BMLJenny

New classroom machines at work!

bmljenny — Sun, 08 May 2011 20:31:53 +0000

We are happy with the new Lenovo all-in-one workstations we got for our computer classroom equipment replacement. They replaced a small-form-factor model from Dell that used a cradle-type stand, but Dell’s current models don’t fit it. We want to use as little desk/floor space as possible while still having full keyboards and monitors for instruction sessions.

Doodling: as fun as library research?

bmljenny — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:33:46 +0000

Today I ran across a crafting phenomenon called Zentangles. It is a form of meditative doodling, using simple patterns and repetition to create attractive small pieces, usually monochrome. It’s the sort of thing you do idly on the phone, but with a purpose and as a calming/focusing technique. Sounds nice, right? Turns out there is a big contingent of “you’re doing it wrong!!!” people involved in this. There are formal official names for the little patterns, a certification process for instructors, copyright FUD and everything. Here’s a video of a nice lady who is showing people how not to be AFRAID of freaking DOODLING, and there are people all over the comments telling her she’s doing it wrong, I’m certified, you don’t know what you’re doing, etc etc. This is one example – there are tons more. How to take the fun out of something that we’ve all enjoyed since childhood.

And then it occurred to me… that’s what we sometimes do in the library. We tell people they’re doing it wrong in a finger-wagging way. I’m certified, you don’t know what you’re doing. Of course, there IS such a thing as doing it wrong. And there IS value in having boundaries and techniques that describe a particular named practice whether that’s art or searching or Pilates. Otherwise everything is everything and nothing is anything. But wow, do I cringe at the thought our users are hearing me the way I’m hearing the Zentangle police.

Computers in Libraries 2010 roundup

bmljenny — Tue, 25 May 2010 04:59:10 +0000

The following are some links to “cool stuff” from Computers in Libraries 2010 for a brown bag session at work.

Computers in Libraries 2010 site from Information Today Inc
Twitter stream via Twapperkeeper

Deep Zoom
Example site: http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/
Download link

Bing Mapcruncher
Len Davidson’s slides – starts on slide 15
Download link

Darlene Fichter’s slides: New and Cool Tools
http://www.slideshare.net/fichter/2010-new-and-cool-tools

Feed Informer: http://feed.informer.com/
Add multiple RSS feeds to one digest, output as an embeddable widget for your website

Are My Sites Up? http://aremysitesup.com
Notifies you when your website goes down.
Monitors up to 5 sites 25x per day for free. Alerts by SMS.

Reputation Monitoring:
Socialmention.com
IceRocket

Online bookmarks: xmarks.com
Synchronize multiple computers, across browsers
Integrates in google search results, see when others have bookmarked a site

Nicole Engard’s Open Source Tools:
Her site: http://www.web2learning.net/

Open source desktop publishing: www.scribus.net

Open source video capture/streaming: Camstudio.org

MIT Mobile Web open source project
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mitmobileweb/

Random cool thing: oMoby – product recognition for iPhone
http://omoby.com/pages/index.php

Curation is a word.

bmljenny — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:24:23 +0000

The Oxford English Dictionary knows it:

Curatorship, guardianship.
Restrict {dag}Obs. to sense 1 in Dict. and relabel sense 2 ‘Obs. exc. as in sense b.’ Add: [2.] b. The supervision by a curator of a collection of preserved or exhibited items.

Wikipedia knows it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_curation

Here are some books on the topic

And from some people you might trust:

Day in the life… early afternoon

bmljenny — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:34:23 +0000

1-2: doing some web content updating. We’re THIS CLOSE to implementing the real live working workflow for our public site, but until that happens, I’m the only one from the Biomedical library who can edit our site. It’s, uh, irksome. For everyone. Especially people who need things done quickly because frankly I’ve been quite a bottleneck in this process. Sorry, folks.

2-3: ref desk. Actually, service desk. Biomed has a combined ref/circ desk, and today I would estimate 60% of my traffic was circ, mostly course reserve stuff. But there were two real research help questions and one consumer health question. The latter is a person I’ve talked to before, who really really really needs to talk to a doctor but doesn’t seem to want to, for whatever reason. I don’t know if they’re scared, don’t have health coverage, or what. But they keep pushing for actual medical advice, what should I do, what specific treatments, is this for sure not contagious… advice we absolutely cannot give.