Onward, Ever Onward

2008-06-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe that the school year 2007-2008 is truly over, especially since the Long Winter just continues -- I had hard time saying goodbye to the library staff, teachers, other staff that I got to know during the initiative. It has been a great learning experience as well and I am glad to have had this opportunity to be part of it. Thank you.

Technozoo at PLA

2008-04-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

"Technozoo" presenter at PLA confessed to not being a librarian but that he is married to a librarian, so he should be on the wavelength. Well, he skipped along from Joost (peer to peer technology gaining momentum) to Skype (best for talking inexpensively around the globe) to kiva.org (organized around 2.0 principle) to iPhone (70% of all mobile internet done from iPhone!!) to Microsoft Surface (tactile, a table, to come out by the end of the year) to Sony Reader (better than Amazon Kindle) to gaming, which of course most of us really want to hear about. David happened to be there, too and the average age of 33 for gaming puts us right in the thick of things, right. BrainAge game actually caught my attention and others' too. In conclusion the presenter made one point emphatically: keep the net neutral. Great point.

Google, reference, and Wikipedia

2008-04-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

PLA conference in Minneapolis was a blast - so much information, so much great interaction among the 10,000 or so participants. One of the most interesting presentations I attended was given by a professor from the U/W. Besides being a smart, entertaining goofball, he brought up a lot of relevant points. He presented Google (among other things) as a replacement for ready reference, a guide, to be used by librarians, but with wisdom, hopefully, such as using the fine points available before "normal people" become cognizant of them, acknowledging the weaknesses (Google scholar just isn't up to snuff yet, for instance), and proceeding forward, gently, from Google to in-depth resources relevant to the query.

Wikipedia he saw as a necessary evil and advised: if you're not happy with something in Wikipedia, fix it! Get in the fray, do your part and if masses of librarians do, then Wikipedia is ever so much more useful again. Print reference is all but dead, anyway - -

Thing 11

2008-03-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

Referring to our last meeting, I use google docs for my translating projects (translating was my first college degree) because I can access it anywhere and I lose memory sticks (need better memory). Right now I'm translating a book from Finnish into English to be published in Finland, and edited by a bilingual American editor here. It wouldn't matter where, actually, because he collaborates via google docs. The ease of it! So would that qualify as a Thing 15 somehow, too? My editor and I don't fight much about detail, we've worked on many projects before, but somehow this method creates a neutral, professional sphere that reduces the possibility of friction further yet. Formatting is adequate for the task on hand although it lacks finesse.

Some of my own children seem to prefer Netvibes as a place for a homepage, it must be more current in their set somehow. I try to learn from what comes out of the mouths of babes, too.

Experiment

2008-03-08T17:08:00.001-08:00

Thought I should upload my picture for once, the real me. It's the best I've got.

Ok, so I was seven at the time back in Finland. Amazing how well these ancient archival photos retain their quality! Fun playing with the scanner.

More about LibraryThing and Me

2008-03-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

I've made progress in cataloging my books into LibraryThing and having fun on the way. Now I've started writing reviews in the reviews section, which can be read by anyone of the appr. 350 000 other users of the system, or by anyone browsing the library. You can search either your own library or the whole system with 23 million books at this time. Each time I catalog a book of mine I automatically see who else has the same book and can peek into their libraries, add them as "friends" or "interesting libraries", if I want. You can set your account as private but why? The more exposure the better, unless I start getting nasty comments, which you can flag.

You can also use the call numbers (both LC and Dewey), obtained by a simple click from Library of Congress, Amazon or one of the other 200 some databases and paste them on your books. I won't -- it's enough to get this invaluable, fabulous collection cataloged online and feel like I'm so Library 2.0 now --

I also joined "Librarians who Librarything" group. Support group for active bookworms.

Common good

2008-02-29T18:53:00.000-08:00

Can't help but mention that Wall Street Journal today (Friday, the 29th) has a thoughtful cover story in Weekend Journal praising the Finnish school system (other publications have had articles lately as well). Since OECD started testing 15-year-olds Finland has been close or at the top of their rankings. Of course over there people complain about schools constantly and lament (I've heard personally) that if this is as good as it gets, we are, as humans, in bad shape indeed--It's the ongoing process that's meaningful.

Another New Thing

2008-02-19T07:56:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with a new (new to me) Thing called LibraryThing. I'd heard about it already last summer by word of mouth (of a librarian), but I finally put my nose to the grindstone recently and started LibraryThinging, that is, cataloging my home library online. Currently, 50 books down, about 2000 more to go. Hey I'm counting my husband's and my children's too. Lots of items obtained in garage sales and library friends' used book sales. So far so good.

LibraryThing is a Web 2.0 application because of the social aspects in it. While registering, I identified myself as a Blogger participant, too. I'm learning more about that every day as I go, and the more I know, the better I like it. Good thing.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/exlibrisemk

Hurry up and wait

2008-01-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I signed up for the PLA National Conference to be held in Minneapolis this coming March, as a last minute "early bird". New vistas! Right now I'm most excited about attending the Friday luncheon meeting with Louise Erdrich, but the program is loaded with events I wish to attend. Now, what should I wear? I hope other MILI participants will come, too.

Beyond Fair Use?Lit/Folklore Instruction Aid? Enjoy the Widget!

2008-01-10T14:38:00.001-08:00

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

Good olde Led composed this piece on the basis of Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, who in turn received his inspiration from the Kalevala, the Finnish National Epic, ancient runes that were sung from generation to generation and gathered into a book in 1835. Eccentric British academics are nuts about Kalevala. So there, we're connected -- Finns, Brits, Led Zeppelin. Involves plagiarism and no concern whatsoever for copyrights. Grey area but brilliant results.

Praise the wiki

2008-01-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

Interesting session on wikis and copyright issues in our meeting -- only I went home as confused as ever on copyright issues, especially with the conceptual side of it, dissemination vs. copyright protection. - But wikis, well, I became convinced of the virtues, if the community of a particular wiki really can be restricted for privacy, and yet no signing up required like Google likes us to do for everything, market research I'm sure for the most part. Never any real time these days for a thing to stand the test of time, just intuition, common sense, instant information, peer review will do for guidance, I guess--

http://www.esnips.com/doc/3e316533-cdb0-4d5f-a9da-bd24b5e5723d/03.The-Battle-Of-Evermore

Thing 10 again

2008-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Just a quick additional comment on copyright - at least one may use 10% or 30 sec of anyone's (?) video clip under the terms of fair use any time, apparently, with no dire consequences. Given all that's available out there, those are stringent terms I think!

A New Thing -- e-books

2007-12-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

It seems that e-books get a more enthusiastic reception from students than from the more, hmh, mature persons, but how is it in practice? The teens in our house, otherwise avid readers, spend no time whatsoever on e-books although they seem to spend huge chunks of their lives staring at the screen. And do interactive features change the picture at all -- publishers keep trying but -- ? Informational e-books seem to have some following, if forced sometimes. Are they being purchased at an increasing rate for school libraries?

Thing 10

2007-12-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

Reading Thing 10 -- copyright and plagiarism -- is instructive and confusing at the same time, just like I remember it in library school classes, although there wasn't enough on copyrighting there in any consistent manner, only much about fair use, to encourage us to use material rather than not, I presume? Working at a publishing company opened my eyes to dangers in commercial use -- every scrap of text, drawings, photos could potentially be grounds for a lawsuit if improperly used, and much time and effort went on checking back to ensure that no copyright law was violated. This was an arduous process when dealing with Hollywood, Disney and such; say, you want to use production stills for a children's book and need to somehow contact Tom Cruise's people -- shudder, shudder--

Still, it had to be done and was done, and of course, it's really better that way in the end, unless the item is truly in public domain and that takes a long time--

In school environment plagiarism is certainly more of an issue and well worth watching for.

Burn, Baby, Burn

2007-11-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

Now I think I learned a new skill the other day -- Marcia decided to burn a Discovery Streaming video onto a DVD for a teacher -- a learning opportunity because nobody seemed to have done it yet. With Jamie's assistance -- also a novice at this -- that video was burned onto the DVD after some trial and error experimenting involving segments. Apparently they have to be downloaded into the computer first segment by segment before dealing with the whole lot. We also learned that patience is a virtue -- need to wait quite a while for the DVD icon to appear before sallying forth.

Thing 4

2007-11-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

Public libraries and I have a long, stable relationship -- when our children were little I practically lived in public libraries, visited several children's departments by turns and picked the best storyteller (that was in Ridgedale library at that time). These days you don't even have to rush in to sign up for storytime in person when the library opens up! That was exciting but stressful.
Ask librarian works great -- love that guaranteed response in 24 h that many libraries offer.
It seems that the step from a user of a school library to a user of a public library is a small one, so encouraging.

Hitches

1. Fines. Well, if you only have three measly weeks for books and one little week for videos & DVD's -- even if you follow up closely by whatever means necessary, like Libraryelf as introduced by Ann at the meeting, time just runs out, especially with children who borrow 15 comic books which you hunt down under couches and car seats --
A Solution: October Forgiveness Program -- before Halloween, remember to have all fines wiped out for anyone under 18 -- it can be done online, too, my teens just did.
2. Yes, you can borrow from any library in the 7 county metropolitan area, and I've registered my card in most systems, but it still pays to go and pick the items up in a library in a particular system rather than rely on the slow interlibrary loan system. Which takes valuable gas and time. Also, and this is yet another human failing here, but I lose my library card here and there and once you do, you have to go personally to a library in each system to have it changed -- it is not automatic at all. I just ran into it again.
A Solution: Hmm, can't think of any on my part --

Avatar and Rosetta Stone

2007-11-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

Responding to the comment (LOVE getting comments!) about the avatar -- the dreamcatcher background reflects my desire to be another foot soldier spreading the good word about how our blogs, wikis, Facebooks, Beboes, podcasts, Google, etc. other "it" things of the given moments are really on the same literacy/communication continuum with books and how important and handy it is to try to have them all support one another, using them with common sense. -- I actually heard a teacher spell B-O-O-K one day to a student, slightly frustrated, but only slightly, I so admire teachers' patience. They and librarians work on the above every day! -- I forgot the spectacles, it must be possible to add them on the avatar afterwards. I use them to do cataloging at my new workstation here at Harding.

And if I go back, really back here to the real Rosetta stone -- I happened to take a look at it again at the British Museum in September on my way -- it is relevant all right. As a native Finnish (Finno-Ugric language) speaker I have had to learn the hieroglyphs of several (Indo-European) languages just to communicate in the world, and English is not the end all and be all although it functions fairly well as a lingua franca at this time. Then again when I attended my (Finnish) nephew's wedding in France, the working languages were French, Finnish, German and Polish. I google a lot in Finnish, of course, Google is so multilingual. Here at Harding Hmong and Spanish, e.g. function as working languages, with American English as lingua franca. But the automatic translations in Google - C'est horrible! Still, they do the rough work. Google works!

About the Required Things

2007-10-27T19:43:00.001-07:00

Being shy about my physical appearance, it took a while to decide on an idealized, yet realistic avatar with unrealistic, but beautiful dreams, right. That and not having made one before -- What strikes me most about information literacy in practice here in a high school library vis-a-vis my library training background is how down to the wire one must go to have any impact. The students have plenty of exposure to sources of information, especially online, but a short attention span in general (exceptions abound, too) when it comes to conducting on organized search for a project on hand. Repetition works when few choice options are given; the number of choices is so overwhelming to students. Library school teaches appreciation of solid databases, like those by Ebsco, to find out about practically anything you want to know, but kids mistakenly think using them takes labor -- well no, and I saw some students using Jstor, great, it has pretty general stuff, not that scholarly or anything. Hey, somebody did go and organize information, one doesn't have to flail around so much on the web, what a revelation!

I like the Website Evaluation handout from the October 10th meeting with a clear set of questions, and short.

Start

2007-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

My excitement at actually being asked to do a blog in a real blog community was somewhat tempered by minor practical glitches, but I shall not go there. The lingering jet lag is finally lifting, and I'm going onward full tilt under the tutelage of Her Majesty here in the library, whom I recently heard talking about Thing 14, reliable online resources, convincingly to a class, and Thing 13, subscription databases. They are, as usual, underused by students and it takes some persuasion to convert students to using them, as easy as they are and available. - Now, let's see if this comment actually posts before I go onward with pics and stuff.