Highlighter.
It lets you highlight a portion of a webpage, send someone a link, and then they can see exactly what you highlighted. Great for virtual reference work, but also just good in general.
One of our more tech-savvy patrons emailed me asking if there was an easy way to search the Library’s catalog right from book’s page on Amazon. There is, using Firefox and Greasemonkey, and it is outlined on my Library’s Tech Tools page.
But instead of just sending him the link to the Tech Tools page, I ran it through the Awesome Highlighter, so I could send him a highlighted page, with focus on exactly the portion of the page I wanted him to see. Not that he wouldn’t have found it on his own, but it just makes it a little bit easier - especially the “jump to highlights” link at the top.
On the Ning page, there’s some discussion about the highlighter working or not working depending on whether the user is signed in. I’ve only used it a couple times, but I haven’t had any trouble. The great thing is that someone from the company is participating in the discussion, so hopefully whatever bugs do exist will be corrected as a result - much like Jessamyn’s comments on SWIFT.
If we never speak up, then we’ll never get tools that do exactly what we need (I’ll refrain from inserting my ILS soapbox here).
Tags: awesome, awesomehighlighter, highlighter, libraries, Library, online, public, reference, Service, Technology, tool, tools, virtual See Also
Posted under Library, Technology | 2 Comments »
March 13th, 2008 Brian Herzog
I am giving a workshop in early April on using flickr. It’s the last in a digital photography workshop series at my library, because, after people learn how to use and take nice pictures with their digital camera, the flickr workshop will show them one option for doing something with those digital pictures.
I thought I’d get a jump on preparing for it, by compiling a list of websites I’d like to mention in addition to flickr - not just online photo sharing websites, but websites that let you edit photos, sites that have free archives of photos, etc.
In the process of working on it, it occurred to me that it’d be worthwhile to post it here, too. It’s a long list, but certainly not all-inclusive, so if your favorite isn’t listed here, please share.
Photo Sharing:
Photo Editing:
Image Archives:
Other flickr-related Information:
Also, this list will probably change a bit closer to the workshop.
Tags: archive, editor, editors, libraries, Library, online, photo, photograph, photographs, photos, public, sharing, tool, tools See Also
Posted under Library, Programs, Technology | 9 Comments »
December 15th, 2007 Brian Herzog
A high school student walks up to the desk and asks if there are any “picture programs” on the computers.
After a bit more questioning, I realize he’s looking for a photo editor, like Photoshop. It turns out he was joining some online group, and needed an image for his avatar. He wanted to crop a picture of himself from his friend’s myspace account, and use just the t-shirt he was wearing in that picture to be his avatar.
(Quite the far cry from helping a student find information on European explorers for a homework project, but you answer the question you’re asked.)
Unfortunately, my library doesn’t have any kind of photo editing software on the public computers (not even MS Paint). Perhaps because of this, I’ve been paying attention to mentions of online photo editors, so I had something to offer this kid.
I personally have used Pixenate (or, PXN8) a couple times. It allows most of the basic photo editing functions, and doesn’t require you to create an account to use it. This is what I showed the student, and we were able to save the photo from myspace to the harddrive, crop it accordingly, resize it, and upload the result as his avatar.
I like to think that this high school kid has new respect for the library as a high tech mecca, but since I need to tell this particular kid regularly not to swear in the library, “respect” might not be the right word.
Anyway, here’s a roundup of online photo editor posts I’ve seen recently (along with a few other image-related posts, for good measure):
I’m sure there are more out there, and that everyone has their favorite. I’m going to keep my eye on Splashup, and in the meantime stick with Pixenate for the simple stuff.
image, libraries, library, online photo editors, picture, public libraries, public library, reference question, tools, web-based
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Posted under Library, Resources, Technology | 1 Comment »
