Tag Archives: web 2.0

YouTube: More than just cats.

Posted on February 21, 2010 | 5 Comments

Sometimes people put videos on YouTube that are so divine, and so delightfully brilliant, that they merit some honourable mention. No, I’m not talking about that video of the kid who just got back from the dentist. Or the ninja cat.

I’m talking about videos created by academic educators — librarians among them — that explain really complex scholarly concepts in clear and succinct 5 minute (or so) videos. They’re from a variety of places, and have a variety of approaches, but the common thread is that they are amazing teaching tools. Watching them has actually made me a better instructional librarian, and I even played one in a class I taught because I though the creators did such a fantastic job of relaying key information literacy concepts.

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Posted in Library Issues, Technologies

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Visual CV

Posted on February 15, 2010 | 4 Comments

As a new librarian, and one who finds herself on the job market in a few months, I’ve spent lots of time thinking about how to market myself to potential employers. As I mentioned, I spoke with students last week at U of T’s iSchool about breaking into the profession and one piece of advice I gave was, get yourself a web presence. Get a blog, get on LinkedIn, get on Twitter — create a professional persona for yourself online. So, I was pleasantly surprised to come across this little tool, Visual CV. It’s fun! It’s easy to make! And it can act as an extension of the resume you’ve just submitted in a job application. Sometimes it’s heart breaking to have to cut some things off your resume, or there’s the obvious constraint of paper over a dynamic web page. So, if you’re like me, and you put your blog link on your resume, than you can add a link from said blog to your Visual CV, and give potential employers the full picture. I’ve added mine at the sidebar (————————>) front and centre, or you can check it out here.

Sometimes networking events are hard (nothing like trudging through snow in a business suit!), but this is an easy way to get all your professional experiences out there, ready to be viewed by potential employers. So, fair students: You are on reading week right now! Take a few hours to get yourself webberized, and make yourself that much more appealing to employers who are looking for curious, tech-able new librarians to fill their ranks.

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Ninging

Posted on December 8, 2009 | Leave a comment

Brief note:

As a part of my Re:Generations work, I’m trying to get content created for the Canadian Academic Libraries Network, which is sponsored by CACUL (Canadian Association of College and University Libraries). It’s supported by this program called Ning, which is actually sort of a cool way to display your webpages, integrate things like blogs, events, announcements, etc. into a nicely formatted interface, and create a virtual space for communities. Communities such as Canadian academic librarians.

Anyway, we’ve been working away at this little corner of the interwebs, seeing if it fits the needs of CACUL, and when I went to visit the homepage today, there was a whole bunch of new activity! People have begun joining and creating their own little groups. Yay! It’s warms the cockles of my heart when things like this get buy-in. If you’re interested in this type of stuff, check it out!

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Posted in Professional Associations, Technologies

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Meta-post: Post about a post

Posted on October 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

I mentioned awhile ago that I was a new member of the Re:Generations Committee within the Canadian Association of College and University Librarians. I just posted my virgin post to their Re:Generations blog, so check it out! (Is it kosher to post a post on your site that just directs to a post you posted at another site? We’re gonna say… Yes.)

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Posted in Professional Associations

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Video Killed the Radio Star.

Posted on July 27, 2009 | 1 Comment

Adobe CaptivateI get to make some Adobe Captivate videos at work and it is fun! I feel like Steven Spielberg. I sit in my office with my headphones on, murmuring, “Highlight Box goes her to underscore the name of the webpage.” And people look through the doorway and think I’m doing complex technical things. I’ve switched my office chair to a director’s chair and have taken to wearing a beret. The students mock me, but I think they’re just jealous of my genius?!

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Posted in At Work, Technologies

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Two neat ways to organize your web stuff: Zotero and Digsby

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 1 Comment

Over the Christmas break, I’ve gotten cozy with a couple neat applications that I thought I’d share. There’s nothing like getting all your web-based stuff organized over the holidays to brace for the busy-ness that lies ahead in the New Year. It’s like cleaning out your closet and making sense of the stuff that piles up doing the year. Organizational bliss!

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Posted in Technologies

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Google Generation

Posted on July 13, 2008 | Leave a comment

For the record, I think it’s awesome that Stephen Abram, the President of the SLA is as plugged into my life as he is. I subscribe to his blog, we follow each other on Twitter. Sometimes when he’s in town, he calls me up for drink- wait no. No, that never happened. But still. I feel like I know the guy. Social software really is social!

At any rate, he recently shared a story on his blog, Stephen’s Lighthouse, that I found interesting. You can see the full post here, and the Times Online article it discusses here.

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Weebly

Posted on June 30, 2008 | 1 Comment

I found a website that makes me websites. It’s called Weebly (www.weebly.com), and it is the easiest way I have found to make nice, pretty websites that do stuff. Weebly is a great service for those among us who want to make dynamic websites but don’t have a clue about coding. The website is created by dragging and clicking the various elements on to multiple pages. It supposed basic stuff like images, text, links, and flickr photo albums, YouTube videos and Google maps. It’s super cool! I made a fake website for the Master of Information Studies Student Council: http://missc.weebly.com/

You can also pick from a couple dozen different designs and layouts, and can add as many pages as you want. Time magazine names it one of the 50 best websites of 2007 because of its ease of use and polished look: See it here. And if Time magazine says it’s good, who am I to argue? ING is on the list too, and I love that website like a child. A child holding my entire savings.

Anyway, check out weebly if you want a user-friendly website that makes cute websites!

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IS/IT Project Description & Review

Posted on November 8, 2007 | Leave a comment

This is a project I completed for my Information Technology class, in which we were required to review a particular digital repository. I reviewed a product called Fedora, which you can check out at: http://www.fedora-commons.org/
My favorite fedora-based project is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which is beautiful, accessible and an excellent example of a digital archive: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/ (Note that the scenario is fictitious, though an awesome idea!… In my opinion.)

 

The UTE Project: The University of Toronto Libraries have launched an ambitious project: In collaboration with the University of Toronto Archives and the federated colleges, plans are underway for the launch of the University of Toronto Encyclopedia (UTE) – a comprehensive, multimedia compendium of photographic, sound, audiovisual and text entries related to the history and academic achievements of the University of Toronto. The UTE will exist entirely online in electronic form and once the Collections Team has created archival fonds, written entries, and amassed audiovisual materials, the Systems Team will begin the process of uploading the collection to the the information management system.

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Wikis – Some thoughts on usability

Posted on October 18, 2007 | 2 Comments

This is an article review I wrote for our Information Technology class. This article is drawn from Ariadne, which is a great online magazine: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/. It’s a UK magazine which is nice – I find everything I read from the library world is North American, so it’s good to get off the continent once in awhile. The language is a bit technical, but not too much; certain articles will push you out of your comfort zone, but since the content is entirely focused on technology in libraries and information centres, it’s never too far from home.

I can’t remember what the original assignment told us to do, but I basically turned it into a literature review of how people interact with wikis (a sparse topic, to be sure). This is a topic that is near and dear to me – people always get excited about implementing new technologies, but of course you have to win over people’s hearts and minds if you ever want that technology to be used. I’m facing this challenge in my work at the Library of Parliament this summer. I am creating a large e-resource that will be used by all the parliamentary librarians, and hopefully by the public as well. I’m acutely aware however, that I must conscientiously ensure that the technology is usable, but also that I show people how to use it and why they should use it. I’ll have to draw on information literacy principles to ensure that my work doesn’t go to waste simply because I ignored the most important part of it: The people using it!!

Guy, M. (2006). Wiki or won’t he? A tale of public sector wikis. [Electronic version]. Ariadne, October (49). Retrieved October 17 2007, from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/guy/

In the article, “Wiki or Won’t He? A Tale of Public Sector Wikis”, author Marieke Guy discusses wiki technology and its applicability in the public sector. As a member of the Interoperability Focus team at UKOLN, a centre for digital information management, Guy has written many articles concerning issues of web services in the library environment for online periodicals such as Adriane and d-lib. The aim of this article is to assess wiki use in the public sector, and suggest the means to extend and improve its application.

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