I'm Out of Order? This Whole Court Is out of Order!

Having skipped #15 for awhile (it's a big topic), I looked at the library wikis in #16. They are interesting ideas all -- I remember suggesting using blog technology for subject guides in what, 2004?

St. Joseph's went wiki instead. I'm curious how often it's used -- is it rarely used, like most library link collections, or does the wiki format make it more accessible, and more used? Ditto for Princeton's Book Lover's Wiki.

The Library Success Wiki is great -- although a collection of links remains a collection of links, whether it's in wiki or web page format. I also wonder when the library profession stopped using peer-reviewed research as it's sources for how to plan and deliver services, and chose instead to rely on blog postings referring to blog postings. It might work; maybe the speed of change overwhelmes traditional academic practices; but I doubt we'll see doctors and lawyers and engineers jump on the bandwagon in quite the same way.

Bull Run's Wiki is great too, but isn't it really a blog, using wiki structure and software? It's nature reifies something that has bothering me throughout the 23 things -- the technolgy, the formats, the tools, are not necessarily relevant -- it's the Data, Information, Knowledge (including Entertainment), and Wisdom transmitted in the communication that actually matters. I want a blog, I want a wiki, I want a podcast -- not. I want to know, to learn, to enjoy, to grow. The tools that help me do that? Good.

Technorati

Wow, my blog is ranked Rank: 2,929,066 (0 links from 0 sites) in technorati. Now, that makes you proud!

I do it for the fame.

I claim in the name of King and Country

Technorati Profile.

Another thing that makes me hungry: del.icio.us

Perhaps I am not eating right -- just the mention of del.icio.us makes me hungry. Who knows, that may be part of my problem with the site in general; the word delicious for me has a lot of power, and promises something that the site (for me) doesn't deliver.

I think it's key that del.icio.us is seen as a social bookmarking tool. Making your bookmarks/favorites portable is an old need (and really, most hompages in 1994 were in nature not unlike a user's del.icio.us page). But it's a need that can be filled with numerous tools. I suppose the greatest value of del.icio.us is that it shares out those bookmarks and the tags that go with them. When scaled up to the size of the Internet, that becomes powerful. I am not convinced that it regularly outperforms Google in general research. An example we're in here lately is looking for primary source material from pre-1900 eras. Looking in del.icio.us for tags {primary source} and {primary sources} gives useful results (although, it should be clear, different results due to the little "s" -- which makes anyone who's used library catalogs with LCSH shudder a bit). But really, Google gives the same results. To sum up the practice search (actually, a real user question from 3/27):

in del.icio.us
search (in tags) for Primary Source Augustus: no results relevant to the Roman emperor
search (in tags) for Primary Sources Augustus: a good source http://virgil.org/augustus/primary-sources.htm on the Roman Emperor comes to the top, and that's it

in google
search for Primary Source Augustus, or Primary Sources Augustus and the good source at http://virgil.org/augustus/primary-sources.htm comes to the top. Plus lots more.

So I suppose del.icio.us is most useful for depth on topics of interest, and, of course, for those web 2.0 stalwarts, discovering RSS feeds and linking up with users of like interest. With users I'd still probably be more inclined to use Google... the nature of the Google search engine is that it's going to pick up on things that are tagged frequently in del.icio.us unfailingly.

A note about tags: at least they give many users a language with which we can explain how MARC fields allow field searching. But the lack of rules for applying tags make them only so useful, especially when not scaled to net-wide implementation. I think I'd be excited it Horizon could implement user tagging for bib records that would then be used to facilitate new, user-centered search options for the HIP -- but unless we were sharing the tag database with the entire customer base of Horizon (and perhaps ibistro as well), the small scale of taggers would make that data completely idiosyncratic. Probably pretty interesting, but probably not that useful for information retrieval.

Tagging is to cataloging as humming a half-remembered jingle is to symphonies
but
Tags are to cataloging as (not-by-numbers) painting is to photography

{i will write metaphors for food. if it's del.icio.us}

Rollyo? Rollo? Oh no...

Hmm, I created a search roll for Virginia Law. Rather slow, and please don't actually use it, as the mish-mash I put in is not an effective search, for real purposes. Despite Debra Messing's excellent roll for shopping, the utility of this is not immediately clear -- why not use the google advanced search and limit to domains there? It's a lot faster. Example search of VA code

But something about Rollyo makes me hungry -- did candy used to come wrapped in those colors? In the sixties and seventies? And would life be easier or harder if one could remember such things clearly?

Library Thing

I'll admit to being in the group that's not bothered by having an out-of-control home library. I can see the social networking fun of Library Thing (LT), although I'm not sure if I'd really want to know the people whose libraries are most like mine. Actually I own a few more books than that...

I am really fond of the use of Z39.50 to scoop data from Amazon and LC... it's elegant and cheap and many a public library could probably use this as their main catalog utility, especially ones that have collections without much local and/or unique material. (Well, it would fail badly on serials and continuations, too).

It's almost cheating, and who knows how long LT will survive, but, ya know, full MARC records. For free...

Thing 10: Generators: priceless. And not in the good way

Adobe Photoshop CS 2: $649.00
Corel Paint Shop Pro: $68.79
Microsoft Photo and Paint: Free for windows users
Seashore, Gimp, and Pixel: Shareware (for Mac users)
Image generators: not really worth that much


Once you have an image editing program on your computer, it'll take a short amount of time to get to the point where you can do so much more than these generator tools. Generators are the mircowave cuisine of computer imagery. Free stuff can beat them; the relatively inexpensive Paint Shop demolishes them.


Look at pretty much any .com website. Bloglines. The White House. The Sri Lanka Tourist Board. The graphics there were created using tools for creating graphics. It's heterodox in the 2.0 context to advocate learning desktop tools over sliding thru using web-based apps, but, um, look for yourself.


My disclaimer is that I'm no Picasso -- but real image editing tools are really not that hard to learn. In a pinch, ask your kids -- they probably know MS Paint backward and forward. They'll tell you -- not only are the real tools more useful, but they're more fun for play, too.