Netlibrary

I will come back to podcasting, but the computer down here in the PCC does not have sound, so I can't listen to podcasts.

I did get signed up for Netlibrary and am currently reading this scary book called "1001 Chemicals in Everday Products". I don't understand the "checking it out" thing, but I am enjoying having access to books that are not physically in our library. I have helped lots of people set up accounts for Netlibrary, and I may have even had one before, but since I don't use it often, I have no way of knowing what username, password, or even which email address I signed up with. Hopefully, I will remember the new ones.

YouTube

Since I have never been up close and personal with a live armadillo, this will have to be the next best thing:



I have liked armadillos since we moved to Oklahoma when I was nine. I think that they are cute, in a piglet sort of way... and if you ever want to know armadillo trivia, I have more than you probably want to hear!

I got it to work!

Here are the states that I have visited:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Web 2.0 Award List

We have already worked with several of the winners, including Technorati, Library Thing, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Twitter, Flickr, and Del.icio.us. Others, such as Facebook and Meebo I have worked with before starting the Library 2.0 program. I decided to look at Craigslist, because I had heard of it, but I wasn't very impressed. It is rather text heavy and not very pretty to look at. I tried Cocktail Builder, but everything required something I didn't have on hand. I don't want to stock that much variety. I thought they would take what you have and give you ideas, so I wasn't very impressed with that either. I went to upcoming, which I'm sure would be great if someone were keeping it up to date, but for all of Boone County, it said there was nothing going on this weekend. I can't believe that Ragtag and Blue Note have nothing planned this weekend and I was surprised to see that the Salute to Veterans Airshow was not mentioned. Maybe I just have different expectations than the normal seomoz users.

Google Tools

Google Transit- this would be great when I am traveling or visiting big communities. There aren't many cities listed yet, but since I am going to D.C. in June, if it were available, it would be nice to check out my route and available transportation beforehand. I like the fact that you can look at the map as a regular map, as a satellite picture or as a hybrid, which shows the satellite picture with roads and bridges drawn on. It will be more useful as they put up more communities, but at this point they only 10 cities in the United States and the country of Japan, which is only in Japanese. If it were in English, I was going to recommend it to a friend who will be going to Japan soon, but she hasn't learned Japanese, which makes it useless for Americans.

Google Page Creator- One thing that drew me to this tool page was the fact that it makes developing a web page so easy. One of my favorite things is that, on the front page it says "Google Page Creator saves your changes automatically as you type, so no more nervous breakdowns from losing all your work. " It claims that as you edit your page, you're seeing exactly what it will look like when other people see it. It gives you the choice of a variety of looks, layouts, fonts, and color schemes. I'm sure there are other options available to help you produce webpages, but this is the first one I have played with. It has options to download images and to connect to link to other webpages. It was fun, but not something I would use on a regular basis. I could see it being used though, since there are many people that want to share their knowledge and this makes it easy enough for them to do.

Google Suggest- This is fun! You start typing your search topic and it comes up with a list of possible options related to what you have typed. It would be helpful, if you weren't sure what you wanted to search. I would use it in that case. If I know what I'm searching for, it could be a little confusing. I can imagine it becoming a permanent option on Google search, because people like the assistance.

This is kind of cool, but it would be nice to have more fonts available. I'm just used to all of the possibilites of Word. Other than that, I don't see many differences. The "Revisions" option is nice. I like the thought of being able to change the document and then change back if the original copy is better (or at least parts of it).

The coolest part of this is that my daughter, whose computer doesn't have Word Processing on it, now can use this to write papers for college! It saved her money over having to buy a Word Suite and since she is in college, any money saved is a great thing! It is also very handy to be able to work on your document from any computer that you have access to. The portability and compatibility is a definite strength! I can remember when I was in college and you had to make sure that the computer you were using supported the version of Word (or whichever application that you were using) that your report was typed in. Then, half the time you couldn't print because your word processing application wasn't supported by the computer or printer. This is such a huge improvement!

Web 2.0 and Search Engines

In the Next Spacearticle "Away From the 'Icebergs'", Rick Anderson makes the comment regarding Web 2.0

There was a time, not very long ago, when libraries exercised something close to monopoly power in the information marketplace. During the print era, if you wanted access to pricey indexes or a collection of scholarly journals, you had no choice but to make a trip to the library. It wasn’t a good system, but it worked. Sort of. That is to say, it worked moderately well for those privileged with access to a good library. In the post-print era, libraries no longer have the monopoly power that they had in the days before the Internet. We have to be a bit more humble in the current environment, and find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually.

Many of the other articles made strong points, but especially from a reference point of view, that point hit home in regards to current library service!

As far as the search engines go, my biggest problem was that of the search engines listed, several had different search focus, which made it difficult to compare the various engines. I usually end up using Google, with the understanding that their are weaknesses involved in the order of listings. I have used Dogpile and Yahoo in the past, but I usually end up going back to Google if I am in a hurry because I do understand its strengths and weaknesses.