A Place for everything

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Symbaloo- great start page- designed to allow the user to create a personalized start page with visual links to all their book marks. It's kind of like a desktop for the web...on the web.
Here is what it looks like-

 Each of the squares can be customized to link directly to your favorite sites. Also, you can access this from any computer by logging in and the links are sharable.
Overall, it's very similar to other online bookmark collection accounts. Some users may prefer the colorful, visual interface.
I can see this being a handy tool for teachers. Teachers or Library Specialists could create themed Symbaloo pages to guide students on research topics. This could be a good starting point for a 'web quest' or 'virtual field trip'.

Catching up and Staying ahead

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Librarians can stay on top of tech trends in order to better serve their patrons and provide the most accurate info possible.
Creating training programs that can be embraced and adopted as part of the culture is a challenge. But that is a primary key to success- making continued skill building a part of the work place culture.
Some training initiatives that have had marked success for Library Professionals are:

WebJunction- provides member states with learning programs and online training modules specifically geared to library staff. Also, WebJunction is a portal through which individuals can purchase access to Le@d and LibraryU courses.

Le@d- An initiative of the University of North Texas offers technical and soft skill online training courses to member organizations.

TechSoup provides technology education for non-profits.I am impressed with the attention given to various levels of expertise. An equal amount of resources are offered to tech heads and digital immigrants. There is even an exclusive area built  for libraries. Generally the libraries section offers anecdotes and printable material of ideas for success in library staff  IT training and maintaining public access computers.

Not all training programs need to be provided on such a large scale.


23 things- A few years ago, Helene Blowers of PLCMC crafted a fun way for library staff to become engaged with emerging Web 2.0 technologies. She came up with a list of 23 things for participants to do. I believe one of the reasons this program has been so successful and adopted far and wide is
A) It is relatively inexpensive and
B) It allows the participants to play
This second item is a primary tenet of training and the title of a rather good resource book - "Telling Ain't Training." Participants nearly always absorb more information when they can actually perform rather than observe.

Ohio Library Council's Library Marketing Program- is an expanded and localized version of 23 Things. This is an example of one of the many ways 23 Things has been adapted and it can be a helpful template for other libraries wanting to build a uniform training plan. The Ohio Council built in marketing and advocacy skills as part of the training.

Website Review: www.atyourlibrary.org

Library advocacy- keeping our value fresh on the minds of patrons is vital.
One tool in the ALA toolbox is atyourlibrary.org.
This site is a central location for basic library information, news coverage of events at libraries across the nation, media reviews and special interest articles.

I like the way some sites include maps. This site uses a handy tool- in the upper right corner, users can type in a zip code and get a local map with all the libraries marked.

The cool thing is, I put in my zip code and found libraries that I didn't know existed!
I will definitely use this the next time I go out of town. (I like to visit libraries when I travel- go figure!)

Other helpful features on the site include quicklinks for job and career information. This has several listings for job sites and career training that could help diverse users. There is also a section on family that gives regularly updated articles on effective parenting ideas.
Overall, the site is successful at showing the myriad ways libraries can impact lives.

Website Review: American Libraries Magazine

As a member of ALA, I look forward to receiving my copy of American Libraries Magazine each month.
I have especially enjoyed the professional development news and IT installments.

However, it just never occurred to a tech head like me to look at the website-
I guess, I've just enjoyed the print version so much, I felt no need to look further.
In this Month's issue, there is a blurb about the newly revamped website on page 12.
I feel inclined now to have a look.

Wow, what a clean site! Just the right amount of negative space to really make each of the features stand out. My eye flows around the page comfortably. The visuals are topic appropriate and the color scheme is easy on the eyes.

As for content- just as good. It isn't a rehash of stuff from the print magazine.
There are updated news article, several blogs, a calendar of events and links to internet sites of interest.
Another handy tool: I can also find back issues of the Alabama Libraries Direct newsletters.

Top 10 Things I've learned in Library School

10.BiblioSpeak- This is a language made up of many acronyms like AACR2 , DDC, LC, IMLS... and it goes on. Getting a handle on the acronyms has really helped me with my studies

9. A great big binder for putting the "highlights" of each class I've taken is a huge help. I am a big picture kind of person and need this kind of "road map" to my studies

8. There are many different personalities in SLIS- it's like a mini-melting pot. I was pleasantly surprised

7. Library students really should re-shelve their research- it helps the next SLISer that comes along

6.It's not all about books!

5.It's so much about books!

4.Within librarianship, there are so many different professional avenues

3.Information Literacy is an absolute must

2.All that stuff in a MARC record actually means something!

1.Librarians (And SLISers) really love to share their knowledge and expertise

6 Thinking Hats

Never underestimate the power of simply getting to know your co-workers. It's crucial for team building and for the division of tasks.
In my LS 560 Information Technology class we discussed LTM (Learning Type Measure) and how the different "Learner Types" accomplish work and work together.
While Looking into this, I stumbled upon a similar theory - This 6 Thinking Hats summary is based on a book of the same title by Edward de Bono.

Six Thinking Hats Summary

View more documents from Paul Foreman.

Great books according to my 6 year old

Monday, March 8, 2010

One of the first things anyone learns about me is that I'm a proud parent. I have to really work at turning it down a bit. I'm just so impressed with my kids and get so much joy out of their wonder.
My daughter has been an active reader for a year now and we LOVE to read together. I like to learn what she's into- so I asked her to compile her favorite books for me.
About thirty minutes later, she came out of her room with most of her books.
So this time I asked her if she had to pick five to take on vacation, what would they be.
Here are the six she gave me.

Polo has been a favorite in our house since she was a toddler. The French children's author and illustrator, Regis Faller has created more than 20 books for children.
These books have a comic book panel style and very few words-  I have found that they are inspiring for my kids' imagination.
Imagine a puppy, leaving his island tree house balancing on a wire up to the clouds. In this adventure, Polo meets some musical monkeys, a lonely snowman and some glowing moon men.
I highly recommend the Chez Polo website. It may be in French, but we have really enjoyed exploring the interactive world.

Seek and Find/ Look and Find books are always on the top of her pile in bed. Pretty much any book that is image rich appeals to her. And all the better when a challenge of hidden pictures or picture differences is added. The books she chose from her collection that fit this category are Disney's Princess Look and Find and Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?

Animalia combines two of my daughter's great loves: dense images and animals. Every page of this book is another world of fantastic creatures, alliterative plays on the alphabet and the hidden image of a little boy. 
This book inspired the PBS Kids show and interactive website, which is also a hit with my daughter.

When I asked her about favorites, I wondered which one of Mo Willems' books would make the cut. Over the years we have empathized with Trixie and counted Tony's teeth at least a hundred times. Mo's Pigeon made the cut. She loves this snarky pigeon. I must admit, I do too- The pigeon has an interactive website with fun stuff for kids and info for adults.
For those like us who can't get enough of this pigeon- Mo also has a blog with appearance schedules, downloadable event kits and exhibit information.

And finally, Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler really appeals to her sense of adventure and love of fantasy. I think it's a very cleverly written story within a story... within another story ....
Charlie reads about a pirate who reads about Goldilocks and so on. The colorful illustrations depict the pages of each book.

This was a fun exercise, I learned some things about my daughters tastes in reading material. And I think she felt really good about sharing her opinions.

Everything..... Visualized

Thursday, March 4, 2010

I hate to wait.

It isn't impatience, it's a deep need for efficiency.

Therefore, given a choice between reading 2 paragraphs about something or looking at a diagram-

well of course, I'll choose the diagram. 

Diagrams, charts, visualizations, graphs and maps are all part of a growing trend in information sharing. These tools are collectively called info-graphics.

 Photo Credit:
Flickr user, Shanairpic posted this interesting use of infographics from Kulula Airlines.

Blaze a trail with Trailmeme-

This up and coming site allows  registered users to create visual web maps for others to follow.

Eventually, I believe Google Wave will enhance this kind of collaboration. While Trailmeme allows users to follow a predetermined path in order to gain some knowledge or achieve an outcome; Google Wave will also allow personal media to be collected within the Wave and then shared.

Visualize your own data-

Tableau just released a free version of its graphic data software called Tableau Public.

Other visualization software is on the horizon.

Google Visualization API and Microsoft Pivot are in the development stages.

Visit some blogs completely devoted to InfoGraphics

Randy Krum's Cool Info Graphics

David McCandless' Information is Beautiful

And Just for fun, how about a little Graph Jam. This site comes from the creators of I can Has Cheez Burger. All graphics are submitted by users and some are pretty funny. This example was submited by user Vanitytree.  GraphJam has a "GraphJam Builder" that will allow users to import simple data sets.