Thing 17, which involves learning about podcasts, was a good opportunity for me to revisit these and think about ways I could make use of some of the information being put online in podcast form, and help patrons to do the same.
I have listened to a few podcasts in the past, but for one reason or another, I have never really incorporated listening to podcasts into my day-to-day life. I think that I generally prefer to get my information by reading. But there is some content that simply isn't in print, and there are many circumstances in which audio would be preferable. So it was nice to see links to a variety of different directories that users can browse.
Browsing the sites were were given links to was enjoyable. But the browsing and search formats on some sites seem a little more user-friendly than others' - I found that searches on some sites returned outdated or unranked podcasts, and, frankly, if I'm going to spend time listening to a podcast I want quality content and (generally, thought not always) I want it to be fairly recent. I had fun listening to some BBC casts, though, and I think I'll spend some time browsing one or more of the directories for things to enjoy in the future.
I still don't know if podcasts are a good fit for my everyday life, but I like knowing a little more about what's out there, and now I'd feel much more comfortable recommending them to friends and library users.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
More 23 Things Week 7: NetLibrary
I had fun browsing NetLibrary's eAudiobook offerings. (Did you know that the audio version of James Joyce's Ulysses is over forty two hours long?!) (Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, by comparison, is just eleven and a half hours.)
I enjoy audiobooks, although I don't listen to them as often as I'd like to. But I know how important they are to many of our patrons, and it's great to be able to recommend the titles available through NetLibrary. I especially like the genre breakdown that's available and the fact that users can sort to display the newest titles first and limit their search to only return items of a specific duration - these factors could matter to a lot of users, and the options for each are very easy to spot when searching or browsing.
My recommendation came up in a search for audiobooks from 2011 that clock in at under twelve hours; I thought this kind of search might appeal to a patron looking to hear something new but not too long. A title that sounded appealing was Jay Winik's House Reunited: How America Survived the Civil War. I like the idea of listening to history as opposed to reading it, and at 7 hours 37 minutes, this title seems like a good way to learn something new about the Civil War in a fairly short amount of time.
I enjoy audiobooks, although I don't listen to them as often as I'd like to. But I know how important they are to many of our patrons, and it's great to be able to recommend the titles available through NetLibrary. I especially like the genre breakdown that's available and the fact that users can sort to display the newest titles first and limit their search to only return items of a specific duration - these factors could matter to a lot of users, and the options for each are very easy to spot when searching or browsing.
My recommendation came up in a search for audiobooks from 2011 that clock in at under twelve hours; I thought this kind of search might appeal to a patron looking to hear something new but not too long. A title that sounded appealing was Jay Winik's House Reunited: How America Survived the Civil War. I like the idea of listening to history as opposed to reading it, and at 7 hours 37 minutes, this title seems like a good way to learn something new about the Civil War in a fairly short amount of time.
23 Things Week 7: Embedded Video
The video I'm embedding for Week 7's Thing #15 was created for Library Ireland Week, which was held from March 7th - 13th, 2011. I originally saw it shared in one of Jessamyn West's blog posts over at www.librarian.net. (Thanks, RSS feed!) I thought I would search for it on YouTube and include it here, because I think it's great and well worth passing on. Enjoy!
23 Things Week 6: RSS and Google Reader
This week's activities were a great opportunity for me to revisit and clean up the RSS feeds I set up on Google Reader a long time ago.
I love the idea of keeping up with my favorite websites via RSS rather than visiting the individual sites themselves, but when I initially set up my RSS feeds I was a little overenthusiastic, and the result was an unmanageable bunch of feeds from sites I wasn't actually all that interested in keeping up with. So this week I had the opportunity to pare down my subscriptions, revisit the concept of using RSS, and add some sites that I actually do want to follow.
One of the subscriptions I added went into my "News" category - the feed from Slate.com, which I typically visit many times a day. The second was an addition to my "Library and Archives" folder - the blog for Library Thing, which is something I've been meaning to use more and would like to stay updated about. I especially like the fact that by using RSS, I can track what I've seen on these sites from home and elsewhere, and, as this week's video pointed out, cut down on unnecessary clicking.
Although I've been away from it for a long time, I can definitely see myself coming back to using Google Reader on a regular basis. But I think that the trick, for me at least, will be to do regular maintenance to keep the blogs and sites I follow to a minimum. Otherwise, I get an overwhelming backlog of information and end up feeling like I'm not making the most of this utility.
To keep that from happening, I decided to mark everything in Google Reader as "read" and start fresh - it's much easier to take in, now, and I will (hopefully!) be able to enjoy keeping up with new items as they come in from now on.
I love the idea of keeping up with my favorite websites via RSS rather than visiting the individual sites themselves, but when I initially set up my RSS feeds I was a little overenthusiastic, and the result was an unmanageable bunch of feeds from sites I wasn't actually all that interested in keeping up with. So this week I had the opportunity to pare down my subscriptions, revisit the concept of using RSS, and add some sites that I actually do want to follow.
One of the subscriptions I added went into my "News" category - the feed from Slate.com, which I typically visit many times a day. The second was an addition to my "Library and Archives" folder - the blog for Library Thing, which is something I've been meaning to use more and would like to stay updated about. I especially like the fact that by using RSS, I can track what I've seen on these sites from home and elsewhere, and, as this week's video pointed out, cut down on unnecessary clicking.
Although I've been away from it for a long time, I can definitely see myself coming back to using Google Reader on a regular basis. But I think that the trick, for me at least, will be to do regular maintenance to keep the blogs and sites I follow to a minimum. Otherwise, I get an overwhelming backlog of information and end up feeling like I'm not making the most of this utility.
To keep that from happening, I decided to mark everything in Google Reader as "read" and start fresh - it's much easier to take in, now, and I will (hopefully!) be able to enjoy keeping up with new items as they come in from now on.
Thing 12: Recommending Research Tools
While exploring the research tools that the LFPL has available during Week 5, I enjoyed brushing up on some familiar databases as well as learning about some resources that were new to me.
In terms of what we might promote to patrons, I think that in general the databases that we provide access to and their relative ease of use is something we should be trying to get across to the public at every opportunity. It seems that many library users are wary of using research tools beyond the catalog search, and this probably means that many people are not accessing and are likely not even aware of many of the other resources the library has to offer.
Databases should be promoted not only because they are incredibly expensive for libraries and, consequently, should be made the most of, but because they are often the best way to connect patrons with the information they need. Yet in an encounter with a patron a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would check a database for the information she was seeking, and she reacted as if I had offered to tackle something outrageously complex. When working to increase patrons' awareness of the research tools we have to offer, we need to stay positive and reassure the public that these are accessible, helpful resources that they are totally capable of learning to use.
In terms of the resource I'd choose if we could keep just one, I'm tempted to name an aggregator, such as EBSCOhost, which makes available a huge range of full-text content across many topics and disciplines, and is fairly easy to search. But I'm going to go another route and say that the single most important research "tool" the LFPL has to offer its patrons is its staff.
At the risk of sounding cliched, no matter how many thousands of dollars a library system spends on providing access to databases and other resources, without a trained and knowledgable staff able to make these tools make sense to patrons, those resources are likely to go unused. That's why this week's task of exploring the LFPL's databases and research tools has been such a helpful (if challenging) part of our "23 Things" learning: it's an opportunity to focus on our role in increasing our patrons' research skills, by maintaining our own.
In terms of what we might promote to patrons, I think that in general the databases that we provide access to and their relative ease of use is something we should be trying to get across to the public at every opportunity. It seems that many library users are wary of using research tools beyond the catalog search, and this probably means that many people are not accessing and are likely not even aware of many of the other resources the library has to offer.
Databases should be promoted not only because they are incredibly expensive for libraries and, consequently, should be made the most of, but because they are often the best way to connect patrons with the information they need. Yet in an encounter with a patron a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would check a database for the information she was seeking, and she reacted as if I had offered to tackle something outrageously complex. When working to increase patrons' awareness of the research tools we have to offer, we need to stay positive and reassure the public that these are accessible, helpful resources that they are totally capable of learning to use.
In terms of the resource I'd choose if we could keep just one, I'm tempted to name an aggregator, such as EBSCOhost, which makes available a huge range of full-text content across many topics and disciplines, and is fairly easy to search. But I'm going to go another route and say that the single most important research "tool" the LFPL has to offer its patrons is its staff.
At the risk of sounding cliched, no matter how many thousands of dollars a library system spends on providing access to databases and other resources, without a trained and knowledgable staff able to make these tools make sense to patrons, those resources are likely to go unused. That's why this week's task of exploring the LFPL's databases and research tools has been such a helpful (if challenging) part of our "23 Things" learning: it's an opportunity to focus on our role in increasing our patrons' research skills, by maintaining our own.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
23 Things Week 5: LFPL's Research Tools
As a page, I don't currently get a whole lot of opportunities to assist patrons with in-depth research inquiries. But I'd still like to know as much as possible about the LFPL's database offerings, in part because I want to be prepared in case I do have to help with a reference question... and also, a little more selfishly, because I just plain miss working in reference, and investigating databases as we've been asked to do this week helps me get back into that "reference" mindset.
But enough about me - on to the databases!
But enough about me - on to the databases!
Question 10b
I began by selecting "Newspapers" on the "Research Tools" page. I chose to search the third publication listed, the Courier-Journal, because I know that it's a local paper likely to have published the obituary of a Louisville resident. The resulting search page appeared to be for a general search of ProQuest Newspapers, but I went ahead and enclosed the name I was searching in quotation marks and specified a date range that began with the date of death and allowed a few months afterward to catch any later mentions of the name. I also specified that I only wanted full text results.
This search resulted in a single hit; thankfully, it was the obituary I was looking for. It was published on March 18, 2008, and specified that Betty Jean McMichael had four sons.
Question 10c
For this question, I clicked on the "Journal/Magazine/Newspaper Search" link at the right hand side of the Research Tools page.
I did not uncover a journal called Telos by using the "Journal/Magazine/Newspaper Search" option; I tried more than once, but it did not turn up. However, just to check, I went to Academic Search Premier and looked for articles under that title, and did find that we have access to abstracts of articles published in Telos via that database; it appears, however, that we don't have full-text access to the journal's contents. (I will definitely be asking my coworkers if they came up with the same information when we discuss our 23 Things progress!)
The British Journal for the History of Philosophy was much easier to find using the Journal/etc. search; it appears that the LFPL has full-text access via EBSCO, albeit on a 12-month delay.
Clinical Medicine and Research was also easy to find, and is also available via EBSCO, with no delay in full-text access.
Question 11a
I selected "Business & Money" from the list of categories on the Research Tools page, and proceeded to "cheat" by searching the text on the page for "Morningstar." I'm glad I did, since it took me to the link for the Morningstar Investment Research Center database. Since I don't have a whole lot of investing experience (okay, none at all), I did not know anything about this resource. But I was able to select the "Funds" tab, search the name of the fund, and find all of the requested information:
Manager: Duane F. Kelly
Stewardship Grade: B overall
Overall Morningstar Rating: Four stars
...interesting stuff!
Question 11b
I again used the Journal/etc. search, this time to locate Consumer Reports. I selected the link to LFPL's EBSCO access and then the link to its full text. From here, I was able to do an advanced search for "LCD TVs" and restrict the date range to 1/2008 - 12/2009. This turned up a total of 9 articles mentioning LCD TVs, the most recent of which was an article from 12/2009 published in Consumer Reports Volume 74, Issue 12.
Question 11c
The "Business & Money" category seemed like a good place to start here, but I admit that I relied on the tips we were given after doing some initial exploring and realizing that many of the listed resources seemed like good choices.
After spending a lot of time changing settings and adjusting my search, I have to admit that I could benefit from some training on Business Reference USA. While many of its options seem straightforward enough at first glance, I was clearly doing something wrong! I had a hard time with this question, and I'm going to be taking some extra time to get a bit more familiar with this resource.
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