I love David Weinberger, he’s such an awesome speaker! Thanks to John for pointing out this video:

Weinberger talks about our views on perfection, fame and blogging.

Did you know there was a plugin to do this? I’m a little scared to give it a whirl, but others seem to think it’s a pretty handy tool … have any of you used it?

Technorati Tags: wordpres

Since taking the job with LibLime I’ve been using Twitter a lot more - it’s just another buddy on my already open IM client. Today, I thought I’d play with Tweet Clouds. Check out the cloud of terms I use in my tweets.

Technorati Tags: twitter

Last night (after uploading files to the wrong directory - duh!) I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and I have to say this is going to take some getting used to! I know that there are a new features and tools and such - but the new layout is confusing me! I can’t find my tools! Most importantly, I want my categories to be on the right hand side of my post - why should I have to scroll down for them (now they’re below the post and tags).

Anyway, this will take some getting used to.

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Turns out that there is a new version of WordPress coming. Check out the 2.5 sneak peek - looks pretty neat!!

Technorati Tags: wordpress

Who knew?? In an article titled Blogging’s Good For Your Health Claudine Ryan let’s us all know that our blogging is actually keeping us healthy!

Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new research has found.

The research, from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who didn’t blog.

I mentioned in a post a while ago about how our blogging sometimes upsets those around us:

A friend of mine recently started blogging. She is still learning the ropes and really wants to give it her all. This means that she’s spending a lot of free time blogging and reading blogs. Sometimes this bugs her spouse.

What does this have to do with NFAIS? Apparently Michael went through the same thing. He talked about how before he brought blogs into his organization he spent his nights and weekends driving his spouse crazy by using his free time to play with blogs. He encouraged attendees to really take the time to experiment and learn about the technology - even if it means driving your spouse crazy. I guess I’m lucky that I have a geek for a husband - he wanted to learn about blogs right along with me!

So now - those of you going through this can tell your significant others that blogging is actually good for you

Technorati Tags: blogging

I know I’ve said in the past that I’m no fan of Twitter - but I’m giving it another go. I’m trying to use it via IM now. So far this is going pretty well. With my new job I have to be online all day - and on IM & Skype & IRC, so using Twitter via IM just fits right into my regular daily workflow. I’m not sure how much I’ll be updating my status - but it’s nice when I’m at a conference (like this week) to update others on what I’m learning.

We’ll see how it goes - but no one can say I didn’t give Twitter a fair shot

Technorati Tags: twitter, micro-blogging

Now that I’m the Open Source Evangelist at LibLime, it’s my job to blog at Open Sesame (a long abandoned blog). Now that the blog is up and running I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed and keep an eye on the open source news I post there.

Technorati Tags: open source, liblime

When I was at the Seminary we were looking for a persistent identifier for our digital collections. We ended up choosing to use DOIs. So, when I saw this press release I thought - cool - we made the right choice:

CROSSREF LAUNCHES FREE CITATION LOOK-UP TOOL FOR BLOGGERS

Lynnfield, MA. February 12, 2008. — CrossRef, the association behind the well-known publisher linking network, announced today that it had launched the beta version of a new plug-in that allows bloggers to look up and insert DOI®-enabled citations in the course of authoring a blog.

The plug-in, which is available for download at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/crossref-cite/, allows the blogger to use a widget-based interface to search CrossRef metadata using citations or partial citations. The results of the search, with multiple hits, are displayed and the author can then either click on a hit to follow the DOI to the publisher’s site, or click on an icon next to the hit to insert the citation into their blog entry (as either a full citation or as a short “op. cit.”).

Thanks John for pointing it out.

Technorati Tags: doi, crossref

When I give my blog presentations I always mention MovableType, but I also mention that it’s not open source like WordPress (which is my blog tool of choice). Now, MovableType has an open source free option for non-commercial use.

As of today, and forever forward, Movable Type is open source. This means you can freely modify, redistribute, and use Movable Type for any purpose you choose….

• MTOS has every feature in Movable Type 4.0 along with several new minor improvements and bug fixes.
• All plugins, themes, templates, designs, and APIs that work with MT4 work with MTOS. MTOS also works with other Six Apart open source technologies such as memcached.
• MTOS is one of the only open source blogging tools with
  built-in support for an unlimited number of blogs, an unlimited number
  of authors, and sign-in with OpenID, with no plugins needed.

Learn more here.

Found via LibrarianInBlack.

Technorati Tags: blogs, movabletype.opensource, open source, oss

The Advanced WordPress Help Sheet includes snippets from Styling Different Categories to Dynamic Page Titles. This is also only the first of a few I’ll be releasing. I plan on having at least three Advanced WordPress Help Sheets, totaling to around 9 or 10 pages of WordPress goodies.

This sounds pretty handy. One day I’ll have time to actually focus on fixing this blog up the right way - for now, here’s a link to this handy guide for the rest of you. Maybe I should follow Sarah’s lead and pay someone else to do it for me … hmmmm.

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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would soon be the chair of the SLA-IT Blogging section - well - it’s that time. I’ve posted my hello post and I’m ready to roll!!

Technorati Tags: blogging, sla, special libraries association

After upgrading to the new release of WordPress I went from 2000 readers to 900 - that means that my plugin that counts those of you not using my FeedBurner feed doesn’t work with the new release (or over 1000 of you got annoyed at me for something I wrote ). So - if you’re reading this via RSS I’d love if you’d take a moment to change your feed subscription to my FeedBurner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/web2learning/YOVk).

This year I’m going to try something different - I’m going to try and juggle blogging in two places. This past year I have been blogging at the SLA-IT Blogging section blog every once in a while - but starting in 2008 I will be the Blogging Section chair and as such responsible for keeping the blog up and running! Jill has posted her farewell post - and I will be posting my “hello” post within the next few weeks.

Technorati Tags: sla, special libraries association, blogging

I just read that Roy will no longer be writing his column for Library Journal - but will continue to blog - an option he didn’t have when he started out 10 years ago.

Blogs didn’t exist then either. But since they do now it seems like a fairly good platform for continuing my coverage of all things digital that impact libraries. I can be as timely as I want, I can be as brief or as verbose as I care to be, I can easily include images and links, I have no editor to keep me from making a fool of myself, and readers can much more easily and publicly add to or refute what I say. In other words, it’s about as bully a pulpit as any columnist could want.

So after ten long years I will no longer be writing a column for Library Journal, but I will be blogging. I promise to never tell you what I had for breakfast or what my dog did. Every post will have at least something to do with libraries meeting the challenges and opportunities of the digital world.

Even more interesting is a comment by Judith Seiss (who’s OPL Plus blog I love to death!):

Welcome to to blogosphere. You will find it addicting. Next year, I, too, will stop publishing in print, but I will probably continue some blogging.

What an interesting trend. I have to admit that it is easier to write here on a blog than it would be if I had an editor to answer to - but I still get excited when I see my name in print … and without that what would my mother have to show all of her friends??

I totally agree with Michelle and am so happy that she has put it into print - hopefully other librarians out there will learn from the biblioblogsphere - that’s why we’re here isn’t it? To share our knowledge with our colleagues:

I have been thinking about the biblioblogosphere and all the library bloggers out there, sharing experiences, successes and failures, thoughts and processes and more. I started thinking about what these faithful people have done for me, without them even knowing about it and I had to start making a list.

If it hadn’t been for library bloggers I would never have:
- started reading blogs
- started reading the library literature more widely
- started writing book reviews for the library literature
- started reading outside my profession for parallel experiences and new ideas
- started my own blog, to share my own experiences
- discovered the amazing resources and programs available out there
- participated in Learning 2.0 and become a champion for my library’s staff when doing the same
- been invited to participate in a librarian group blog - Libraries Interact, with a great group of motivated librarians from around Australia
- been motivated to apply for and receive the scholarship and conduct the study tour I did in April this year
- pushed for my library to start its own blog
- started using mashups on my library’s website - only just scratching the surface here though so far
- developed increased confidence in myself, my skills and the new skills and inspiration I was receiving from your posts
- asked to participate and then actually write a chapter for a book being published in the UK next year
- gathering new inspiration and ideas to play with and hopefully translate into something my library service can utilise and better serve my patrons
- had the confidence to submit proposals to library conferences in Australia
- had the inspiration to write for the library literature in Australia (still working on that one).
…. and that list is just off the top of my head, without any long consideration.

I have progressed more professionally in the last 3 years, than I had in the previous 19. Even though my job title hasn’t changed much, the work that I do, my love of it and my wider knowledge of the profession has grown exponentially (and there is potential in the job situation, so that may better reflect this development soon too).

And it’s all because library bloggers out there unselfishly decided to take the time to share their thoughts, experiences and more. They took a risk, put themselves out there, not knowing whether anyone would read and I again want to say thanks.

Technorati Tags: biblioblogosphere, blogging, librarians

An article on Ars Technica, by Nate Anderson, points out a federal case where a judge has rules that bloggers have the same rights as journalists. This case was prompted by a blogger posting about his negative experiences with BidZirk using not the company logo, a picture of the company owner and his family and some not so friendly terms.

The most important section of the ruling is the one dealing with [Philip] Smith’s status as a journalist. The court admitted that it was impossible to determine in advance whether a blogger was a journalist and so used a “functional analysis” that “examines the content of the material, not the format, to determine whether it is journalism.”

The judge noted that Smith wrote the article in order to convey information, that he had done research in preparing it, that he addressed both positive and negative aspects of his experience, and that he provided a checklist for others to use. “The fact that Smith reports negatively about his experience with BidZirk does not dictate that the article’s function or intent was not news reporting or news commentary,” wrote the judge. Furthermore, he noted explicitly that “some bloggers are without question journalists.”

Very interesting.

I can’t remember now where I heard this, but on one of the podcasts I listen to, the speaker was talking about bloggers and how they saw themselves. In this inquiry the speaker had found that most bloggers actually do not consider themselves journalists. If you know what podcast I’m talking about let me know and I’ll gladly link to it here (it had to have been one from last month sometime).

I presented with Sarah Theimer from Syracuse this morning. Sarah talked about how they use MediaWiki for keeping track of procedures. She started by asking “Will a wiki work?” and her answer was “Sort of” - my answer is YES!

It was fun to listen to Sarah because a lot of what she said was repetition of what I’ve heard from others. It’s nice to hear that you’re not alone.

She talked about how she was the sole editor of procedures and didn’t want to be anymore - the wiki seemed like the best solution. Her actual comment was that others should be allowed to share in the “pleasure” of editing these documents.

I think that the reason that Sarah has had a harder time that I did at Jenkins is because she was forced to use MediaWiki. While this tool is very powerful and awesome - it’s not easy to learn the syntax or to organize your content in the way that librarians like to. It’s a shame that I didn’t realize how useful our Intranet was going to be - if I had the foresight I would have written it so that it could be released as and open source app for all libraries.

For those of you who want to see my presentation here you go:

Communication 2.0 with Blogs & Wikis
Exlibris Mid-Atlantic Users Group, Rider University, NJ, October 30, 2007

Technorati Tags: ema2007, wikis

I went from being excited about upgrading to WordPress 2.3 to being very nervous … anyone want to tell me that upgrading won’t break anything??

Technorati Tags: wordpress

Can someone tell me how to report a spam blog to a registrar? I have one that keeps stealing my posts and crediting them to others - I want to report them, but I’m not sure what the steps are.

I just have to make this short post to say that I love the blogosphere! I love getting so many views on one topic. I read the recent NY Times article about the OCA & Google books and took it one way - others have read it and seen it from completely different angles - if i wasn’t reading so many blogs, I may have been perfectly happy with my own little interpretation of the article - but now I get to ponder everyone else’s as well!!

Back in June I expressed my concern over Google buying Feedburner - and then I promptly forgot about the whole thing. So, I need to thank Sarah for pointing out that Feedburner now offers all of it’s services for free. I’ve signed up for link click tracking and other pro features - now we’ll see how they work.

Technorati Tags: google, feedburner

There is a thread on the Web4Lib mailing list regarding Social Software Policies in libraries. It’s great how much info is out on the web!! If you’d like to see policies from other libraries, here are a few that were mentioned:

• Washoe County Library System
• Newton Free Library
• Public Library of Science
• Orange County Teen Blog
• Longview Public Library
• St. Petersburg College Library
• Free Range Librarian Draft Blog Policy
• LITA Blog Policy
• Western Kentucky University Libraries Blog

Most of these were found in this message.

Well, I thought I could catch up on all of my blog reading after two months of school, moving, learning a new job, and general tiredness - but it wasn’t possible.

So - I it had to be done - I had to click the “Mark all read” link!

Tonight I start fresh - sorry if I missed reporting on something extra important.

Tomorrow the new WordPress 2.3 will be released. I’m excited, and a bit annoyed. Why is the release on a Monday? Why wasn’t it on Saturday so I had the weekend to upgrade and make the necessary changes? Well, I guess I’ll be waiting until next weekend to upgrade. If you have WordPress, make sure to read the how to prepare post.

Technorati Tags: wordpress