#23, or The End

Wow, sometimes I thought I'd never get here. Now, there are other people at my branch that're way behind me. I went back and read some of my older posts, and I have to say, if this program had been done for a grade, I think I'da failed. Negativity set in right at the second post. I eventually got back onto the upside of the program, but to be frank, I'm not sure how much good I'll take away from here. I thought that I might start utilizing an RSS reader, but I promptly forgot about the existence of the thing and went back to surfing directly to my news sites. I appreciated learning about things like Twitter and Wiki's, but again, I don't think they'll ever obtain a permanent seat in my life at the moment. Of all the 23 things, I've not adopted anything new into my routines. The strongest thing that I'll take out of this is the experience of doing everything, which if I pursue my career through CML, may someday prove to've served well. May that day come with joy and lightness.
In response this program overall, I think is a good thing that CML offered. I think it could've been done in a slightly more organized fashionL: the blog could've been plotted out in advance to try to avoid some of the launching wrinkles that were encountered, and I think a better job could've been done testing links and verifying information before diseminating it to general staff. If resources were available to dedicate to offering at least open labs if not whole presentations for the differen things, I believe that would've been a great tool for learning. I would've liked a clearer tool for sharing your blog, finding an audience for your voice, but perhaps it's my own fault that I never did find such a thing with my reluctance to participate in things such as Twitter, and my online bashfulnes over linking to people I work with. I would endeavour to participate in any future discovery exercises, though I must say, the incentives were quite enticing.
This is Brian, signing off.
-Brian Franz

#22, MOLDI

MOLDI is the library of the future. While you usually associate moldy with something old and undesirable, unfit for consumption, I think MOLDI is what libraries shall turn into over the next years. The population will become tech- and web-savvy, and they will want to have access to what they're looking for instantly. I did not attempt to download anything because I personally am a Luddite, but I think this is a brilliant service and something that I am glad to have access to through CML. I would like there to be a FAQ section under About Us or Support. I am curious to know how materials are "automatically returned," and how, when you're simply downloading a string of data, something could be "unavailable". The technology, while probably beyond my comprehension, is still something that intrigues me.
I might someday try downloading the eBooks, though I'm not a big fan of PDF files. I don't get much use out of audio files, because I need to focus on what I'm hearing and don't have time to dedicate to doing so. Still, like I said, I think this is a great program and something that's definitely forward-thinking for the library.
Blessings,
Brian

#21, podcasts

I've never taken the time to figure out what podcasts were, 'cause I'd assumed they dealt with iPods rather than with broadcasts. They make somewhat more sense, now that I know what they are! I have a slight problem with them myself, because I've fallen in to the habit of listening to NPR radio. I feel like if I didn't hear a broadcast when it came out, I'd be hearing yesterday's news. I inserted some podcast URLS into my Google Reader (which I've been lax about using), and discovered that is quite easy; you just pretend that it's a normal RSS feed, and boom, that's it. You can view the podcasts on the reader.

I didn't like the first directory for podcasts to which L&P directed me. It was too poorly organized, Google adds took over the top of the page, the bottom right part of the page, the top left part of the page, and more. Searches included Google adds rather than just showing you results, and the whole thing just turned me off. The second one was better. It was more organized, the searches actually returned what I expected to see, and the feel of it was just better, to me. I did not find; as I recall, my search returned 200 listings, most of which simply dealt with libraries in a single post rather than being about or by libraries. The couple that I looked at hadn't been updated in some time. That was rather disheartening. I think a library could utilize podcasts in a variety of ways. If a library organized book groups, that would be a good way to maintain connection and tell people about the books. If they were going through expansion or changes, podcasts could introduce the customers to those changes. Even just for day-to-day business, the library could use podcasts to keep customer up to speed on their libraries.

That's enough words on this topic.
See ya,
Brian

Youtube, #20

Youtube is a really cool thing that I don't use enough. Like Flickr for movies, you can upload your own and/or veiw movies from any other users who've uploaded. The registration process is annoying (it took me five tries to make it work, partially 'cause I wasn't reading the site) and there's a LOT of junk on youtube, but there are also some really cool things. This is one of my favorite videos (for obvious reasons to those who know me). Enjoy!

Minstrels: The Lute and The Fury


http://www.petegold.com/luteandfury/credits.htm

#19 already??

And it was an easy thing, too. I looked through the Power Tools, and Book Burro caught my eye. If I bought more books from a greater variety of places, or if I had enough money to start collecting rare books, I'd be much more interested in that. The tech wary part of my brain is a little suspicious of anything that you actually download and attach to your browser, but this claims to be a part of Mozilla Firefox anyway, which is my browser of choice. Maybe if I ever get a FT position here at CML so that I can stop working at Barnes and Noble (where I get a nice employee discount), I'll look more into that. I also read the Tooling Around blog, and was frankly a little disappointed. Here's a brilliant place to establish a connection with the public, and we don't even get one post per month? It'd be a great place to outline the new browser for people, to really focus on things like the toolbar, and even feature some of the Premium Resources.
Just my 2cents,
-Brian

bibli-award

Quick post. I found a really cool thing I'll be looking more in-depth into at http://www.biblio.com/. This business is a perfect example in my mind as to how the web can open new worlds to old businesses, this one specifically the out-of-print book business. It appears to be essentially a networking tool to connect book dealers with potential customers. It functions as a cataloguing and therefor a "reference" tool, and can help you get the book you're looking for that the library no longer has and the bookstore can't get.
That gets my vote.
-Brian

Doc relief

So, I didn't really do the discovery exercise because I've been using Googdocs for a while now. I've actually relied on it for work-related things twice now. Last month, I interviewed for a full-time position for which they asked me to fill out a pre-interveiw questionaire. I copied the word doc that was e-mailed to me into Googdocs, and went to work. I shared it for editing, and corrections were marked right on my file. Then, Hurricane Ike struck. I was able to complete the document in a new location because it was all saved online, and I even submitted it on time for glowing reviews in my interview. It's a really cool tool. I don't really like the way they organize the documents that you save because it's done by time (docs saved today, yesterday, three years ago), but that's okay. It's both a good and a bad thing that they save everything you ever create, but I'm sure there's a delete option somewhere. (I use it as a notepad for things like recipes I find online, etc.) It's a really cool thing.
It scares me sometime the extent to which Google is starting to take over my life
-Brian

wiki 2.0

So, completing the wiki post was easier than I thought. I didn't like the sign up process, but I can't tell you about that now, 'cause I went on a vacation for a week and now don't know what happened anymore! I know I have a dozen or so wiki emails to delete, and I remember seeing something about why that happened, but now it's over with and I'm not thinking about it any more.
I posted two things on the wiki. I don't really do favorites, so I put down the restaurant at which I most recently had a truly outstanding meal, Sage American Bistro on High street near Duncan. It replaced The Kitchen Lounge on High St, which replaced Turkish Cuisine, so a location with a bad history for resaurants. And it wasn't open long before the city destroyed the street in front of it, and has kept the street torn up for months and months now. I really hope they're doing okay.
If you've read this post, then check out this website: <http://www.sageamericanbistro.com/> and go sometime.
See ya,
Brian

wikiwhacked

Wiki's are a brilliant idea. Similar to a chat room but more oganizable. Like having a real discussion with a group of people in different places and different times. Though, the presentations I've seen for them don't lend much credibility to long-term public-use wikis; I think the Wikipedia might be the best (and only ) example of one that's usable over and over by an entire population of people. Any others will simply become obsolete over time, and will be more geared to particular topics and subjects. Of the wiki's I looked at, I liked the Princeton book review one the best. I'm not sure that wikis make a better forum than, say, a simple blog community or a site such as LibraryThing or GoodReads, but whatever. I find myself in favor of mass-edited information on Wikipedia much more than I do the "mob logic" info comment I made about Delicious, though I'm not sure why. I think I simply recognize what Wikipedia is and assume others take it with a grain of salt the way I do, while Delicious is still too new for me to do that.
Hmm, curious thought I just had. I could bookmark my comics on Delicious and not have to search for them on odd computers the way I did today. . .
here goes nothin'
-Brian

2.0 Thoughts

I don't know enough about the history of libraries to say this for sure, but it seems to me that there's something to the idea that public libraries have been 2.0 since their inception. If they haven't been, then they've betrayed the whole concept of a public library.



In this day and age, libraries need to embrace the ideas of 2.0. They need to be open to user input, to social and networking ideas, and to change. The retail and service industries have all turned to a "want it now, get it now" format, and customers are starting to expect that level of service. I envision a time when physical libraries give way to giant databases, where librarians are all but replaced with "search" softwares, and where the public is well enough educated and informed to utilize such a database. While I don't (can't bring myself to) believe that the physical aspect of libraries (buildings, bookshelves full of printed material, live librarians, heavy books with paper pages, etc) will ever be completely usurped, I think that users will more and more want to simply utilize the library through their computer: uploading text, audio and visual material, chatting with librarians for answers and assistance, accessing reference information online. And if that's what the public wants, public libraries shall have to adapt to provide.

Yumyum

Delicious is something that's cropped up in my radar a time or two in the past, but I'd never seen reason to try to figure out the what, why, or how of it before. I appreciate the fact of it, and perhaps some day will have good use for it myself, but as things stand now, I'm just glad to have experienced it. This is sort of a second class research tool in my opinion; it could be a good jumping-off point, but I due to the folkonomic nature of it, I don't know that it would be a strong enough resource to rely upon. (Yes, I realise that you're just using it to get to other sites, but you end up dependant on mob logic rather than true reasoning. (That's my latent reference librarian rearing it's ugly head)). I also see the usefulness of an online bookmark database, but I'd be curious to find out what percentage of the population accesses the internet from public computers as compared to those who only use their own personal machines. Group research projects or "shared interest" groups seem to me to be the most logical application of the program, and anyone who's familiar should immediately see what I mean.
'Til next time,
Brian

Twitter quitter

I'm sorry to post another negative thing, but Twitter really doesn't appeal to me. I have friends who utilize the service, but I'm simply not ready for that level of connectivity. I don't see any use for it unless you're at your computer all day, at which point an IM service is more useful. Perhaps if you're traveling, with a contingency of people following that you're reporting blow-by-blow information back to via phone, but I'm not doing that. Twitter itself didn't do anything to attract me. The site is confusing, I couldn't find any sort of "About" or FAQ's, and it's search feature is hidden. I shall not be doing anything else Twitterwise.
Thanks anyway,
Brian

Personal Book Cataloguer

I've looked at Library Thing in the past, but I don't think I ever actually signed up. I've been using Good Reads some. (I need to go back and actually update my most recent readings, if I can remember them!). I have almost four hundred books catalogued on GoodReads. I like that one better than Library Thing because I don't buy many books. (Almost all of my most recent acquisitions have been pre-readers available to me as an employee of Barnes and Noble Booksellers.) Library Thing has a better layout, but I'm not willing to pay for service. Anyway, this is the accout I just created at Library Thing with my five books attached:
<http://www.librarything.com/catalog/brianwf>.
And this, for anyone interested, is my GoodReads accout:
<http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1237367>.
That's all for now,
-Brian

Thing #10

I've seen people with avatar images of themselves all the time on blogs, so I finally did one for myself. I used the manga image generator that chuckatmain was so kind to link to, <http://www.faceyourmanga.com/homepage.php?lang=eng>. You can see the results in the picture now attached to my profile! I tried to find other generators, but most of the ones I was coming up with were meme-type "plug in information and get a generic phrase back!" Those are not interesting. I like the result of my manga-face, though.
I'm so pretty.
-Brian

Thing #9: Oh yeah, I did this too

In settin gup my reader, I subscribed to a few different things. Google reader has neat little subscription boxes that automatically sign you up for a few different feeds. Their News sign-up includes Google News (which I stopped reading some time ago 'cause I didn't like the setup), BBC, NPR, Christain Scienc Monitor (don't ask me), ESPN, and maybe something else. I kept BBC, NPR, and Google. I also added National Geographic. I set up a local news folder for Columbus Business first and Dispatch, and a Library folder for L&P, Tame the Web, and any of y'all participant type people that I might start reading. (I'm fairly certain none of you are reading this, so I don't feel too bad about not having any right now.)
Refer to my prior post if that seems cranky.
I'm tired.
Brian

RSS: Ridiculous, Stupid Syndications!

I might've had even more trouble with this item than I did with the Flickr mashups. I went to create my Bloglines accout and went to verify my e-mail, but the verification e-mail wasn't there. So I couldn't do that until the next time that I was in. I started playing around with setting up various feeds, but quickly came across a circular loop when trying to add something that I couldn't break out of, so I quit working on it. I finally went back and re-watched some of the tutorials provided in the Learn and Play blog, and decided to try a different reader. Google's reader worked out much better for me. I like the layout better, I like the way that you add new feeds better, I like the folder setup that I never even found in Bloglines (granted, I wasn't looking for such a thing, but Google's are just right there). So, I've filled the requirements of the "thing" by setting up my Bloglines accout which I'll probably never look at again, but I may actually start using my Google reader. And here's a supercool link to my shared items page: <http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05618599012420363008?hl=en> !!
(Don't bother, I'll be really surprised if I ever end up sharing anything.)
It might actually make my morning online rituals faster!
I'd like to go sleep now but I've four more hours of work, so I'll go eat my lunch instead.
Mmm, lunch.
Brian

music technology!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7617177.stm
Back info: when you play a real musical instrument, you will rarely re-create a sound even if repeating a specific note/pattern. Therefore, in order to digitally create the sound of an 18th century harpsichord, Dr. Kenny McAlpine created sound bytes for lots and lots of different possible sounds for each note he wanted, and created a program to randomly select the bytes for the correct notes of a newly-discovered piece of music. This is an important step for digital musical performances.
That's all for now!
Brian

Flickr Montage

So, I had a heck of a time trying to get the mashups under my belt. I first tried to get to the letters, but it was broken. Then, I tried something else (can't remember what anymore) but it was broken, too. Then, I tried to make a librarian card, but that wouldn't load. So I let it go for a week or two (or three, or four). Upon taking up the task again, I found the Montager. This is really kind of fun; it searches the Flickr database of photos based on a given tag, and assembles all of the pictures into a montage shaded to produce an approximation of the first photo found. (Okay, I'm sure I'm mistaken on the technical aspects, but that's sort of what it does.) The best one I got from the various tags I tried was this one, <http://www.deviousgelatin.com/montager/image.php?image=210371029> from "lute. Check it out!

Library@Sinclair Community College - Learning Resources Center 1972-2005

Library@Sinclair Community College - Learning Resources Center 1972-2005
Originally uploaded by Sinclair Library

Sinclair Community college is located in downtown Dayton, OH. I spent my junior and senior years of high school attending Sinclair as a PSEO student. Being a mid-city campus, Sinclair had about ten original building (they'd expanded to twenty or so when I was done) arranged around a central courtyard. This library, where I'd hang out and read between classes, is located UNDERNEATH the courtyard. Pretty cool, in my opinion. It's only flooded really bad once, as I recall.

Not anymore, it isn't.

Not anymore, it isn't.
Originally uploaded by mysticpenguin

This is the original public library in Xenia, OH. I've never known it to be a library, as it's not been one since at least the mid eighties. I think I remember seeing "for sale" signs in the yard; my father used to joke about trying to buy it as our family residence. That woulda been really cool, except for the words over the entrance, "Free to the public."

Last Rune series review

One thing I'm going to use this blog for is to put out reviews of the books I read. I like to fantasize about a career where I'm paid to read what I like to read, say as an editor or somesuch. (Gosh, can't imagine that from someone who works in a library, can you?) What follows is to that end.

I recently completed Mark Anthony's series, The Last Rune. This is a six book series that I picked up on a complete whim, and they surprised me in how much I liked them! The premise is a little hokey, involving parallel worlds, time travel, and various forms of magic. The overall plot is good, but a couple of the individual books (particularly the second one) fall short. The writing is well organized, with good flow; the characters are well-developed and likable; the humor is well mixed with the drama, and just enough suspense is added to keep everything interesting. There are elements drawn rather strongly from David Eddings, an author I read growing up held very dear to me. Anthony tends towards a little more serious than Eddings, but I think the books are comparable in quality.

The series starts by introducing Travis, a bartender, and Grace, a doctor. Both of these people are transported to Eldh, a magical medieval world somehow connected to Earth where they learn they each have previously unknown powers of magic, which they use to save Eldh from domination by the evil Pale King. That all happens in the first book, which is a full stand-alone novel. (Kind of confusing for those of us versed in high-fantasy epics. What happens in the rest of the series if you tell the story in the first book?!) The second book also stands fairly well on its own, but introduces some elements that become important later in the series. It's plot follows the standard overused fantansy template: heros given quest, encounter problems, minor characters die, quest fulfilled and everyone goes home happy. Books three through five make a nice little trilogy, and are the best of the series. The plot presented here is finally what the author wanted to tell us, and there's more intrigue, more action, more overall interest in these three books. Sadly, I think you'd be lost if you read these three without the setup done in the first books. Complete resolution is reached in the sixth book, with the entire series put to rest. That's something of a rarety in my experience; a lot of fantasy authors seem to leave their stories open. It's nice to see a series that is complete, which doesn't leave you wanting to know what happens when Good finally does triumph over Evil, which doesn't leave the door open for additional stories or new interpretations.

One of my favorite things about this series is the fact that it touches upon a topic not often found in high fantasy: homosexuality. Without being explicit or inappropriate, Travis builds a relationship with another main character. The books touch on ideas that everyone ought to be allowed to live the lives they want to live, and shouldn't be judged for it. This is presented in a gentle, only slightly awkward and occasionally preachy way. I would reccommend this series to any open-minded fantasy reader looking for something light and enjoyable.

'Til next time,
Brian

learning long life

Wow, setting that up was harder than I thought! I agonized over finding a name that was clever but not cheezy, something that defined me without being too personal. Then I decided it didn't matter that much, wasn't worth the effort, and just used what I was given. So, on to the learning stuff we're supposed to talk about.


I always expected to be a lifelong learner, but I've found myself more recently falling out of that, resisting change and new things, and realizing that I've begun thinking things like, "I'm too old for that!" (I'm 24; that's unacceptable.) So here's to a change.

Of the 7 1/2 things, I will struggle the most with either the first, Goal Setting, or the seventh, Teaching. I don't tend to work with goals in mind; in the past, I've taken pride in the fact that I just take things as they come, working with the wind and giving myself only minimal guidance. I probably picked this habit up in primary school. I never had to work for decent grades, so I just floated through my classes. That worked through college, though I ended up with a degree other than what I started for. (I think I'm better off for that, thought I might be using the result to justify the means.) I've never had specific career goals, and what life goals I've set have so far worked themselves in line. On a daily basis, I blow off goals I set for myself (exercising, getting the bedroom/kitchen/basement cleaned, getting dinner together, etc). So I guess I've just found the first step I need to take to rebuild myself as a lifelong learner: begin to set and achieve goals in daily life.

As far as teaching, I'll have trouble with this one simply because I don't seek out opportunities to teach. I grew up in a household of educators, and decided early on that was not the route for me. Education is a logical path for me to follow in my primary field of music, but I've never pursued this. I don't mind teaching in a peer setting (as long as reciprocation occurs), but like I said, I hesitate to seek out opportunities.

Enough negative! I think I'll have the most fun with No. 6, Utilizing Technology. That is, as long as technology is made available for me to utilize. I enjoy learning my way around new toys that I can then use to show up my technologically challenged family. (All my friends are more technologically capable than am I, so I have to show off to some one. My poor, put upon siblings.) So, bring it! We'll see how this all works out.

Auf Wiederschreiben,
Brian