Tuesday, December 4, 2007

IT Meeting Notes - November 27, 2007

Attending: Sarah McDaniel, Jill Rosenshield, Jean Ruenger-Hanson, Sheila Stoeckel, Karen Dunn, Jim Jonas, Emily Wixson, Bob Sessions, Tom Durkin (notes etc.).

For next time: The next meeting is scheduled for December 27th. We will decide later if we want to hold the meeting on that day. Task: Everyone is to think about what sites or other sources they go to to learn about new IT, and then share those sites with the group.

Emily: Google Docs – http://documents.google.com/
Used for collaborating on documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) with a SLIS field BI project student. Found to be OK but not perfect for collaborative editing. Must upload and share each document individually.

Bob: Jing - http://www.jingproject.com/
Bev Phillips has used Jing to create some tutorials, and answering certain reference questions. It is not a completely easy process to use Jing. Generally, you can capture 1 frame or capture a movie. The controls to use the output are simple.
Emily – she is working with a ICIP student using Jing to make tutorials and is learning some techniques from that student.

Karen: Screenhunter - http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter.htm
Another method for capturing images from applications on your computer.

iGoogle - http://www.google.com/ig
PageFlakes - http://www.pageflakes.com/
NetVibes - http://www.netvibes.com/
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/
Wondering if there are others interested in building widgets and tools for these applications that relate to library products and services. There are some tools out there that can help to automate the tool making process. For example, there is a JSTOR search that one can add to Facebook now. Rebecca at Ebling has done something for Library Express also. Sarah – uses Facebook and iGoogle to aggregate feeds like the Chronicle, and Finds it useful. Wonders if Facebook has an opinion about these tools, since there had been some issues between Facebook and libraries earlier this year. Sheila – the issue had been non-person-based profiles, where the profile represented the entire library. Facebook felt that it violated the TOS. Emily – Gerry Mckiernan has done some work on these tools. How do we justify time spent on this? Are there better tools?

Jim: Springwidgets - http://www.springwidgets.com/
These are customizable widgets that you can self-create and then add to your web page. It is very simple, no programming involved. The code for adding them to the web page is simple. Emily – How does this affect the accessibility of the page? These issues are unknown right now. Bob – how does this alter the loading speed of the page if the person has a slow connection? Also not known.

My Cool Button - http://www.mycoolbutton.com/
A tool that you can use to create button graphics for a web page.

Flock – http://www.flock.com/
A web browser application that offers some useful social networking functionality and add-ons.

SPresent - http://www.spresent.com/v2/
A presentation tool that is Flash based and online. A new alternative to PowerPoint.

Sarah: Software Training for Students – http://www.doit.wisc.edu/training/student/
Madaline Covelli runs the STS program and may be a good library instruction/technology contact person. STS covers a wide variety of relevant applications.

Tom: Slideshare - http://www.slideshare.net/
This application can be used for uploading and sharing PowerPoint slide presentations. This can be set up so that only certain people can gain access to the slides. One drawback: it can take a long time to upload presentations.

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