Program Summary

Well, this has been a very interesting journey. I'm very grateful that the wonderful library I work for gave me the opportunity to learn about and yes, play with, a wide variety of web 2.0 tools, and all on work time! I've certainly learned and enjoyed a lot, despite my critiques, and have definitely found some applications that I plan to return to. And I hope that the Learn and Play folks, if you've been reading any of my schlepping, will realize that I wouldn't have spent the effort critiquing these tools if I hadn't been interested in learning more about them. I tried to be as thorough and true to my experience using these tools as possible. And I feel that it was time well spent.

So...can we keep learning and playing...on work time? :-)

Moldy MOLDI?

I had actually checked out the MOLDI offerings awhile back when it was relatively new to CML, and I remembered being disappointed over the lack of offerings and the lack of appeal of the few offerings available. Thankfully, it appears that the collection has been expanded significantly. However, it seems that the majority of the collection is way outside the mainstream. I'm not talking cool independent titles or thought-provoking documentaries or scientific specials, but rather a surprisingly large number of B-grade movies, old pulp fiction films and just really off-the-wall titles. I don't know if MOLDI is trying to appeal mostly to cult film followers or if those contributing to the collection have much better access to less popular films, but I'm wondering if patrons will be more than a little surprised and perhaps disappointed when they browse the collection. Still, there's definitely a place for hard-to-find titles, and the library is fulfilling part of its obligation to make more obscure titles in every media accessible.

I found a favorite documentary of mine, "Super Size Me" by Morgan Spurlock, and attempted to place a hold on the title. Unfortunately, I got the following error message:

System Error

The following system error occurred...
Error number: 0xC0001F42
Error message: Unable to open a recordset in the database.

If this error persists, please contact technical support.

Click here to go back to the previous page.

So much for "Super Size Me." I'll come back later when there's a little less mold in the MOLDI engine.

Religious about Podcasts

Okay, first of all, I have to comment on a couple of observations I had while just starting this exercise. I went to www.podfeed.net, and marveled at the number of religious (presumably Christian) topics listed under "popular" tags. I went back and counted: ten percent of the topics in the list were religious, ranging from "Christianity" to "Bible" to "Jesus" to "faith." Okay, interesting.

I decided to click on "science." The podcast at the top of the list was an item from "College & Young Adult Podcasts from Exodus Interactive Forum" that claimed to have "Christianity explored and defended in a way that pushes each believer to examine their own faith." The item had been tagged with "science," along with many others including "adult," "intelligent," and "sex." I wondered how many users clicking on those tags would be surprised to find this podcast in the list. I also found several podcasts dealing with the paranormal, another topic I wouldn't expect to find under "science." Apparently those who post the podcasts have a great deal of latitude in how they tag their presentations.

I sorted through the questionable material and found something that looked promising. I clicked on Brain Food and was not disappointed. This episode was a special Q&A edition covering topics from the constancy of the speed of light to the difference between static and kinetic friction. The host explained these concepts in an engaging and easy to understand format. This is definitely a podcast I want to tune into again. I might even start to follow it religiously.

Food for Thought

While most of YouTube is fluff at best, there are some eye openers. I started this journey by clicking on the 70's commercials link provided by Learn and Play and watched the Kool Aid commercial, which reminded me of other commercials from my childhood. I viewed the classic "I Want to Buy the World a Coke" commercial from the 70's (nothing like good old fashioned peace, love, harmony and consumerism), and then marveled at the difference in the messages and images behind commercials from 1967, the mid-70's and 1978 for McDonald's. Then there was a local news story of a meat processing plant for McDonald's that promoted eating McDonald's hamburgers as a way to support a farmer providing for his family. Yeah. And finally, I found a video featuring Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" demonstrating McDonald's french fries that had not even begun to decompose after 10 weeks. He posed the question to viewers of what was in these things to keep them from decomposing, and what did that do to our bodies when we eat them?

I think what I find most eye-opening about sites like YouTube, though, is not the occasionally thought-provoking subject matter that pops up, but the vast array of inarticulate and simple-minded responses from users. I continue to be amazed at the vast majority of responders who are not only unable to write coherently but who seem completely unable to formulate an independent thought. I'm saddened by this. Time after time I've seen social media that has so much potential to educate and to provoke thought; yet most of these efforts seem lost. My hope lies with the occasional user who does scratch his or her head after viewing a video like the Morgan Spurlock piece and thinks about things.

Bouncy, bouncy fluff stuff

It's Boing Boing, and it's a CML Power Tool. Boing Boing claims to be "a directory of wonderful things." These wonderful things include items like "How to Make Cocaine," which a few minutes ago was the story found at the top of the home page. Okay, so maybe not so much wonderful as eclectic--perhaps the site's founders should reconsider their slogan. Nonetheless, Boing Boing appears to be a hodgepodge of links ranging from the aforementioned to "Best Microscopic Photos of 2008", and many topics between and beyond.

Boing Boing wins points for time wasting: I found myself jumping from one article posted on Boing Boing ("Houses made from shipping containers") to several other articles, though most of them were posted on treehugger.com (which I highly recommend, by the way, whether or not you're a self-proclaimed treehugger--I learned a great deal about recent innovations in green technologies and found some very useful resources on this site). So, even though I found most of the content on Boing Boing to be fluff, I stumbled upon a few gems like treehugger.com that I might not have otherwise discovered.

A key difference that I found between Boing Boing and many other web 2.0 sites is that instead of allowing users to simply create an account and start posting, it merely allows users to suggest links to add to the site. Thus, there is editorial filtering of the user-provided content by the site's founders/operators. This is probably for the best, though I'd argue that the site's editors lean too much toward weird for weird's sake instead of truly edifying and unusual items of interest. This to me reflects the overall internet's slant toward keeping the masses entertained and distracted from important, real-world issues. Perhaps the library could add some more useful "tools" to its toolbox: sites that offer resources on how to move forward with alternative energy solutions and survive these tough economic times.

Good thing this generation can't spell anyway

Picnik, like Flickr, follows the ever popular misspelling trend in creating brand names, no doubt popular with the illiterate texting crowd. Regardless, it's a pretty nifty tool (and free!) for on the fly digital photo editing. While it is no Photoshop, you can run a number of simple editing tricks, including color and brightness manipulation, sharpening, cropping, rotating and resizing. You can always resort to "Auto-fix" if you're impatient or not feeling so adventurous.

Picnik is a pretty intuitive application, and no Photoshop skills are required to understand how to use the basic editing tools. It's pretty easy to tinker with and offers handy undo, reset and cancel buttons for each action. The only potential drawback is trying to edit a photo during periods of high internet traffic. When I tried Picnik for the first time yesterday, this is what I ran into; trying to perform a basic sharpening function resulted in a minute-long hourglass that I ended up canceling out of. This morning, with relatively slow internet traffic, I was able to perform a number of editing functions with lightning fast speed.

I also appreciate that unlike with many web 2.0 sites, no login is required, and none of your files are automatically saved on the remote server (at least not that I know of). You can anonymously edit a file from your computer and save it back to your computer with no online tracks. This makes it a true stand-alone tool. You can also email the photo by providing just the email address, or print the photo from your computer or through a paid online photo-printing service. You don't have to upload anything to a third-party server, much less are you forced to save the file in a strict pre-fab format like you do on Flickr (unless you have a paid account), and you don't have to share your photos with the rest of the world if you don't want to. However, if you do want to share and/or keep an online repository of your work, Picnik makes it easy to upload your photos to a number of online accounts that you may have with Flickr, FaceBook and the like. Like Flickr, Picnik also offers and encourages their free, registered account and a paid account with more perks, which is very similarly priced to Flickr. If you can deal with the annoyances of banner ads and periodic prompts to register an account, Picnik may be worth your while for quick photo editing--ants not included.

Well, Google Me Docs!

Google Docs is way cool. I was able to create and save new documents online, translate them into Word and download them. I was also able to upload a Word doc and save changes to it online. (I see that one can also create and modify spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations, though I didn't play with these functions very much.) Google Docs would be a good backup tool for important documents. The ability to share documents with others is a good idea, too. I can see this as a useful replacement to emailing documents left and right and having to wait on someone to email a document from their hard drive.

I love the utilization of online dictionaries and the like to replace the limited (and often dated) database spelling and thesaurus tools that Word uses. The online word lookups performed much faster than their Word tool counterparts, too. Just about everything I like about Word is in Google Docs, and the application and storage are free.

I found a minor flaw (or maybe it's intended as a feature) in that a new document that I had created, downloaded to my hard drive and had no intention on saving online was saved anyway, which is not a huge deal, I suppose. But if you're concerned about privacy, you may want to be careful about what documents you work with in Google Docs even if you go through the steps to permanently delete the document, since those of us who are IT savvy know that no "deleted" file is really deleted unless overwritten. And Google is a large, third-party, corporate entity. I just don't know how much I trust such an entity with any personal information.

Another bug I found was that when I attempted to use the File --> Delete function from within a new document that I was working on, the document was still there in the documents list/folder view page where I was sent upon "deleting" the file. I had to select the document from the list and delete it from there and then empty the trash to get rid of it.

I also could not find a way to simply abandon a document without saving it or falsely "deleting" it. The only options available were to save or save and close. I could not find any links to just get back to the folder view page where I could open a new document or some other file format without saving and closing what I had started, even though it was empty. When I was returned to the folder view page, the empty file had been saved and listed as "Untitled Presentation." In short, Google Docs seems determined to save whatever you create, which while being a possible privacy violation appears to have been created as an idiot-proof backup system.

It's nice to know that these free online tools are available, whether or not you plan to rid yourself of Microsoft products. Now, if only we can survive Peak Oil and continue this nifty technology on alternative energy sources....

Wicked Wiki

The CML Learn and Play wiki is a pretty wiki. However, it is not navigation-friendly. Once I created an account and logged in, I was taken to a blank page. Literally. Then, once I had requested access to the Favorite Blogs page, I was taken to a page with no links back to anywhere else on the site. Seems like some basic improvements could be added. I don't suppose I can gain access to the php code as well....

I finally got access to edit the Learn and Play wiki, so I not only added my blog to the list, but I cleaned up the page (yea for wikis!). There were a lot of garbage links at the top and a couple of misplaced links that I moved to the correct location--apparently the sand box spilled over. I also fixed the headers. The page looks much better now. Wonder if the Learn and Play folks will notice. ;-)

Do Wikis

I've been a fan of Wikipedia since its inception. It's an example of collaboration, community knowledge and checks and balances. It has a reputation of being reliable, even if its content is primarily provided by users, because users who see inaccuracies can and do correct them. It is self-maintaining and non-commercial. While not flawless, it's a very democratic source of information on just about any topic imaginable.

Wikis are a great tool. They put the responsibility on users to provide the content and maintain the integrity of it. Users can ask for help from other users to fill in the gaps and to make corrections if needed. If you don't know everything about a given topic, no problem; just ask another user to finish where you left off. And pretty soon you have a nice collection of fact-checked and constantly improving information.

We have a wiki here at CML that our Information Technology and Digital Services teams use frequently. We have all collaborated in one way or another to provide everything from step by step descriptions of how to perform different functions to lists of ip addresses throughout the library system. I know that I for one refer to the wiki often as I'm learning a new process or if I haven't performed a process in a long time and need a refresher. It's easy to navigate and easy to edit. My work time is spent more efficiently now that I can quickly refer to the wiki rather than sifting through paper and electronic notes that I had written for myself on how to perform specific functions. And best of all, I can quickly share those tips that I have discovered with the rest of my team.

It seems that libraries can find lots of good uses for wikis. Our wiki at CML was originally designed for IT and DS staff, but it has been expanded to become a general staff wiki. It's only a matter of time before other CML employees discover how useful a tool it is.

Here's to musty books

Web 2.0, Library 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, n.0. Great. Whatever. Call it what you like. Ben the Libraryman says it well: no matter what we call it or what form it takes, it's still a library as long as it offers the same core services to patrons: reading material, research services, and encouragement to read.

Are we still even encouraging people to read anymore? Write? Think? Are these no longer goals of libraries, to encourage learning? I hope they still are. But sometimes I wonder in the midst of all the buzz I hear about embracing new technologies if we've all but forgotten about libraries' role in being a resource for learning. Are all the teens that we lure in with gaming really coming back to the library to read a book at some point, or are they just coming back to play? We all hope it's the former, but perhaps we need to make sure that we are equally promoting good old-fashioned reading along with gaming and learning new technologies.

Dr. Wendy Schultz reminds us that even as patrons become more active in their participation in libraries, they still need librarians with their expertise to guide them. Users bring a wealth of knowledge to the library and to the internet; but they are not always experts. Nor do the more vocal or actively participating users represent the needs of all library users.

I guess my fear in all of this focus on Web 2.0 and revolutionizing libraries is that we will forget some of the core reasons why libraries are here. We're not just here to dish out what is popular. Plenty of entities, most of them corporate, do that already and will continue to do so. Libraries should make sure that not just the most popular, trendy materials and technologies are available, but that hard-to-find, not so popular paper and electronic material is also made available. You can get a copy of a bestseller anywhere, download popular movies and mp3s in minutes from your home pc. But where can you find that out of print book that you can't find on Amazon or the independent movie that you won't see in the theater at the strip mall? What about the researcher who needs to find the exact volume of a specific scientific journal? And how about those of us who just want a good old-fashioned hardback book to hold and read?

So in other words, yes, get users involved in the selection process and the categorization of materials. But make sure that all users' needs are met--not just the technophiles and the young and trendy. Your uncle who has never heard of Facebook and still needs your help to program the vcr (yes, vcr) needs the library, too.

Trends are just that--trends. They wax and wane in popularity. They give way to new trends. And as much as we like to think that we can predict trends, it is rare that we can really tell the future with lots of accuracy.

There seems to be a lot of projecting into the future about how increasingly "virtual" our realities will become over the next several decades. And yet with the world being at or painfully near peak oil production, our dreams of more and more advanced technology may come to a screeching halt, and this may happen much sooner than most of us are expecting. If we continue at our current rate of consumption of fossil fuels, we are in for a very rude awakening, and our dreams of further advances in technology will go up in smoke.

I don't think it's time to throw out all the paper materials just yet. Let's tackle our real world issues before we try to tackle all the virtual ones.

It's Better than Bad--It's Del.icio.us!

I'm glad they got rid of all the extra periods in the url--easier to type.

I explored delicious.com, viewed some popular bookmarks and explored tags. It seems pretty straightforward and intuitive. I enjoyed the lolcats page that was bookmarked for CML and was laughing audibly, though I wondered why no one had tagged the site with, oh, say, "cats."

Del.icio.us could actually be a pretty useful tool, especially if you happen to be on a "guest" computer when you run across a really cool website and want to save it. It also may provide an easier way to find other web sites that you're interested in than doing a Google search, since human beings categorize the web pages instead of a formula determining relevancy by keywords and site traffic. However, this depends on the accuracy and taste of the human beings tagging the sites.

The sharing concept is good: you share your finds and I'll share mine. Still, like with many social networking tools, there often is a lot of garbage to sift through to get to the gold.

Do I give a tweet?

I'm on Twitter now--by the oh so surprising name of Kimpassible. Nice tool, easy to use, amusing to see from time to time what folks are up to, though I don't think it would be very fun to try to read everything if I hadn't checked it in a few days. I don't see myself using this on a regular basis; I see it more as a "from time to time" kind of activity, especially when bored or just frustrated with whatever and needing a break. Like much of the internet's offerings, it has great potential as a time waster.

I also see its potential as a quick way to journal--just a small snippet required--no pressure to come up with elaborate prose. But I'm a private person; I'm just not willing to share too many details with the rest of the world.

It's Your Thing

I set up a small "library" on LibraryThing. It was a pretty easy tool to use. Other than the "Loading" process that got stuck when I added my first book, Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, I had no hitches, and the setup was fast. My catalog can be viewed here.

I also found some interesting discussions on LibraryThing, including some political threads. Unlike many forums on the web these days, I found many of the respondents to be refreshingly articulate.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

My latest foray into the world of web 2.0 is with image generators. I googled "image generators" and stumbled upon many sites claiming to offer free image generators. I clicked on a link that advertised warning sign motifs, and selected the "aliens-warning-info" option.

At first, the alien warning image refused to load. I clicked the back button to make sure I had selected the right motif. Even a page refresh didn't render the image. I went ahead and edited the text, still with no alien image. I followed the instructions to push the "Change Label" button, and my text appeared in the "image," but still no alien motif. Then an Upload Image button appeared. I was confused. Wasn't the web site supposed to supply the image? Wasn't that the whole point of this exercise?

Below the "Upload Image" button was a fifth step that stated, "Download your image (will see above form once made, free image hosting HERE)." "HERE" linked to several "free" image hosting sites, including Flickr. However, this was simply a page of links; there was no connection between the "image" I had just generated and any of these sites. I still had no way to actually download the image.

For the time being I gave up and looked at some other image generator links. Then I went back to my original page and suddenly, there was my text in the warning-sign-styled font along with the alien-warning-info background. I continued to search for a means by which to download my "free" image. Scrolling down the page, I found several ads, some html code that you can copy and paste to your web site to provide free advertising to these folks, and finally a web form where one could "Buy/Purchase Your Personalized Product Now!" Among my options were buying magnets of my image for about $4 apiece, buy the image without the customsigngenerator.com text for a buck, or send an ecard to (and invite customsigngenerator.com to spam) a friend. So much for free.

At the bottom of the form was this note: "It's FREE to download your created image (no charge, it's a freebie with our tags), but you cannot just link to the image on our server. You must download the image and put it on your web space or find free picture hosting sites HERE." "HERE" led to the same page of image hosting site links as the previous "HERE" link. Again, no instructions for actually downloading the image were provided.

Luckily, being the web-savvy person that I am, I simply pressed the "Print Screen" button on my keyboard, cut out and edited the image in Photoshop, and voila, there is the image that you see at the top of this blog post (I used the same method on a similar web site for the image at the bottom). Hopefully, other users who have gotten so far as to use a "free" image generator will be as knowledgeable, as the warning signs don't point toward the hidden costs.

Topix for discussion

I tried Topix.net for news feeds, and found that the emphasis is on comments rather than the original sources themselves. When I clicked on the link to the article, or what I thought would be the article, I instead found the long list of comments on the article. I had to look for another link buried in a list of links off to the side to try to bring up the article again. In several cases, when I clicked on the link to the article, I was greeted by a message from the publication's web site saying that the article was not found, although in one case I was able to find the article by searching for it on the publication's web site.

I also noticed that most of the items featured on Topix.net were "popular" items--entertainment and gossip-oriented items. Many of the "articles" were actually blog entries rather than published articles. One blog entry was a simple paragraph in which the author wondered if a popular rumor were true. The blog entry had thousands of comments in response.

I have mixed feelings about all this. I come from the old school where people did research before formulating opinions and writing on them. We learned the basic essay format in school with an intro paragraph, 3 or more supporting body paragraphs and a concluding paragraph. All points that were made were backed up by citing sources.

Today, uninformed opinion rules. I see blogs and even "articles" online claiming all sorts of "truths" with no sources given and no apparent research done, much less any effort into thinking having been made beyond reactionary sensationalism. Poor sentence structure and spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors abound. Comments in response are reactionary and unintelligible. I recently learned that even in classes taught at OSU, the essay with its basic format and supported points has been replaced by the structureless, fact-less "opinion" paper. I am truly frightened by what is evidently a severe dumbing down of our society.

On the flip side, I'm grateful for a people's forum on the internet. One can find a myriad of painstakingly researched articles on an infinite variety of topics, many of which are purposely ignored by the corporate-owned mainstream media. News publications from around the world are immediately accessible. Grassroots organizations have a free, open network with which to communicate with like-minded persons and to spread their message to others who might not otherwise come across such information. Individuals can write freely and "publish" their writings on the net without having to go through a publisher. Aside from the threats of corporate restriction of internet access and governmental spying in the name of national security, the internet provides perhaps one of the more remarkable frontiers of free speech.

Despite the wealth of information and opportunity of expression available on the internet, the masses seem to be more interested in feeding their addiction to celebrity gossip and sensationalism. Self-education and independent thinking appear to be lost causes. I can only hope that some of these folks will accidentally stumble upon something meaningful in their web surfing and wake up.

Bloglines = clogged lines

This has been a very frustrating experience trying to set up news feeds on my new Bloglines account. I keep having to reload pages and retry subscribing to feeds, all with long delays. I don't know if Bloglines is just having a lot of traffic this morning or what, but this is taking far more time than it should. I've managed to add all of 4 feeds in about an hour. I'm giving up soon.

Okay, the morning rush is over. I finally finished setting up my bloglines feeds. You can access them at http://www.bloglines.com/public/kimpassible.

Technology and Time Wasters

I'm going to ask it again: who has the time??? Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, but I see a lot of it as a set of distractions. Do we really need to create virtual versions of ourselves on the internet and read thousands of blogs and news feeds just because they are available? Whatever happened to one on one interaction with human beings? Reading a book? Taking a walk?

I'm glad that the internet is available and interactive. There's a lot of useful information that average citizens would have much more difficulty obtaining were it not for the ability to freely post and find information on just about any topic imaginable. It also makes communication between physically distant people as easy as a few keystrokes and mouse clicks.

However, I have work to do during the day and a life outside of work. There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I need and want to do and also read hundreds of blogs and feeds, check everyone's myspace and facebook and flickr pages and maintain my own. I don't know how anyone else does it, except that something else gets sacrificed. And it seems that what is most likely sacrificed, such as quality time alone or with loved ones, is pretty significant.

Trading Cards?

I didn't know that people still traded trading cards. That was something that some kids did when I was little. It was mostly bubblegum cards of baseball players. I had a few and so did my sister, but we didn't trade much--only when one of us got a duplicate. Then we'd give it to the other person. But I thought that died out in the seventies.

Here they are again, online. I played with Trading Card Maker for a few minutes, though I'd want to get some different photos to upload; my at-work supply is rather limited. The prototype that the website produced looked good; I just wasn't sure what I would use it for. Business cards might be useful, especially for things I do outside of work, like writing, acting, playing keyboards. But trading cards?

Maybe I can trade them for bubblegum.

Creativity by the individual for the infinite

Just as blogging has opened up creative writing, or at least free-form journaling, to the general public, tools like Flickr have encouraged ordinary people to express themselves through digital photography and to share it with an infinite number of strangers and friends. We've seen teens on our public website expressing their individuality and creativity in some very visually sophisticated ways. One of my favorites is a photo taken of a field of flowers: from the angle that the photographer has chosen, the field appears to hold an infinite number of alike flowers, but the focus is on the one flower that stands out.

I see Flickr encouraging teens to express and celebrate what makes them unique even as they face immense pressure to conform. Even the shy, socially awkward teen can create something that will garner the respect and appreciation of a large, diverse audience. And this tool obviously is open to people of all ages; makes me want to get a digital camera and see what I come up with.

So like, hey, I'm blogging.

Who has time to blog? I've often wondered this. And who has time to read everyone else's blog? That's why I've never bothered to start a blog prior to being given the green light to actually do so *on work time.* Did I mention that I love working for the library?

So who has time to do what they really want to do, whether it's blogging, learning Swahili or jamming with a bunch of musician friends? That's my biggest barrier to committing to learning or trying something new. I already have so many obligations and so little time that is truly my own. If I could afford to never work for a paycheck again, I'd be very happily occupied doing many things. But there's that seduction of a roof overhead and regular meals. If anyone can figure out how I can pay my bills while writing, playing keyboards and volunteering at the animal shelter, let me know.

Once I've started something new and I've shoved aside the other ten things I'm supposed to be doing instead, I want to master it right away. Patience, especially with myself, has never been a virtue of mine. Yeah, yeah, I know it's healthier to view problems as challenges; they certainly can be. But don't tell me that while I'm cursing and frightening the cats away.