Thing 9 addition

23Things at VCCS
Originally uploaded by stevesgal91

Here is the photo I was trying to add into my Thing 9 posting but I could not figure out my password to Flickr.

Thing 21: Mashups.

Looking through the various mashups were interesting, esp. the ones related to books. I like one that gave you a list of book sales going on in libraries close to you. But the one I really liked, since I am a huge history buff, was conflicthistory.com. It starts with a google map of the globe and a timeline. You can pick a geographic area and a span of years, and it will give you all the various conflicts in that area arranged chronologically. If you want to know more about a specific conflict, you can click on the letter 'i' in the corner which brings you to the beginning of a Wikipedian article. You can read just what is given and that usually is enough but if you want to know more, there is a link to the original wiki article you can follow. Naturally, as with all Wikipedia articles, you would not want to suggest this for use in a research paper but it would be useful to get an overview of what was going on in a certain time period in the various countries across the globe.

Thing 19: Multimedia

Even though I do admit to watching YouTube videos when people send me certain links, by and large, I usually think of it as a vast wasteland. But like anything else, I can see it does have its uses. A video promoting the services our library can provide might get the message across to students who ignore our pamphlet - plus it can show administrators what we actually do here.

I did look through a few YouTube videos that were done through academic libraries - I looked at one from the Berkely Campus of the University of California titled Building Academic Library 2.0 which addresses many of the topics we have learned about through this project.


I picked the YouTube video (from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library) that I included here because it shows the effects of budget cuts on libraries in a humorous but effective manner. It is a tad long, but if you watch it all the way through, I think you will definitely empathize with a library staff that is still trying to meet its demands by the patrons while going through budget cuts ( I esp. liked it when the front desk computer used to check out patrons was suddenly replaced by an abacus).

Thing 20: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

I can definitely see the advantages of tagging and social bookmarking for both students and library staff. It would be handy to have a social bookmarking site compiled by our library that we could suggest to students as an easy way to have all the databases and other websites handy for them to access. Our library webpage has too many layers to navigate through so students often do not realize what they have available. I liked the other bookmarks compiled by the VCCS library because it had other types of materials students often need but do not know where to look, such as the City and Building Index and the Photo Archive. The bookmarks for copyright and fair use would also be useful to instructors. I also like the idea of being able to comment on the bookmarks chosen. Sometimes other people will know of other websites that offer the same information and they could comment directly on that bookmark so others can see it.

Thing 18: Audiobooks.

I am not entirely new to downloading audiobooks. My local public library has had Overdrive available for its patrons for several years now and I have downloaded several books both on my computer and onto my iPod. And I completely agree with most of Farrell's article on the pluses and minuses of this technology. Although it is extremely handy to have the audiobooks on my iPod that I can directly play through my car stereo, it can be very tedious loading the Overdrive Console onto your computer, downloading the audiobook, and then transferring all the chapters onto the iPod. Also, I did not realize the heavy cost of each title to libraries; however, I understand the reasoning that each title is available to multiple users. Still, unless the library is part of a consortium or has a great fundraising capability, the cost is nearly prohibitive on a large scale.

I really have not noticed that many ratings from people on the audiobooks I have downloaded. Reader ratings I always take with a grain of salt anyway, because I have found that I will enjoy books that others have panned. It depends on the makeup of who is doing the rating, I guess.

I know you can download books through http://audible.com/ - in fact, my GPS has a feature that lets you download audible.com books to it so you can take it on the road. And I have downloaded a couple audiobooks to iTunes so I can download them onto my iPod. But to me, the expense of purchasing the audiobooks does not often justify the cost. If it is something I would listen to more than once, I would probably be better off with the print version.


We have not had much success in interesting our patrons in using Overdrive. Most of the ones who inquire about it are community patrons who cannot have access since they are not affiliated directly with the college. Most of the ones I have heard talk about downloading the books are the students themselves who are in their late teens to early 20s. They are the ones most comfortable with the technology and who are used to downloading and exporting files to audio players. When Overdrive first came to VCCS, I tried explaining and demonstrating it to several of our older staff members and they still could not fathom how to help anyone with questions. Our own library has not done much with publicizing the availability either other than with posters in the library and brief notes on the library homepage. I think if more of our students and faculty knew about it, they would use it more heavily than they do now.

Thing 17: Social Cataloging:

I never used any type of social cataloging before. I used GoodReads because a couple people in our library already belong so I know at least two people to compare reads with. But once I looked at the site, I realized I would enjoy adding this to my Facebook groups anyway. I tend to read books a little on the esoteric side - linguistics, specialized history books, etc. - so it is good to see reviews of mainstream books I may want to read also. I liked the idea of virtual "book clubs" since there does not seem to be any book clubs where I live that I can join.

At some point, I would like to also take a look at LibraryThing because I would love to have a complete list of my library online that I can just send my friends to or that I can check against to see if I have a book before I purchase it.

Here is a link to my GoodReads page: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4160543. I have only added one book but promise to add more a little each day until I catch up with what I have read recently and what I am reading now.

Karen's bookshelf: read




More of Karen's books »

Thing 16: E-Books.

I think that the many varieties of e-books can be confusing! Some you can only read online, some you can download and print, others you can read everything but you are not allowed to print the whole content, and some you need a special reader for. But I also think the concept is exciting, esp. the ability to download and take several books with you to read on the airplane without physically having to carry three or four books. And when Project Gutenberg first came out, I thought it was a great way to give everyone access to the classics.

I explored the PsycBooks database and liked what I saw. It was easy to search and easy to download the material. I think this gives our students a great resource that we otherwise could not afford to buy book by book. And I like saving the shelf space, which is a constant problem in our library.

However, our patrons do not always like it when the only way they can get to a book is through online access, such as NetLibrary. Even our 18-20 somethings still would rather have the book in their hands when trying to find information. I somewhat understand their thinking. I took a Spanish class at a local university and we had to purchase an e-textbook. To me, I hated not being able to highlight or notate. If I wanted a section of information to study while I was not around a computer, I had to print it off. So there is some good along with the bad when it comes to e-books.

I would like to have something like a Kindle, but will probably buy myself an iPod Touch this fall when they come out with the version that matches the new iPhone. A couple people I know swear by it as a viewer for downloaded books. And as an iPod owner, I am familiar with the format.

Thing 15: Creative Commons.

I can definitely see wonderful uses for the many items available through Creative Commons licensing. There are surveys already created and ready post online, music available to be used in presentations, even entire courses taught through MIT that one could post to one's own blog or website. I think it is a wonderful concept, esp. in the field of education. When I taught high school English, I probably "lifted" a lot of things to put on worksheets, etc. that I shouldn't have but had no clue how else to find what I needed without having to pay for the license.

Of course, I can see sharing my original content under a Creative Commons license if I think it is something that someone else could use, esp. in the field of education (that is, unless I am sure what I created could be a gold mine - LOL!). If I have already done a video tutorial that would serve the needs of someone else in my field, I would be more than happy to let it be used. To me, this sounds like a wonderful time and energy saver.

Thing 8: Screencasting

The link below is to a screencast on how to place a hold request on an item in our library catalog. I downloaded Jing on my home computer and used it to record. The process itself is not hard and I definitely would like to redo this one day. My problems with sound levels, etc. came about because of my equipment, not the software. I found Jing to be quite user-friendly and intuitive.


http://www.screencast.com/users/ksw42516/folders/Jing/media/d24e88ec-bdec-4a7c-a208-63c7b24bf65b

Thing 14 : Online Surveys

For this week's assignment, I created a survey using Google Docs asking participants what they do or do not know about interlibrary loans at my college. I would like to work some more on this survey and actually send it out to our students because I am curious whether most students even realize they can request materials they need this way.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHAwWkxPV2tnNnJ2ejFiLXUybjJ2S2c6MQ

At first, I did have some trouble creating the form because I could not figure out how to edit or save my survey. This meant I created and lost three surveys before I finally got the hang of it. However, once I finished, I enjoyed the experience.

Thing 9.5: Image Generators

I took the basic picture from one of my Facebook photos and used the Mosaic Maker from this website : http://bighugelabs.com/

It is kind of fun, but I wish I could have chosen the background colors myself.

Thing 13 : Document Sharing

For my document, I wrote a summary of the history of one of my ancestors. I did allow anyone to edit. I can see one application we could use in the library. It would be nice for the staff to post a document that would allow collaboration; for example, directions on how to run bills on the library circulation software or how to open and close the library. As each person reads the document, he or she could make any changes or suggestions they think would help.

Thing 11 : Shortening a URL.

Here is a URL shortener for ArtStor, one of the databases at LFCC. http://bit.ly/VrKgC. I found shortening the URLs for databases to be extremely interesting and a lot of fun. But I can see the applications for working with students. It would be nice, if you needed to send a student or patron a link to an online article or to a particular website to send an email with the shortened link. I know I hate to copy and paste extremely long URLs myself.

Thing 10 : Searching Twitter

I had set up a Twitter account a while back and now hardly ever check it. One reason is that a lot of creepy people wanted to follow my tweets and that concerned me. For that reason alone, I would be a little skeptical of using it as a research tool. Many of the posts out there would not be useful to the average researcher looking for accurate data. However, I can see researchers in the fields of sociology, psychology, and possibly history mining tweets to find the reactions of the common people to historical events. I checked out the recent topics of BP oil spill and Joran Van Der Sloot. Although it is interesting to look through a few of the observations made by fellow Tweeters, I do not think there is much in the way of factual material there. The one Tweeter I saw that really displays why students should be careful of using Twitter as fact purported to be the PR dept. of British Petroleum but was actually someone only using the account name to give his opinions on the spill.

Embedded Librarians - Inside Higher Ed

I found this while on Facebook on Shenandoah University Libraries. It is an interesting article although most community college libraries would not be able to do everything that John Hopkins is trying to do. Still, I like the idea of the library going where the students and professors are. This helps both groups see what the library can do for them first hand.


Embedded Librarians - Inside Higher Ed

Thing 9: Photos and Images

This took a lot longer to set up than I anticipated due to a dead battery in my camera and a new cell phone whose features I am not used to! Our own community college uses it to post photos taken at events such as graduation and our 40th anniversary picnic last Saturday.

As far as using it for our library, I think it would not be useful unless we took more than ten or twenty photos of an event. It would be far easier to post photos in Facebook.


This particular set of photos shows our current showcase display titled "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover." I apologize for reversing the order of the photos but I could not figure out on Flickr how to change them permanently. The display itself was done by our Library Director, David Gray, and highlights a small part of his book collection. If you can, take a close look at some of the titles. http://www.flickr.com/photos/52475763@N08/sets/72157624943171099/

Thing 7: Sharing Slide Presentations

I have embedded a Slideshare presentation at the bottom of my blog that was created for library staff unfamiliar with Web 2.0 tools and it gives some excellent reasons why libraries need to begin using Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, etc. When I was teaching high school years ago, there was a beginning emphasis on using collaboration in the classroom rather the lecture approach. Students coming into the community college system now are used to learning by sharing. I can see slideshare sharing as being another one of those learning tools that encourages students to share their responses with the creator and with each other. It would be interesting for the various community college libraries in our system to upload our database tutorials to one of these sites. That way, not only would we be able to get more interest and some feedback from our own students, but we would be to see and respond to the tutorials produced by our counterparts in other parts of the state.

Embracing Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 for Quality Library Service

View more presentations from Fe Angela Verzosa.

Thing 6: Chat

I have used chat before but I am not a huge fan, usually because if I am online, I am there for a purpose and do not want to be distracted. But a number of my friends use it a lot and try to coax me into chatting with them. So far, I have resisted. :) The most I use it is to chat with a support tech or agent, such as for my internet provider, my router manufacturer, or a hotel agent.

But I can see its advantage as a way for a patron to communicate with a librarian, such as LRCLive. Students who need help usually need it right then and do not like to wait until the next day for an answer, esp. if they are working on a research paper.

Thing 5: Wikis

One of the reasons I signed up for this project is to better understand terms such as wiki. If you had asked me what a wiki was before today, I would have told you it was an informational website that could be edited. And I wasn't too far off, but I did not think of all the possibilities that a wiki could be used for before I looked at the video Wikis in Plain English.

The library wikis were very interesting. I especially liked the one for Antioch University because it gave its staff a one stop location for all the information its staff needs to know. Our own library could benefit from this. Right now, directions for handling fines, opening and closing the library, etc. are scattered among various notebooks or you have to find the right person to ask. Since I work the desk by myself one night a week, I would definitely like to be able to access the information I need without having to place a phone call to a staff person's home or waiting until the next morning to find out. The one wiki I found a little disturbing was the one for the University of Limerick because it contained advertising, which turns me off somewhat. However, all the wikis listed did seem to contain useful information and I like the idea that they could be updated whenver necessary without having to go through a webmaster.

Thing 4: Social Networking

I have an account at Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Mostly, I set them up to maintain contact with friends and co-workers but I realized I could not keep up with all four. So I mainly use Facebook for purely social contacts and I keep LinkedIn to add contacts with people I either have worked for or with in the past. I thoroughly enjoy my Facebook account because I have definitely found another side of my colleagues that I would not ordinarily know - their family, interests, etc. I also use it to keep up with some of my friends in genealogy and we all use Facebook rather than the online forums because we can post pictures. But I also enjoy re-establishing contacts with my old high school friends, many of whom I have not seen for ages. And I have made contact with a number of former high school students whom I taught when I was employed as an English teacher in Shenandoah County.

If I were to pick one of the social networks to use to set up a library presence, I think I would use Facebook. Most of our students seem to use Facebook more often to communicate. Lord Fairfax already has several departments with a Facebook page and I am envious. I would like to be able to announce new books, display photos of various areas and students, and promote events there. Maybe one of these days!

Thing 3: RSS Feeds

I have already started subscribing to RSS feeds using Outlook at work but I did also start an account at Google Reader just to see what it is like. I think I prefer Outlook's setup because it looks far less cluttered and is easy to access, but that may just be me.

On Outlook, I have subscribed to RSS feeds for Lord Fairfax Community College's New Jobs postings and for VIVA General Announcements. The new jobs postings are always interesting, esp. since I do not always realize someone is leaving his/her post or a new position has been created. Since I work with interlibrary loans, I subscribed to the VIVA RSS feed for that agency.

But for Reader I added

1) the general LFCC news feed, just to keep up with what is being posted to the public abt. LFCC

2) This Day in Virginia History because second to English, History (esp. Virginia History) is my second love.

3) Virginiana for the same reason above

4) the VCCS Online Library on Twitter (for obvious reasons, plus it does have very good information that I am interested in as a reader and lover of libraries)

5) the Library of Congress RSS feed (again for obvious reasons).

It was not exactly hard to find feeds for things in which I am interested - in fact, there are almost too many and it was hard to choose! I have seen more and more sites making RSS updates available and it is tempting to subscribe to them all. But then I will run into the same problem I run into with my listservs - I have no time to look at all of them, so I have to pick and choose.

I may go back at some point, look at what I have chosen, and either delete some and add others or just start over again. But for the purposes of this project, I have learned how to set up Google Reader and have seen its plus and minuses. So this has been a good lesson all around!

Thing 2: Getting Started / Web 2.0 Concepts

The whole idea of blogging is both exciting and daunting to me. I enjoy writing and working with words to express myself. And I am enjoying the opportunity to learn something new and write at the same time. The fact that it becomes public for anyone to read and comment on once I put it on my blog is the daunting part. It almost seems egotistical to think someone might be interested in what I have to say. And it is unnerving that people I may not have even met could be reading and commenting on my posts. I find myself second-guessing every word I enter here and that itself is humorous. But from watching The Machine is Us/ing Us, I can see blogging and its place in the world of Web 2.0 is a logical progression of the ever-evolving internet.



The concept of Web 2.0 is still somewhat confusing to me although I think I have some idea of what it entails. The reason I chose Down the Rabbit Hole as the title of this blog is that Web 2.0 reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. Things are constantly changing and being redefined. And even though this may be a terrible analogy, the further down the rabbit hole into the world of 2.0 I go, the more bewildered I become. But what I do know is that more and more students in the community colleges use many aspects of Web 2.0 already and their professors are also beginning to use it for class assignments. I myself have begun using some features, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds to maintain social and professional contacts and to keep up with new developments at my community college. And I do know what the Wiki is and confess to using it occasionally myself. I am just not thrilled when I see students in our library rely on it as factual information in many cases. So I have traveled down the Rabbit Hole just enough to recognize some of its inhabitants and am looking forward to being more comfortable discussing and using it. Hopefully, our own library at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown will be able to take advantage of blogs, Facebook, etc. to reach out to students and keep them informed about what resourches the library has and what we can do to help them while they are here.