I hate Halloween

I know, I know how can you hate Halloween? Well let me tell you a little story...

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click link if you prefer....

Halloween Story

Make It, Get It Out There, and Help Me Find It

Where do libraries and librarians fit into the "Make It, Get It Out There, and Help Me Find It" equation?

Make It --> Libraries provide the tools and training to assist patrons to become new producers. Workshops on how to publish, how to use new technologies, etc have been part and parcel of the public library domain for a long time. They have also lead by example. The number of libraries that are creating content on the web grows everyday.

Get It Out There --> Looking at the aggregator aspect of providing materials for public use - isn't that really what a library is? One big aggregator providing content to the marketplace? By sharing resources with others, libraries are able to provide inventory on demand, no matter how small the niche market.

Help Me Find It --> According to Anderson new tastemakers are "people whose opinions are respected" (pg. 107) and a librarian is typically used as a filter of information because their opinion is respected. They are also reaching out beyond just their own opinion by providing methods for other patrons to share their views. The use of surveys, book reviews, and book lists of frequent library visitors are providing community based recommendations as well.

When looking at these three forces, you can see that libraries and librarians have always been a part of the Long Tail.

Drank some more of the Google Kool-Aid

So I checked out the Google Analytics and the nerd in me was pretty impressed! I couldn't believe how much info you could actually get to - now I just need a reason to care! (I do understand that I would care if I hosted a website or blog read by more than just my classmates who *have* to - but I don't, so really there is not a lot of relevancy for me today on this. I will care some other time though....)

What I did learn is that Steve has trained us all pretty well and the Firefox visits beat the IE visits 70% to 30% - apparently you can only drink so much Kool-Aid from the big guys before you have to try the Delaware Punch. (does anybody else remember Delaware Punch? OMG it was good!)

Also there are alot of people on T1's - so I am guessing that several people might be doing some blog reading at their "day job"!! T1's beat out DSL, but only by a hair. And I am so sorry to the 2 people who accessed via dial up...life must be very painful over dial up.

Online and loving it

Here I sit in my third semester at Rutgers in the SCILS program. In that time I have changed my commute from the living room to the basement, upgraded my backpack from a stack on the floor to real shelves, and learned more than I ever thought possible without setting foot on a college campus. I am an online student who fits school in with all the other things that make up a life and I never have to drive to New Brunswick to do it. It has been odd to adjust to not seeing people but it hasn't impeded my ability to get to know my cohort. Of course I could trip right over them in the street - but that is a whole 'nother story! When I talk to non-students about the program the typical reaction is "wow - you can do that? how does that work?" and I always answer the same way...if I wasn't able to get my degree online I couldn't be going to school right now, so no matter the potential issues it is worth it!

Here is a picture of the building that I travel to for classes....



If you want to take a look at some more of my classrooms, my backpack, and what keeps me going go here --> my SCILS life

If you want to check out what my classmates SCILS life looks like try here --> my classmates

So go ahead - take that online class, it won't hurt you (much).

Heads or Tails?

When thinking about the long tail vis-a-vis (that's a fancy word for in relation to - for you "Fancy Nancy" fans out there) the library I am pondering the space versus potential use continuum. In order for libraries to serve their communities they need to provide a balance between "head-y" things and "tail-y" things.

Everyone that walks in the door is equally capable of asking for the latest James Patterson novel or a book published in Mexico about the Mexican Army and specifically General Miguel Lamego. So the trick is in the balance, because while there may be more people looking for "The Dangerous Days of Daniel X", they can readily find it if you happen to be out. Whereas the user looking for the book on Miguel Lamego probably doesn't have anywhere else to turn. The library can prove its ultimate usefulness in being able to provide materials (either in house or via ILL) that are clearly the tail end of the spectrum.

Are they ready for some collaboration?

In every class you hear the dreaded words "group project" and your palms start sweating, heart starts racing, and eyeballs roll all the way back in your head...why? ... because until now it was just such a pain to parse out the duties and keep track of the work involved in group work. Collaboration tools like Google Docs and spresent can certainly take some of the pain away and should be used for both on-campus and online students for their group work. I have only been in this program for a year and thinking back to my first group project and the weekly phone calls and 3 trillion emails back and forth to put together a PowerPoint presentation literally gives me hives.... If only I, or my professor, had known about these tools life would have been much better (shout out to Sue for our weekly phone calls!). So the short answer to "would it make project creation easier/faster?" is YES YES YES YES YES.

But the real question..."would professors accept them"...
I think within our academic community there is as big a mixed bag of skills as anywhere - there are some professors who are completely on top of all that is new and helpful and some professors who may as well be taking notes on a stone tablet. Each professor has the apparent flexibility to set their own technological requirements so trying to get some to think outside their box just wont happen. The best case scenario would be teaching the students the value of the tools and making it so easy for the professors to view the final work that they would not care how it was created.

the virtual me

So I was/am brand new to delicious so you are more than welcome to take any comment I have with a grain of salt...

I thought the bookmarking exercise as a means of getting to know more about each other was only okay for that purpose...because there are ding-dong's, like me, that didnt put anything in the description to say why the site was important, some of the bookmarks, like mine, just didnt grab my attention. The other thing that I got very confused about was who was marking what...if it is meant to represent "us" as a "whole" I think it does that fine - but if it was meant to have me get to know Tara, for example, not so much...as I struggled to piece together who was marking what and building a profile for that person.

So if you want to use this tool as a "virtual introduction" for another class setting then I think there have to be a few more ground rules...
1. you must provide some insight as to why that site was important (I WAY more enjoyed those bookmarks than anyone could have enjoyed mine...)
2. I think you have to tag each with the user name ...tascils... etc and then look at the lists individually as well as a group tag ...fall08... to see the overlap.
3. you would have to assume that there is the possibility that there are users unfamiliar with delicious and account for that in the beginning

so that's my .02