What I Learned Today…

Web 2.0 and programming tips from a library technology enthusiast, What I Learned Today… covers blogs, rss, wikis and more as they relate to libraries.

Monthly Archives: January 2006

No more cursive writing?

January 6th, 2006

I was just reading that some schools are no longer teaching cursive – I don’t have kids – is that true??

Since I was able to read I’ve been typing. My mother gave me her old manual typewriter when I was 7 and I would write all of my letters to my best friend in red ink (yes red ink – it made it fun). For this reason my handwriting has never been that great – but once I started college and no longer had to write anything – my handwriting has begun to look a lot like scribble … but can they really stop teaching kids cursive??

No need for search engines?

January 6th, 2006

I just read this article on UIE Brain Sparks that states:

[I]t's pretty clear that users choose to use on-site Search when the page they're on fails them. They scan the page for trigger words. Only when they can't find them, do they turn to Search. It's their trigger words they type into the search box. (In essence, they are creating their own links to the content, primarily due to absence of the necessary links on the page.) … Usage of Search is a predictor that the scent on your pages isn't working. Fix the scent and the demand for Search goes way down.

and I can’t help but say – WHAT?

If you didn’t figure it out – I disagree with this idea. Although I do understand the point they’re trying to make – design navigation that is logical and full of “trigger words” so that you’re users can find what they need without having to depend on a search engine – I don’t agree that my users are using the search engine on my site because I have failed to give them an effective navigation system. When I know what I’m looking for I go straight to the search box on a page – when the site doesn’t have one I got to Google or Yahoo! and point their engines at the site.

Some people are searchers and some are browsers – I’m a searcher – and so are probably 1/2 of my users – so why not cater to any possible audience?

Just my 2 cents on the matter.

How nice is that?

January 5th, 2006

I mentioned MailFeed a litle while ago and today I did a little ego searching on Google Blog Search and found this:

Of all the links of the last days I’d like to point you to the reaction I was most happy about, written by Nicole Engard. She had sent me an email earlier, and when I was looking through my referers I found her blog entry “No more email newsletters for me“, go check it out. And check out her blog as well, “What I learned today…“, where she writes about contemporary tools of Internet communication; proving Clay Shirky’s insight that it’s usually the librarian types who are on the forefront of information management, and who already know methods we will all be using in the future. If you are a geek having problems with structuring and accessing large pools of information, talk to a librarian.

I LOVE IT!!

Keep up the good work and if you want to get ahead keep complimenting us “librarian types” :)

Intranet Screenshot #1

January 4th, 2006
Our Intranet

I have uploaded the screenshots for you all to see. They each have comments to explain what you’re looking at. View the show or the set.

I included shots of the blog, the wiki, the search engine, and noted some of the great features like – easily reporting problems to the web team – a menu that follows you everywhere, our shared calendar (powered by ExtCalendar 2) and more. If I have the time maybe I’ll go into detail on how I did things – if you’re curious – feel free to just ask :)

 

 

 

New Intranet

January 2nd, 2006

Today the library was closed – so of course I went into work. Why? Well since August I have been working on designing a new (custom) Intranet for work … and it was ready to be made live. Tomorrow when everyone comes into work they’re going to experience an intranet just for them. I’ll have to get some screenshots to share with you all – because if I do say so myself – it is totally awesome!

Every staff member logs into the Intranet and has complete control over almost every bit of content on the site. On our homepage is our Library Bulletin – a blog of my own design that will allow all of the departments to keep the other departments up to date with news and events. In the right column staff members can update their profile (which in turn updates our staff contact, emergency contact, birthday, and phone lists), access and add to the ongoing projects blog, review and add to the Intranet Links Collection – as well as our Research Links, see our online shared calendar … and so much more!

Everything is was written with PHP and MySQL – which allowed me to link a lot of the modules that I had on the old intranet together to make things easier and more efficient for everyone – it also made it so that I could keep track of who was doing what – and when.

I think this new site is going to improve work flow and communication at our library – TONS! And more important (for me at least) it was so much fun to learn how to write a blog – and a wiki – and everything else I wrote for the site. I’ll see if I can get some screenshots this week to share here.

[update] You can find screenshots, articles, screencasts, and presentations here [/update]

Literature Blogs

January 1st, 2006

I just read about MetaxuCafé© on Sites & Soundbytes. This site lists literature related blogs:

MetaxuCafé© is devoted to highlighting the best content from the community of bloggers who write about books.

We serve both the writers and readers and intend to drive traffic to member's sites and create context around and give permanence to their original writing.