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ALA TechSource Post: Virtual Participation at Midwinter

// February 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Conferences, Web Stuff, librarians

I have a new post on the TechSource blog about my recent experience in Denver:

The TopTech Round Table has been written up very well by Library Journal bloggers Josh Hadro (Part 1  and Part 2) and Roy Tennant (also a TopTech Trendster) and at the AL inside scoop; I won’t recap here. During the weeks leading up to the conference, several TTT committee members tested the live blogging freely available from coveritlive, its twitter integration, media uploading, simple reader polls, and comment moderation. The session’s hashtag, #ttt09 was also aggregated into the LITA & BIGWIG Friendfeed room. We were nothing if not prepared. The final stroke of luck was the unwavering wireless connectivity in the room; without it, there is no way that we would have been able to upload photos and stream live video of the session.

Read more…

Geeking out on the Twitter

// January 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Web Stuff

You’ve probably read about celebrity Twitter users in the mainstream press (omg Karl Rove!). Top-name bloggers and podcasters are of course using Twitter; it’s a no-brainer for folks who participate in the online community to do so. Recently, though, more people who’s names your mom has actually heard are tweeting, too. On Thursday afternoon, Brent Spiner joined*. Brent Spiner! Data has long been my favorite character from the Star Trek phenomenon (need proof?). He’s just getting started, so his tweets feel a little tentative, but he’s getting the hang of it, and we’re all hoping he sticks around. After gathering more than 8,400 followers in a scant 48 hours, he could seize the opportunity, or he could get creeped out. I sympathize, honestly.

Mr. Spiner is not the only Star Trek actor on Twitter. You can also find William Shatner, Levar Burton, and by far my favorite celebrity twit, Wil Wheaton (who gets credit for getting the other two ST:TNG actors on board). Wil is also a blogger, screen writer, and still acts; I’ve learned via twitter that he’s also a sports fan and gamer, does cool things with his son, and loves his wife very much. He is funny and genuine, and because of this, he doesn’t seem like a complete tool when he tweets about hanging out with other famous names, his latest writing job, or scoring an acting gig. I have not been one to read celebrity gossip, but Twitter has me engaged in Wil Wheaton’s life and interested in his career. Think about that, Mr. Keanu Reeves.

It’s worth saying again that Mr. Wheaton is successful on twitter because he is funny and genuine. He’s also obviously willing to share his life with the world. Perhaps my favorite Tweets from Mr. Wheaton are his imaginary conversations with iTunes:

• iTunes: So…your wife isn’t home. Me: Yeah… iTunes: You know what we need to do? Me: [::nervous look::] iTunes: LISTEN TO RUSH! ME: \m/
• Me: Isaac Hayes’ The Look of Love? Are you trying to tell me something? iTunes: Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, baby. Me: Uh..
• iTunes: You want Combustible Edison, Joey Altruda, and Esquivel. Me: How’d you know? iTunes: I’m money, baby. Me: Baby? iTunes: [:wink:]
• Many more, and they’re all hysterical.

Lance Armstrong is also using Twitter. He posts photos that he apparently really does take while on his bike, photos taken by others, and tweets, which are usually about–you guessed it–riding. I’m already excited for his return to professional racing; these tweets, along with the few more mundane ones, will keep my eyes glued to him all year. Go, Lance, go!! I also follow George Hincapie, one of Lance’s former U.S. Postal teammates and another of my favorite pro racers. *waves to Georgie*

Oooh! I just followed Tina Fey! Whom I love, and Twitter knows it.

Will reading the mundane details of celebrities I admire make me a celebromphaloskeptic?

* The @brentspiner account already existed, and apparently the folks who run twitter gave him access to it. He started using it that day.

Visualizing my twitterverse

// January 16th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Conferences, Web Stuff

So it all started yesterday while I was playing with CoverItLive…

The projected chatroom at the Top Technology Trends session during the ALA 2008 Annual Conference was met with mixed emotion–some people (including me) thought it was pretty neat; others found it distracting and thought it took something away from the session. The reason that I thought it was pretty neat is that those without laptops could see what we who had laptops might be up to–they could peek into our world and maybe get curious enough to want to check it out later. Not so much.

Anyway, I suppose there’s a reason it’s called a back channel, and I suppose that those in the room without laptops don’t particularly need or care to know what those in the room (and those not in the room) with laptops are saying in the chat room. Given the complaints, I’ve been trying to think of an engaging alternative–a projected equivalent to hold music, if you will, that the audience can gaze at while we get set up or whatever. The committee has talked about doing something with twitter (which also doesn’t make for a really good projected back channel, unless you’re willing to be upstaged by your audience), then I wondered: What if we could make use of TwitterVision 3D to illustrate appropriately-tagged tweets coming in from around the world? How hard could it be?

Alas, it turns out to be too hard for me. I am pretty effective when it comes to the beat-things-with-rocks approach, but (I’ve concluded that) this requires real programming that is just not within my reach at the moment. The best I could do, after a couple of hours of scouting around for Google Maps and Twitter mashups (with a brief and bewildering pitstop at GeoTwitter), was a visualization of my own personal twitterverse, which I created by using a the Twitter Friends Yahoo Pipe GeoRSS feed output fed to FreshLogic’s Atlas:

(best viewed in original size. See also the North America Twitter Friends Map.)

Want one of your own? Take this URL, erase my twitter handle (cindi) from the end of it and add your own. Anna has already done one.

I also just ran across this Wired post. Hey, another rock to beat things with! I just hope the thing I’m beating doesn’t turn out to be the infamous expired equine.

UPDATE: Shawn at FreshLogic has created a form to visualize your twitterverse.  It’s on his blog.

Search your library’s catalog from the Firefox Search Bar

// October 14th, 2007 // 5 Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

This. Rocks.

Edward Vielmetti at Ann Arbor District Library sent me a message via Twitter pointing me to a post on his Superpatron blog detailing a Firefox extension that let’s folks search the AADL catalog right from within the Search Bar. Long story short, tonight he blogged about a way to add ANY library catalog (though I love that he calls them “online book finding systems”) to your Search Bar.

I followed the steps below, and my Search Bar now looks like this:

(Notice that I added a search to EKU’s catalog as well as a search for UK’s Encore installation).

Here’s how:
Install this plugin in Firefox (click the Install Now button).
Restart Firefox.
Go to eQuest’s Guided Search page.
Right-click in the top search box and choose “Add to Search Bar…”
Give it a name that makes more sense to you, if you like, then click OK.
Now it’s possible to search eQuest from your Firefox Search Bar, without first going to eQuest’s main page.

You can do the same for UK’s Encore by visiting this link.

Learning 2.0: why are we doing this again?

// July 8th, 2007 // No Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

Kathryn Greenhill wrote a very articulate post on why learning about emerging technologies is a part of every librarian’s job. It’s very timely for me, as my library started the Learning 2.0 program this week. The coolest thing about it, though? She got lots of content for this post from her friends on Twitter, including me.

So, if you are participating in the Learning 2.0 program at EKU Libraries, please take a moment to read the 20 reasons why learning emerging technologies is a part of every librarian’s job. Library staff, too!

On to the first week’s assignment: participants were to watch the Web 2.0: the machine is us/ing us video and comment.

I love the short history lesson given by this video: first HTML then XML. The separation of form from content really was the shot heard round the web world that enabled the collaborative, malleable web. (and AJAX, though I only tangentially understand that. The serious use of CSS is about the time that web work and I parted ways…).

The message that I don’t want to get lost in the myriad points made by this video is that web 2.0 technologies are very much about connecting with other people. That has really hit home to me in the last week, as I’ve been in near-constant touch with several people that I stepped up and introduced myself to at ALA in Washington. On the one hand, if it weren’t for web 2.0 technologies, I would not be keeping up with them; on the other, if I had not met and interacted with them in person, I would still feel like a lurker rather than a member of their community. There’s a lot more to think about, here.

Several Learning 2.0 participants commented that the music in the video really adds to it. I have to agree. It’s subtle and gentle, just the right backdrop for this powerful video.

R U There? IM presentation @ RUSA’s Reinventing Reference

// June 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Conferences, Libraries, Web Stuff

Takeaways:
.Librarian in Black post on talking about IM with IT.
.”IM Talking points” from walkingpaper.
.Offering IM service all the hours that you offer reference service makes advertising hours much easier, makes keeping statistics easier.
.With an IM contact, you have 12-15 minutes with a user: what can you do for your user in that time?
.Get your IM into user spaces, whether they are user-created (flickr, twitter, browsers, buddy lists, Facebook, youtube, MySpace) or library-created (library website, catalog, wikipedia page)
.Consider: how is IM different from face to face reference interactions? What problem is IM a solution for? Does calling it “Ask a Librarian” make sense for the problems that people are having?

New trends affecting IM:
.1-to-many and many-to-many (meebo rooms etc)
.video, voice-over-IP
.virtual worlds
.gaming
.bots (see IM’s moviefone)
.SMS (text messaging)
.Twitter or Jaiku
.location-based services: Radius IM shows you who is on IM in your area

I am a cyber-quitter.

// June 14th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Web Stuff

We perfectionists are going to have to make serious downward adjustments in our standards, should we wish to survive the new reality of the web. Sustainability has been on my mind lately, and my on-again, off-again relationship with microblogging (indeed, blogging, period) coupled with the ever-rising tide of New Stuff to Read and Do makes me feel like my head is going to explode.

So, to all you perfectionists out there, I offer:

Cindi’s Top Ten Failed Web Efforts
10. Largely abandoned accounts with MySpace, TravBuddy, Tumblr, Pandora, Plazes, Joost, Pitas, LiveJournal and countless others.
9. Google Reader’s constant taunts of (100+), not to mention all those starred items I never went back and fully parsed.
8. Countless inactive email addresses including ireesindee@another.com and mama2b***@yahoo.com.
7. Grand plans to sell long-unread books on half.com, long-unused cloth diapers on eBay.com, the coolest librarian tshirts EVER on CafePress.com still just that.
6. Abandoned blog tracking interesting web postings, journal articles and documentation for OpenURL Link Resolvers, OpenURL bits.
5. Grand plans for participating in reference and professional development activities in Second Life have taken a back seat to, well, my first one.
4. Aforementioned love-hate relationship with Twitter. People with personal insecurities about whether other people they don’t know but have heard of will friend them back or not should not use twitter. *sob* It’s like having Tourettes at a party to which you were not invited, then feeling injured when your fellow Tourettesters don’t holla back. Still, I tweet.
3. I enthusiastically created a wikipedia account after hearing Phoebie Ayers speak on wikis in 2006. My track record since then has not been great; I’ve made a smattering of edits.
2. participation in Flickr critique groups–indeed, in any groups. Even comments like “Very freaky!” and “This guy looks like he has constipation” could not hold my interest. I even won an award. Alas.
1. My 365 Days set at Flickr. I had some pretty good ones in this series, but it was taking me upwards of two hours to do the ones of which I was most proud. My flickr friend Pete is on Day 259 (he started a couple of days after I did) and has posted some of the most creative and fun self-portraits I’ve ever seen, including one of himself dressed as Tootsie. Who can compete with that? [for a professional and truly astounding but small 365 days set, visit jon-e's stream].

And a bonus, because my new colleagues need something with which to flagellate me, and for you, dear reader, for sticking with my navel-gazing to the gritty end:

A Filemaker-based, web accessible database indexing everything I could find in my library’s databases about Keanu Reeves. No, really. I spent HOURS on this, but finally gave up in the face of copyright issues and a lack of a place to host it. *shakes head dolefully*

stop tweeting and go have fun already

// May 31st, 2007 // No Comments » // Web Stuff

stop tweeting and go have fun already
Originally uploaded by cindiann

Interesting to note that, according to TweetVolume, a site that uses Twitter’s API to scan for and count (dare I say index?) words crossing twitter, thousands more people are sending tweets containing “blog” and “tinyurl” than even “flickr” or (not surprisingly) “library.” In last place in my sample search? Sex. Seriously. I find this quite funny but wonder how much of that is due to demographic. Though, when I think about it, if many tweeters are teenage boys, shouldn’t the S-word be more prominent?

What, you’re not really my friend?

// May 26th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

I just posted this as a comment in response to a post at Information Wants to be Free. There are some really great, common sense comments.

Speaking as someone who has a smaller blog readership and a shorter speaker resume, social software has provided me with connections to colleagues that I never would have had opportunity or courage to make otherwise. I see Ning, Facebook, Twitter (tumblr, jaiku), and to some extent, flickr, as ways to connect with other librarians more frequently than at conferences. It’s tremendously important for us to connect with each other, for no other reason than we do and care about the same things. It’s vital to feel validated and that you’re going down the right path. I guess *that* is what 2.0 tools and “friendship” with other librarylanders does for me.

I like the concentric circle approach of flickr–someone can be a “contact,” “friend” or “family.” I like being able to limit photos to a certain group of people yet add someone whose images I like as a contact. I do not reciprocate contact adding on flickr if I do not like the person’s images; that’s what flickr is all about. I was a little sensitive about this at first but have grown thicker skin.

Purely communication sites are somewhat a different story. I like the detail request feature of Facebook, though I feel like a prat using it, sometimes. I have added everyone on Facebook who has added me (though I must say some people get “poked” more than others. heh.) I have found a few folks on Facebook through their blogs or other doings in libraryland, but I’m not hurt if they do not add me in return. Disappointed, maybe, but not hurt: Facebook is more personal, I suppose. OTOH, I have immensely enjoyed its silliness and am glad of the connections I’m forging there.

I was excited about Twitter at the outset, until people that I wanted to have tweet conversations with did not add me back–simply because they did not know me and already had dozens of followers, I am sure, though it made me feel rather Stuart Smalley for a while.

LinkedIn is another story; it seems to pivot around actual personal connections, which after being momentarily puzzled by this, makes sense to me. IMHO, it’s trying to remedy this whole issue; the way the site works implies that a “connection” is a “connection”–=I would never walk up to Roy Tennant in real life and say, “Hey, you came to my library ten years ago to consult on our nascent digital library! Would you give me a job?” So I can’t do that on LI, either. (ftr, I would never do that to anyone who is “only” a web 2.0 connection, either!)

The suddenly alien world of the web

// March 13th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Web Stuff

Just when I think I’ve gotten the hang of this 2.0 thang, Twitter comes my way. While I’m Twittering along, I run across Plazes. Like I really need more ways to while away the evenings on my laptop.

By the way, if you have a web site and you’re still using the www prefix, make friends with whoever maintains your DNS and get rid of that 20th century artifact already!