| Look the catalog team at my library have their own trading card.
Make one for yourself or your librarians and be sure to add it to the collection on Flickr. |
 My trading card Originally uploaded by kasia1957. |
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.
Category Archives: Library
Librarian Trading Card
| Here's mine.
Check out the others in the group on Flickr. Make your own with this Trading Card Maker. |
 My trading card Originally uploaded by talia679. |
Give us control!
John over at blyberg.net has a great post that I read this morning.
RSS 2.0 in September 2002. It's almost 2006 and ILS vendors are just now starting to unveil some RSS feeds. We shouldn't be treating those announcements like watershed moments. They're tidbits of “too-little-too-late” packaged in shiny wrappers, served with a helping of “Who's your Daddy?”
He goes on to say that we should be asking our vendors for more control, more power over what is essentially our data … our hard work.
I'm so happy to see that I'm not alone in my thinking. Everytime we purchase a new service from our vendor it's more trouble than it's worth – it looks great on paper, but then we get it and I find that I am powerless to resolve issues like simple layout and data arrangement. I want power! I deserver power!
[W]e should be able to run any query at all against our own data, however absurd it may be.
We are paying big bucks for these packages and the least they can do is open up the database so I can generate stats in a format that's easy for us to use – or let me write my own RSS feed or email updates – etc.
Trade for your favorite librarians
I just read on Library Stuff about this great new blog & marketing idea. The blog is the Librarian Trading Cards blog. And Steven set up a Flickr pool for everyone to add their own cards. How do you make your own card? Visit this nifty tool.
I can't wait
I see all of these blogs & wikis popping up for the Infotoday conferences (KM World, Internet Librarian, C2) … it makes me impatient for March when I'll be going to Computers in Libraries … this year I want to participate in all of the online collaboration that's going on!
Library Instruction Wiki
Librarians with Class pointed out a pretty nifty wiki called Library Instruction Wiki which is
a collaboratively developed resource for librarians involved with or interested in instruction … designed to help librarians learn from one another. Use the wiki to find handouts, tutorials, suggested reading, and more!
Under Library Instruction Resources you can find class websites, handouts and much more. This looks like it's going to be a great new tool.
Innovative Libraries
First off, I found this great new blog to add to my blogroll last night. It's called Sites & Soundbytes. I found about 30 new sites I didn't know about and I bombarded my staff here with emails to let them know about the great stuff I found (they're not all up on RSS yet).
Anyway … I found this list of Innovative Internet Applications in Libraries. Neat, huh? I haven't had time to check out everything on the list … it's a long one … which is so great to see. Check it out.
Follow the Carnival
I have seen posts recently mentioning a Carnival, but I had no idea what they were talking about. Last night I found this:
I've recently encountered a blogging phenomenon known as the Blog Carnival.* If you are aware of bentley's wonderful This Week in LibraryBlogland series, then you are already familiar with the essential concept – an aggregation/roundup of the most interesting posts over a period of time, usually centering on a certain theme. What typically makes the Blog Carnival different from bentley's approach is that the Carnival closes up shop and moves to a new blog location every week. The host blog's author becomes the editor of the Carnival for that week. The advantages of this are:
a) it takes the burden off of a single person
b) new host means new setting and often a fresh editorial perspective
c) willing hosts get great exposure for their blogs and willing readers similarly get exposed to blog authors they may not have encountered previously
Quoted from Open Stacks. What a neat idea! Anyway, if you want to follow the Carnival of Infosciences you can see the complete schedule of stops by reading the Carnival Cruises thread at Open Stacks.
[edit 11/22/05] Visit the new Carnival Wiki [/edit]
