I found this week’s readings very helpful. I had tried HubMed casually before, but I think eTBLAST will be even more helpful. I may even use it for a project I am working on right now.
The Mashup I chose to explore was the Oral Histories of Route 66 Map. The multimedia map with the video interviews is very impressive. It makes curious about how many museums and archives may have developed their own mashups for their oral histories and online exhibits. I think I will do some more exploring of the programmable web site to see if I can find similar history applications. Perhaps there is potential for our library’s Special Collections and Archives Department to develop something similar.
When I did the Rollyo search of librarianblogs for privacy, most of the postings seemed to be at least a year old. There was a great variety. Several seemed to deal with the USA Patriot Act and its reauthorization. Another dealt with RFIDs. In honor of this weeks topic, I decided to do a search on mashups. Not surprisingly, every post listed on the first page of results was authored by either Michelle Kraft or David Rothman. One of Michelle’s posts asked where all the library mashups are–if they are too technical to create or if librarians are the victims of closed system architecture. I think it may be a little of both. For me, it is also a time factor. I would like to develop mashups that would be useful to my patrons and perhaps save me time in my duties, but taking the time to propose and develop these tools takes away time that I need to spend on my regular liaison duties. There are obviously plenty of great mashups out there for increasing the capabilities of PubMed. As nursing liaison, I would like to see a mashup that would work with EBSCOHost’s CINAHL and ISI’s Web of Science, but again, closed architecture is probably an issue.
I created a Rollyo account and intended to create my own Searchroll, but I discovered others have already created search rolls for the things I am currently interested in searching. Perhaps I will discover the need to create a new search roll in the future.
Our College of Nursing & Health posts podcast lectures on iTunes U. Perhaps video podcasts might be useful for library tutorials, but I really have doubts about whether the screen resolution using Camtasia or LecShare is good enough even for a regular size computer monitor, let alone an iPod. I am working on a narrated CINAHL tutorial using LecShare, but the slides seem to be much clearer as a straight PowerPoint slide show than they are when they are converted in LecShare. This probably has to do with the compression required to convert it to a video file?
The same issue is a concern for posting tutorials on YouTube. There seems to be a wide range of resolution based on the videos I viewed. I guess it has a lot to do with the software, equipment, and settings used during the recording process. I did find an existing CINAHL tutorial from Salve Regina University. To me, it seems blurry on the wide shots and clear in the close ups. Although I would like it to have better resolution throughout, I guess it is sufficient to get the point across–assuming students will look for it on YouTube. I think students probably use it more for entertainment and their posting their own school projects than for viewing lectures and tutorials posted by others.
I must have trouble “thinking outside the box” because I find it difficult to think of many library applications for photo sharing, at least where health sciences libraries are concerned. Until looking at the LC flickr site, it did not occur to me how useful this would be for increasing the knowledge and use of unique archival collections.
We do have unique special collections in our library and I will have some part time duties where those collections are concerned, so maybe photo sharing has some potential in the future–perhaps as an alternative or supplement to full-fledged formal online exhibits.
Photo sharing could be useful for publicizing or reporting on special events (sponsored lectures, receptions, etc.) that have already taken place.
These tools are really fantastic for collaboration. It’s great not to have to rely on e-mail attachments. However, I still have major concerns about privacy/security, especially where Google is concerned. I don’t know if e-mail is any more secure (–maybe I am just being paranoid), but Google doesn’t have a great reputation where privacy is concerned.
I’ve explored Google docs in the past, but I have not earnestly used any of those tools for my everyday work yet, partly because of privacy concerns, and because I get the impression many of the people with whom I collaborate are either reluctant to get Google accounts or to use these document features. Also, I think a lot of times it is habit to send e-mail and I sometimes forget that these tools are available.
I definitely see the possibility of using these kinds of tools for research assistance.
At our library, we bookmark useful reference sources on the web using Furl, and I also have my own account. However, I have not really taken advantage of the social aspect of Furl yet. Furl pages strike me as much less cluttered than del.icio.us pages, but I also get the impression that furl does not have nearly as much traffic as del.icio.us. I managed to import my Furl archive into my del.icio.us account while doing the discovery exercises, so now I am planning to spend some time comparing the features of both of these services in terms of usefulness for health sciences libraries.
I have stopped bookmarking through my browser at work; I was one of those people with the really long and long bookmarks list. I like Furl much better.
Should your library have a Facebook or MySpace page?
I’m ambivalent about whether libraries should have their own Facebook or MySpace pages. I guess it depends on the goals and the audience. I can see how this is an excellent way for public libraries to reach out to teens, but I don’t think that patrons of academic libraries go to Facebook to do research. If they encounter individual librarians or a library page and take advantage of that serendipity, that’s fine, but I don’t think they go looking for us there.
Are there privacy concerns for individuals when using social networking sites?
I don’t have a privacy concern because I don’t put any information out there that I wouldn’t want the world to see, but as someone mentioned in the comments for week 3, I don’t think students always think about what they are putting out there and who might be viewing it.
What did you like or not like about your experience with Facebook or MySpace?
I joined Facebook a few weeks ago to see what all the fuss was about. I am enjoying it. It is amazing (and a little scary) how much time can go by in the evening when you are playing on Facebook. I was disappointed that not many of my high school college friends seem to be on Facebook. We are obviously outside of their primary demographic — or maybe they just don’t see any value in it.
Linked In was a new experience for me. I’m not sure how necessary it is to be on both Facebook and Linked In. I guess Linked In is geared toward professional contacts. I had a hard time thinking of potential contacts to invite outside of my own workplace, which pretty much seems to defeat the purpose.
How do you think you could use RSS feeds at your library?
Our library’s electronic newsletter is a WordPress blog. Some departments also use blogs for internal communication.
I would like to use blogs for current awareness searches, if that would be appropriate to our patrons.
How do you think patrons could use RSS feeds?
Patrons could use RSS the same way I currently use it–to try to keep up with news in their field. I think they might find it useful for receiving current awareness searches from me or setting up their own searches. I guess that really depends on whether they are comfortable with feed readers or if they just want the search to come to their e-mail.
As someone commented on the class blog, blogs could be used as another method of teaching. Faculty might enjoy this, especially if they are already used to web-based teaching on WebCT. On the other hand, I don’t see any advantages to using a blog if they already teach on WebCT. They are comfortable with it and it probably offers them more flexibility.
At this point, I think our patrons might be more likely to use blogs for their own personal interests rather than professional reasons.
I see blogs as participatory tools for posting information. The moderator or administrator has the highest level of control, although others can contribute posts and or make comments. Once a contributor adds a blog post, it stays relatively static unless the moderator edits it or someone posts a comment about it. Thus, blogs are useful for more static information.
Wikis allow the administrator to give contributors a greater level of control in that any contributor can significantly change the content and those changes can be tracked. Thus, users have an idea who has changed the content and what has been changed. Wikis seem to be useful for collaborative projects (such as committee work) where many people are contributing to a project and changes need to be made on a regular basis. Wikis are also useful for projects in which librarians want users to contribute actual content (such as subject guide wikis). In cases such as these the librarians must be willing to relinquish the gatekeeper control that we are used to having with traditional pathfinders.
