OK! Wow, it was a while since our last meeting! But this one was good...
Joe started off the meeting by telling us about his very creative and interesting “library game” for mobile devices. http://bit.ly/LibTelo1 Based on discussions in the Mobile Discussion Group, Joe designed and created an experimental game that replicates a library search process in order to train users how to do library research. Joe chose the topic of “writing a paper about the history of the discovery of DNA” as the frame for the game narrative. He used iMovie (clips posted in YouTube) and QR codes on cards placed in physical books to engage and immerse the player in the experience. Cool! Ideally the player would have an iPhone or Android to read the QR codes.
Tom continued the discussion by introducing the group to some iPhone and Android emulators for testing mobilized web content: For iPhone http://www.testiphone.com/ and http://iphonetester.com/ both are web-based and seem to work relatively well. During the discussion we were able to compare the display in the emulator to an iPhone and it turns out that the background colors and font colors in the emulators can be somewhat incorrect, but the layout looks correct. We also talked about the Android emulator http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html without using it. That tool requires a download and installation (and is really designed for developers...)
Nancy pointed out the very useful iPhone app that you can use (with a Chase Bank account) to take a picture of a check that you want to deposit in your own account and the check amount will be automatically deposited. No bank visits, and you can discard the paper check yourself. Nancy saw this on the ever useful NYT column/blog by David Pogue: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue.html
Nancy then brought up the merits of password management tools like http://lastpass.com/ and 1password http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password These tools help you to safely manage your many, many passwords without resorting to a single easily crack-able password.
Nancy also introduced us to the very cool “light wedge” http://www.lightwedge.com/LightWedge-2-0-Rechargeable-Book-Light personal reading light that will not distract or bother others in a darkened space. I can definitely see airline and conference session uses for this!
Karen inquired with the group about portable external hard drives for Macs. Karen said that she had been looking into WesternDigital products http://www.wdc.com/en/products/external/portableformac/ and that the New Egg site http://www.newegg.com/ had been helpful for reviewing a variety of products. The group continued to discuss the relative merits of USB versus FireWire, and then...
Dorothea let us know about the very recent switch that Apple has made to the “ThunderBolt” port and connector: http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/ “Thunderbolt is a revolutionary I/O technology that supports high-resolution displays and high-performance data devices through a single, compact port. It sets new standards for speed, flexibility, and simplicity. And it makes its debut in the new MacBook Pro.” So, say good bye to FireWire!
Jim introduced us to the Roku Box player http://www.roku.com/roku-products?gclid=CKeHhMPIxacCFcfsKgod7hcXDw that can be used with NetFlix, Amazon, and Hulu content as well as a variety of other streaming providers. It can work off of your home wireless network and it appears that the pricing is pretty affordable!
Anne mentioned that she was planning to get some noise canceling headphones soon http://reviews.cnet.com/best-noise-cancelling-headphones/ and that they would be great for working in her office!
Tom finished up the hour by mentioning the handy wireless headphones http://reviews.cnet.com/wireless-headphones/ he had received recently and a USB powered laptop cooling pad http://www.belkin.com/uk/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=471006 . No more cords to yank and no more baked legs.
A good first 2011 discussion. See you all in March!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Thursday, November 4, 2010
New IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – October 28, 2010
Ian started the discussion off by demonstrating the new (still in development) UW-Madison Campus iPhone app. It looks very handy! The functions include a campus news tracker, an interactive map, a directory, and a link to campus related video, as well as other functions. Ian is also very interested in bringing together library system and other campus partners to form a group to work on mobile technology issues related to the libraries.
Karen alerted us to the very useful Charity Navigator website: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ From this site you can get information about many of the charitable organizations that you see advertized, and then make a more informed decision regarding your potential donations. Nancy followed up with a suggestion to not forget about the Foundation Directory Online. From the (i) file: “A web-based database from the Foundation Center, a foundation-supported clearinghouse of information on private funding sources, Foundation Directory Online Professional is available in Memorial Library only.”
Dorothea directed us to the very intriguing “Hacking the Academy” book. It was compiled (under the expert direction of Dan Cullen, from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University) by crowd-sourcing the content in one week. http://hackingtheacademy.org/ There is a section on libraries! http://hackingtheacademy.org/libraries/ “In keeping with the spirit of hacking, the book will itself be an exercise in reimagining the edited volume.” It looks fascinating. Dorothea notes that the purpose was to test the limits of what counts as scholarship and scholarly publishing. The directions that publishing and scholarship are following are many, and varied.
Joe raised the issue of UW-Madison’s creation of official check-in points versus user created check-in points for the same locations in FourSquare: http://foursquare.com/ For example, the Memorial Union has an officially created UW-Madison “presence” http://foursquare.com/venue/103173 . The group discussed the various merits of social media where you check-in. Ian noted that though this and similar applications have a core of followers, it is not yet used widely.
William pointed out the extremely useful W3C “mobileOK checker” http://validator.w3.org/mobile/ It works similarly to the other validators to return potential problems with mobile sites when a link to a mobile optimized site is submitted. That tool may turn out to be critical in the future as we develop more mobile-optimized pages.
We all watched the YouTube video “The Twitter Experiment - UT Dallas” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8 It was interesting. The students seemed to take it seriously, and the professor found it useful. Dorthea noted that it looked like they were using TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/ to aggregate the various tweet feeds from the students. Ian noted that he has seen times when the Twitter backchannel overcame the “official” messaging platform during a Webinar.
Tom finished up the hour by playing a couple of additional YouTube videos related to Augmented Reality. One of the really interesting things that is developing out of augmented reality for mobile devices is the ability of the mobile application to interact, interpret, and augment physical objects dynamically in ways that enhance their already existing informational nature. A couple of examples are: “Augmented Reality GIS Maps” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwzFby2eNo and “Augmented Reality Furniture Instructions” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVb5jPr-VuI
Karen alerted us to the very useful Charity Navigator website: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ From this site you can get information about many of the charitable organizations that you see advertized, and then make a more informed decision regarding your potential donations. Nancy followed up with a suggestion to not forget about the Foundation Directory Online. From the (i) file: “A web-based database from the Foundation Center, a foundation-supported clearinghouse of information on private funding sources, Foundation Directory Online Professional is available in Memorial Library only.”
Dorothea directed us to the very intriguing “Hacking the Academy” book. It was compiled (under the expert direction of Dan Cullen, from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University) by crowd-sourcing the content in one week. http://hackingtheacademy.org/ There is a section on libraries! http://hackingtheacademy.org/libraries/ “In keeping with the spirit of hacking, the book will itself be an exercise in reimagining the edited volume.” It looks fascinating. Dorothea notes that the purpose was to test the limits of what counts as scholarship and scholarly publishing. The directions that publishing and scholarship are following are many, and varied.
Joe raised the issue of UW-Madison’s creation of official check-in points versus user created check-in points for the same locations in FourSquare: http://foursquare.com/ For example, the Memorial Union has an officially created UW-Madison “presence” http://foursquare.com/venue/103173 . The group discussed the various merits of social media where you check-in. Ian noted that though this and similar applications have a core of followers, it is not yet used widely.
William pointed out the extremely useful W3C “mobileOK checker” http://validator.w3.org/mobile/ It works similarly to the other validators to return potential problems with mobile sites when a link to a mobile optimized site is submitted. That tool may turn out to be critical in the future as we develop more mobile-optimized pages.
We all watched the YouTube video “The Twitter Experiment - UT Dallas” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8 It was interesting. The students seemed to take it seriously, and the professor found it useful. Dorthea noted that it looked like they were using TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/ to aggregate the various tweet feeds from the students. Ian noted that he has seen times when the Twitter backchannel overcame the “official” messaging platform during a Webinar.
Tom finished up the hour by playing a couple of additional YouTube videos related to Augmented Reality. One of the really interesting things that is developing out of augmented reality for mobile devices is the ability of the mobile application to interact, interpret, and augment physical objects dynamically in ways that enhance their already existing informational nature. A couple of examples are: “Augmented Reality GIS Maps” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFwzFby2eNo and “Augmented Reality Furniture Instructions” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVb5jPr-VuI
Monday, October 4, 2010
LILI IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – September 23, 2010
September is always busy for everybody. We had a quick discussion this month, wedged in-between many meetings.
Anne started the discussion, noting the Zotero Everywhere tool upgrade that Zotero had enabled. This will free Zotero from being client-based (now it will be both client and web-based) , and they also set up an API to open it up for “web and mobile access to Zotero libraries.” That sounds like a good change.
Leah noted the recent announcement that the entire volume of Twitter posts would be permanently archived by The Library of Congress. “Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.” Leah also mentioned that “This American Life” has a twitter account.
Dianna alerted us to the interesting “Daily Beast” tech website. On the topic of “Mobile Learning Environments” Dianna noted a highlight on “14 best apps for college students.” This is an interesting place to start if we want to design apps for campus.
The discussion then moved to a general discussion of smartphone apps for campus. Joe suggested, and we all seemed to come to the same conclusion, that apps should be simple, single-topic-oriented, geography-relevant, and assist people to achieve goals in a self-service environment. App bundlers do exist. Ian noted that UW Madison is opening up app development and creation to students, thought some kinds of university data (grades, home addresses, etc) would probably be off limits. All UW-Madison campus aps are currently designed for the iPhone, but in the future other platforms will be allowed.
Anne reminded us about 4Square and mentioned that universities were beginning to take over the task of managing locations “officially.” We suspected this partially has to do with maintaining control over branding and institutional experience, as well as interest in using social networking tools to promote the university in a fun way.
Leah noted the ambivalence that many institutions currently have toward social networking tools. Some intuitions promote their use while others have used them to terminate employees. The group seemed to agree that laws and official practices have yet to catch up with everyday life.
Joe mentioned the new Gmail “undo send” tool that allows you to add a timer to “sent” mail. When you send an email with “undo send” active, it is not quite “sent” until a timer runs out. That time hopefully gives you the chance to change your mind, if you need to. I wish I had that tool for WiscMail...
Jim finished up the hour by introducing us all to the very cool SoundCloud site/tool. The site allows people to post musical clips, mostly self-produced (from what I can tell), in order to build communities of appreciation and critique. People can comment on abd associate images with various moments in the audio file. It is a facinating way to build a social network of creative people and those who appreciate their music.
Anne started the discussion, noting the Zotero Everywhere tool upgrade that Zotero had enabled. This will free Zotero from being client-based (now it will be both client and web-based) , and they also set up an API to open it up for “web and mobile access to Zotero libraries.” That sounds like a good change.
Leah noted the recent announcement that the entire volume of Twitter posts would be permanently archived by The Library of Congress. “Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.” Leah also mentioned that “This American Life” has a twitter account.
Dianna alerted us to the interesting “Daily Beast” tech website. On the topic of “Mobile Learning Environments” Dianna noted a highlight on “14 best apps for college students.” This is an interesting place to start if we want to design apps for campus.
The discussion then moved to a general discussion of smartphone apps for campus. Joe suggested, and we all seemed to come to the same conclusion, that apps should be simple, single-topic-oriented, geography-relevant, and assist people to achieve goals in a self-service environment. App bundlers do exist. Ian noted that UW Madison is opening up app development and creation to students, thought some kinds of university data (grades, home addresses, etc) would probably be off limits. All UW-Madison campus aps are currently designed for the iPhone, but in the future other platforms will be allowed.
Anne reminded us about 4Square and mentioned that universities were beginning to take over the task of managing locations “officially.” We suspected this partially has to do with maintaining control over branding and institutional experience, as well as interest in using social networking tools to promote the university in a fun way.
Leah noted the ambivalence that many institutions currently have toward social networking tools. Some intuitions promote their use while others have used them to terminate employees. The group seemed to agree that laws and official practices have yet to catch up with everyday life.
Joe mentioned the new Gmail “undo send” tool that allows you to add a timer to “sent” mail. When you send an email with “undo send” active, it is not quite “sent” until a timer runs out. That time hopefully gives you the chance to change your mind, if you need to. I wish I had that tool for WiscMail...
Jim finished up the hour by introducing us all to the very cool SoundCloud site/tool. The site allows people to post musical clips, mostly self-produced (from what I can tell), in order to build communities of appreciation and critique. People can comment on abd associate images with various moments in the audio file. It is a facinating way to build a social network of creative people and those who appreciate their music.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
LILI IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – August 26, 2010
This is the busiest time of the year, but the LILI IT interest Group met once again! We had a new member attend: Joe from MERIT! (Ding!) It was a great meeting as always. And, Nancy brought fresh Kettle Corn. Perfection!
Ian started us off by describing the College Library House Party to be held on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010, from 7-11 p.m. There will be food, fun, games... Ian notes that if anyone wants to help out, please contact Kelli. The set-up will start at 3pm.
Jim demonstrated ways that you can use COLOR in Gmail to organize your mail. If you filter your mail with labels, then apply colors to the filters, the colors will appear for each message. A great visual way of organizing your email. Jim also mentioned that Google Labs has many tools that you can add to your Gmail account. There is a calendar tool, and a tool called Rapportive that “shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.” It consolidates data from FaceBook, Twitter, etc into your Gmail account.
Jim also demonstrated the new “Call Phone” tool that has been added to Gmail. “Call anywhere in the US and Canada for free and get low rates for other countries with this small plugin — right from within Gmail.” It is very similar to Skype. You can dial an individual computer or a phone. That is very cool. Jim notes that this could be used for reference services.
Katy showed us all the very useful Meebo site/tool which gives you the ability to conglomerate multiple chat services into one interface. Fantastic! You can use Meebo on your iPhone, and it links out to Facebook and other social software also. This tool is entirely web based, so no downloads are required. One important function that it includes is the ability to separate work chat from home chat.
Ian told us about the very cool ebook reader pilot that College Library is coordinating. College will have both Kindles and iPads for checkout. The ebooks that are “circulated” will be chosen by the patrons themselves. Each user will sign up on a calendar to reserve the reader, and then will be granted $20 for choosing new ebooks to add to the pool. The patron will also be able to choose existing books to add to the reader during the reservation process. The Amazon accounts are separate from the reader devices, so the readers will be wiped and reloaded after each checkout. College will be using LibraryThing as the way to keep the collected ebooks organized.
Nancy mentioned the very thought provoking articles in the “Your Brain on Computers” series from the NYT. We all remembered the related article by Nicholas G. Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and the related Book by the same author “The Shallows” The changes that reading and literacy in our society are undergoing are substantial and fundamental.
Ian provided us with a good overview of the Layar Augmented Reality building tool. It allows users to create or use AR many filters with their mobile device. Ian suggests that an AR filter for campus libraries might be possible, though he hasn’t tested out the builder part of the application quite yet.
Ian started us off by describing the College Library House Party to be held on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010, from 7-11 p.m. There will be food, fun, games... Ian notes that if anyone wants to help out, please contact Kelli. The set-up will start at 3pm.
Jim demonstrated ways that you can use COLOR in Gmail to organize your mail. If you filter your mail with labels, then apply colors to the filters, the colors will appear for each message. A great visual way of organizing your email. Jim also mentioned that Google Labs has many tools that you can add to your Gmail account. There is a calendar tool, and a tool called Rapportive that “shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox.” It consolidates data from FaceBook, Twitter, etc into your Gmail account.
Jim also demonstrated the new “Call Phone” tool that has been added to Gmail. “Call anywhere in the US and Canada for free and get low rates for other countries with this small plugin — right from within Gmail.” It is very similar to Skype. You can dial an individual computer or a phone. That is very cool. Jim notes that this could be used for reference services.
Katy showed us all the very useful Meebo site/tool which gives you the ability to conglomerate multiple chat services into one interface. Fantastic! You can use Meebo on your iPhone, and it links out to Facebook and other social software also. This tool is entirely web based, so no downloads are required. One important function that it includes is the ability to separate work chat from home chat.
Ian told us about the very cool ebook reader pilot that College Library is coordinating. College will have both Kindles and iPads for checkout. The ebooks that are “circulated” will be chosen by the patrons themselves. Each user will sign up on a calendar to reserve the reader, and then will be granted $20 for choosing new ebooks to add to the pool. The patron will also be able to choose existing books to add to the reader during the reservation process. The Amazon accounts are separate from the reader devices, so the readers will be wiped and reloaded after each checkout. College will be using LibraryThing as the way to keep the collected ebooks organized.
Nancy mentioned the very thought provoking articles in the “Your Brain on Computers” series from the NYT. We all remembered the related article by Nicholas G. Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and the related Book by the same author “The Shallows” The changes that reading and literacy in our society are undergoing are substantial and fundamental.
Ian provided us with a good overview of the Layar Augmented Reality building tool. It allows users to create or use AR many filters with their mobile device. Ian suggests that an AR filter for campus libraries might be possible, though he hasn’t tested out the builder part of the application quite yet.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
LILI IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – July 22, 2010
Our July meeting was fascinating. This time, our notes are really more of a recorded dialog. (Though this is not really word for word...) I was enthralled with the new hardware we all looked at!
Katy started us off by showing us all the new iPads that were recently purchased to be checked out by School of Ed. affiliates from MERIT. They have 4 iPads, and they have also purchased portable keyboards and bags to go with them. Katy also brought her personal Kindle to show the size and weight difference. For reading books, she prefers the Kindle.
Katy also mentioned that staff in Special Education are thinking of creating apps for the iPad that will allow people to use them as “speaking boards” (a tool for people who are not able to speak). This would allow them to pre-load phrases and then touch the app's icon for it to speak out loud for them.
Lia noted that Gourmet Magazine, though closed by Conde Nast, has started up again as an app for the iPad. It sounds very handy! (Next from Steve Jobs: the iVeg: It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries! Wait, is an iPad waterproof?)
Jim remembered that Dell also makes an all-in-one computer. Called the “Studio One” line: they have a 19” screen, and you can hook up a cordless mouse and keyboard. The prices are in the $400-$700 range.
Lia mentioned that Wendt has an iPad... for staff only! She has used it and liked it.
Anne mentioned that Yelp works very well from the iPad (and iPhone or Droid). A good reviews site!
Ian followed up with a mention of the LAYAR augmented reality browser tool that can be used to work with reviews data and overlay it to produce AR. He is working on a few projects now...
Jim mentioned Zillow the tool that gives home values and listings for houses for sale. There is an app that uses the AR, and it sounds amazing! Like other AR, it works with the camera. Displaying a house also displays the value.
Ian discovered that the iPad keyboard (brought by Katy from MERIT) is compatible with the iPhone. It hooked up nicely!
Jim suspected that the keyboard will be less popular for checkout than the iPads themselves.
Ian wondered how powerful the next generation iPad will be.
Lia also felt that since the iPad is still “first generation” that later models will be more powerful.
Anne wondered how powerful though... She thought that the next improvements would focus on portability and affordability: lighter and cheaper. This is because it is more of a browsing tool as opposed to a production tool.
Ian mentioned that if gamers focus on the iPad they would probably get faster processors/video cards.
Katy said that she uses a Mac Mini for her media. That works well.
Anne also agreed. She may replace her home laptop with an iPad. Then Anne mentioned that she had attended an engineering event where iPads WERE USED TO DRIVE ROBOTS! The iPad was held/used like a steering wheel... (but can I use an iPad to drive my car from the back seat?)
Katy told us: YES YOU CAN!!! Her father had been working on a project for John Deere where they were trying to design a way to use GPS to guide unmanned ROBOTIC TRACTORS. There may be a robotic lawnmower out there that you can control with your iPad too.
Anne mentioned that some of the engineers from John Deere that worked on that project had visited UW-Madison for additional training, and had used the library. Small world!
Ian reminded us of the laser powered mosquito killing tool...
Ian then introduced the LOL (learning objects life) that iDwog (ha ha ok IDWoG) was building. It will manage the campus libraries self-created learning objects. Cool! The Shared Development group is working on it now. You can submit objects and describe them with faceted tags. The submitter has some ability to manage rights/editing of the objects too. The end result should be far superior to MyWebSpace (hurray!)
Jim introduced Soluto: a tool that monitors what you run at start-up to help you pare down the number of extra applications running. This will speed up your start-up time! You can choose to “pause” applications to never run, or “delay” applications to start later. Jim then mentioned the Your Open Book site... which details everything on Facebook that everybody does not want everyone to know...
And Katy had the last word, reminding us of Lamebook (hah).
See you all next month!
Katy started us off by showing us all the new iPads that were recently purchased to be checked out by School of Ed. affiliates from MERIT. They have 4 iPads, and they have also purchased portable keyboards and bags to go with them. Katy also brought her personal Kindle to show the size and weight difference. For reading books, she prefers the Kindle.
Katy also mentioned that staff in Special Education are thinking of creating apps for the iPad that will allow people to use them as “speaking boards” (a tool for people who are not able to speak). This would allow them to pre-load phrases and then touch the app's icon for it to speak out loud for them.
Lia noted that Gourmet Magazine, though closed by Conde Nast, has started up again as an app for the iPad. It sounds very handy! (Next from Steve Jobs: the iVeg: It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries! Wait, is an iPad waterproof?)
Jim remembered that Dell also makes an all-in-one computer. Called the “Studio One” line: they have a 19” screen, and you can hook up a cordless mouse and keyboard. The prices are in the $400-$700 range.
Lia mentioned that Wendt has an iPad... for staff only! She has used it and liked it.
Anne mentioned that Yelp works very well from the iPad (and iPhone or Droid). A good reviews site!
Ian followed up with a mention of the LAYAR augmented reality browser tool that can be used to work with reviews data and overlay it to produce AR. He is working on a few projects now...
Jim mentioned Zillow the tool that gives home values and listings for houses for sale. There is an app that uses the AR, and it sounds amazing! Like other AR, it works with the camera. Displaying a house also displays the value.
Ian discovered that the iPad keyboard (brought by Katy from MERIT) is compatible with the iPhone. It hooked up nicely!
Jim suspected that the keyboard will be less popular for checkout than the iPads themselves.
Ian wondered how powerful the next generation iPad will be.
Lia also felt that since the iPad is still “first generation” that later models will be more powerful.
Anne wondered how powerful though... She thought that the next improvements would focus on portability and affordability: lighter and cheaper. This is because it is more of a browsing tool as opposed to a production tool.
Ian mentioned that if gamers focus on the iPad they would probably get faster processors/video cards.
Katy said that she uses a Mac Mini for her media. That works well.
Anne also agreed. She may replace her home laptop with an iPad. Then Anne mentioned that she had attended an engineering event where iPads WERE USED TO DRIVE ROBOTS! The iPad was held/used like a steering wheel... (but can I use an iPad to drive my car from the back seat?)
Katy told us: YES YOU CAN!!! Her father had been working on a project for John Deere where they were trying to design a way to use GPS to guide unmanned ROBOTIC TRACTORS. There may be a robotic lawnmower out there that you can control with your iPad too.
Anne mentioned that some of the engineers from John Deere that worked on that project had visited UW-Madison for additional training, and had used the library. Small world!
Ian reminded us of the laser powered mosquito killing tool...
Ian then introduced the LOL (learning objects life) that iDwog (ha ha ok IDWoG) was building. It will manage the campus libraries self-created learning objects. Cool! The Shared Development group is working on it now. You can submit objects and describe them with faceted tags. The submitter has some ability to manage rights/editing of the objects too. The end result should be far superior to MyWebSpace (hurray!)
Jim introduced Soluto: a tool that monitors what you run at start-up to help you pare down the number of extra applications running. This will speed up your start-up time! You can choose to “pause” applications to never run, or “delay” applications to start later. Jim then mentioned the Your Open Book site... which details everything on Facebook that everybody does not want everyone to know...
And Katy had the last word, reminding us of Lamebook (hah).
See you all next month!
Monday, June 7, 2010
LILI IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – May 27, 2010
Late May is one of my favorite times of the year. The semester is over and the summer has not become too busy, yet... We were lucky to have a LILI IT meeting!
Karen started the discussion by introducing us to Etsy http://www.etsy.com/, a site that sells artists goods with an easy to use interface. Can the interface be used as a model for library tools? Can you use it to buy great gifts?
Tom reminded us of the interesting Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends tool. You can use this to search on the relative interest of different search terms that users have entered into Google. Terms should be separated with commas. Searches can be narrowed to region and time period. I REALLY wish that our library databases all had such a tool.
Nancy mentioned that sometimes when users have trouble with using the Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/schhp connection to RefWorks (or other tools like Zotero) it is not necessarily RefWorks fault when the data does not upload correctly. Sometimes the meta-data on the originating site is not structured correctly, and RefWorks can't do anything about that...!
Barbara began a discussion on the relative merits of the feed readers that are available. Everyone still seems to like Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/, and Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader/ has supporters. The Thunderbird Reader add-on is useful too.
Jim brought our attention to Twitter http://twitter.com/ feed readers, such as Seesmic http://seesmic.com/, and TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/. Jim finds Seesmic in particular to be a useful way to aggregate many twitter feeds in one place. Cool! Nancy reminded us that Hootsuite http://hootsuite.com/ is a very good way to manage Twitter feed publishing. The libraries are already using this great tool!
Karen noted that she has been doing some research on product labeling, and suggested these very useful sites: Greener Choices EcoLabeling http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/, MotherJones EcoLabel Guide, and Green Washing.
[After the meeting, Karen sent me these additional links. Check them out. They are very interesting! Post: Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen, GoodGuide: http://www.goodguide.com/, Skin Deep - Cosmetics Safety Database: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/, Chemical Cuisine: http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm Food Labeling: http://www.cspinet.org/foodlabeling/ ]
Diana finished off the hour by introducing us to the very cool Powered Green http://www.poweredgreen.com/ site, started by two UW-Madison Students. By making a donation, you can "offset" your laptop energy use by supporting wind-farms and other green energy technologies.
See you all in July!
Karen started the discussion by introducing us to Etsy http://www.etsy.com/, a site that sells artists goods with an easy to use interface. Can the interface be used as a model for library tools? Can you use it to buy great gifts?
Tom reminded us of the interesting Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends tool. You can use this to search on the relative interest of different search terms that users have entered into Google. Terms should be separated with commas. Searches can be narrowed to region and time period. I REALLY wish that our library databases all had such a tool.
Nancy mentioned that sometimes when users have trouble with using the Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/schhp connection to RefWorks (or other tools like Zotero) it is not necessarily RefWorks fault when the data does not upload correctly. Sometimes the meta-data on the originating site is not structured correctly, and RefWorks can't do anything about that...!
Barbara began a discussion on the relative merits of the feed readers that are available. Everyone still seems to like Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/, and Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader/ has supporters. The Thunderbird Reader add-on is useful too.
Jim brought our attention to Twitter http://twitter.com/ feed readers, such as Seesmic http://seesmic.com/, and TweetDeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/. Jim finds Seesmic in particular to be a useful way to aggregate many twitter feeds in one place. Cool! Nancy reminded us that Hootsuite http://hootsuite.com/ is a very good way to manage Twitter feed publishing. The libraries are already using this great tool!
Karen noted that she has been doing some research on product labeling, and suggested these very useful sites: Greener Choices EcoLabeling http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/, MotherJones EcoLabel Guide, and Green Washing.
[After the meeting, Karen sent me these additional links. Check them out. They are very interesting! Post: Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen, GoodGuide: http://www.goodguide.com/, Skin Deep - Cosmetics Safety Database: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/, Chemical Cuisine: http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm Food Labeling: http://www.cspinet.org/foodlabeling/ ]
Diana finished off the hour by introducing us to the very cool Powered Green http://www.poweredgreen.com/ site, started by two UW-Madison Students. By making a donation, you can "offset" your laptop energy use by supporting wind-farms and other green energy technologies.
See you all in July!
Friday, April 30, 2010
LILI IT Interest Group Meeting Notes – April 22, 2010
In the far distance (Milwaukee) WAAL is getting revved-up... meanwhile, back in Madison the LILI IT Interest Group carries on... Today we looked at a number of interesting sites and news-worthy developments:
Nancy started us off by demonstrating a very useful tool called Readibility: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ This site provides a bookmarklet that can be used to strip out extraneous advertizing and banner content from pages that you visit. It works very well! (I am planning to use it right away.) Nancy also mentioned the New York Times technology columnist David Pogue: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/ His column is very informative, AND it benefits from being Readibilitized.
Nancy next moved us on to a demonstration of the http://www.mailboxmap.com/ tool. It is a map of mailboxes! (And post offices). It is fantastic! How many times I have wished something like this could be easily available. With a newer cell phone the world is at your fingertips...
Tom (now writing in the 3rd person) mentioned the new Facebook Like button that is capturing the news lately and causing a stir. Some see this as a bid to knock Google off of its "organizing the web" pedestal, some privacy advocates seem to be concerned, and some Facebook users are confused about what it all means... It strikes me (for now) as a tempest in a techpot. Sorry for the pun. But worth seeing where/if it develops further.
Nancy mentioned the Facebook "Share Bookmarklet." Cool! This tool lets you share pages and bookmarks that you like to your profile. You have to be logged-in to Facebook for it to work, but you no longer have to go back-and-forth between pages and your profile to add the suggested links. Yay!
Katie mentioned the http://www.stumbleupon.com/ tool. It has been a while since I looked at this. Why! As you all know, this useful services utilizes your ratings to build a preference profile for you. It works very similarly to a number of music rating services I have seen/used. The more you rate, the better website suggestions the service makes.
Sarah finished off our meeting by telling us all about the very, very cool project that College, Sarah/LILI, LTG, Lee, and Lisa have been working on with Professor Jon McKenzie. The Digital Salon includes: "Podcasts, experimental videos, graphic novels and essays, websites, blogs, multimedia installations, and posters..." They will be presented online and at College. It is this kind of project that draws people to creative and thoughtful activity on the web.
"The heart of the Digital Salon is a one-week exhibition of new media work by UW graduate and undergraduate students, to be held in College Library's Open Book Café from April 25-30." In addition "A one-day symposium will bring together UW-Madison faculty and staff to present and discuss their digital arts and humanities research, teaching activities, and support services, as well as the larger implications of new media for cultural research and artistic production. The symposium will be held in Memorial Library on Friday, April 30th."
The student work will be presented in a new online space. Very exciting!
See you all next month!
Nancy started us off by demonstrating a very useful tool called Readibility: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ This site provides a bookmarklet that can be used to strip out extraneous advertizing and banner content from pages that you visit. It works very well! (I am planning to use it right away.) Nancy also mentioned the New York Times technology columnist David Pogue: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/ His column is very informative, AND it benefits from being Readibilitized.
Nancy next moved us on to a demonstration of the http://www.mailboxmap.com/ tool. It is a map of mailboxes! (And post offices). It is fantastic! How many times I have wished something like this could be easily available. With a newer cell phone the world is at your fingertips...
Tom (now writing in the 3rd person) mentioned the new Facebook Like button that is capturing the news lately and causing a stir. Some see this as a bid to knock Google off of its "organizing the web" pedestal, some privacy advocates seem to be concerned, and some Facebook users are confused about what it all means... It strikes me (for now) as a tempest in a techpot. Sorry for the pun. But worth seeing where/if it develops further.
Nancy mentioned the Facebook "Share Bookmarklet." Cool! This tool lets you share pages and bookmarks that you like to your profile. You have to be logged-in to Facebook for it to work, but you no longer have to go back-and-forth between pages and your profile to add the suggested links. Yay!
Katie mentioned the http://www.stumbleupon.com/ tool. It has been a while since I looked at this. Why! As you all know, this useful services utilizes your ratings to build a preference profile for you. It works very similarly to a number of music rating services I have seen/used. The more you rate, the better website suggestions the service makes.
Sarah finished off our meeting by telling us all about the very, very cool project that College, Sarah/LILI, LTG, Lee, and Lisa have been working on with Professor Jon McKenzie. The Digital Salon includes: "Podcasts, experimental videos, graphic novels and essays, websites, blogs, multimedia installations, and posters..." They will be presented online and at College. It is this kind of project that draws people to creative and thoughtful activity on the web.
"The heart of the Digital Salon is a one-week exhibition of new media work by UW graduate and undergraduate students, to be held in College Library's Open Book Café from April 25-30." In addition "A one-day symposium will bring together UW-Madison faculty and staff to present and discuss their digital arts and humanities research, teaching activities, and support services, as well as the larger implications of new media for cultural research and artistic production. The symposium will be held in Memorial Library on Friday, April 30th."
The student work will be presented in a new online space. Very exciting!
See you all next month!
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