Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The End...of the beginning...?! (...of the End...?!)

Whew, what a rollercoaster....!
Wrappin' it up, indeed...........

Plenty discovered, plenty new horizons & avenues, though didn't yet quite find a replacement for the wheel amongst all these new 'tools'...!

AND the biggest drawback/shortcoming of this whole Library 2.0 project: EVERYONE knows that the truly creative types all use Macs not PCs yet there was much explored through this that was not compatible with Macs, and I won't even be able to download audio books at home with my Mac...

Let's hear about linux and other open source options too! Let's figure out how to end the tyranny of Microsoft!

But otherwise, yahoo! Will I keep posting to this blog? Branch out into actual life, like should I tell you all about Folklife this weekend, and then the KCLS branch bowling party....?
Nay, that is for another saga, another time, but maybe you can see the video on YouTube....!

O'er AND OUTAHERE......................!!!

rahsaan!

Google docs & online (app.) award winners

ah, the manifold wondrous ways that the creative have come up with to help us waste time....!
(Ok, there ARE useful apps being created: google transit DOES seem to work as well as seattle metro (maybe?) and Pandora is a great way to find music similar to what you like...
though not so sure about "Coverpop" which seems to mash together a million pix of guitars or mad magazine covers or "google music trends" which just tells me the most superficial (i.e., the most popular) musicians and groups others are currently searching for.
But yay for "Lulu" where one can publish their own book!
And the metasearch book search engines are old hat for us, naturally!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

rah rah google docs

Yea, HERE'S a true 'killer ap': something to defeat the tyranny of microsoft, and for us public librarians not having to sweat over different versions of word, excel etc. when helping folks with their documents saved...etc.

VIVA! (only wish I had something in particular to write about when experimenting with these tools!)

Library #.oh

SOOOO, there are certainly plenty of experts in this library 2.0 world...Rick Anderson of Reno Libraries talks about having to do something since his library has seen "a 55 % drop in circulation rates" -- sheesh, don't see THAT kind of problem at KCLS!

AND "O'Reilly argues that 'every significant internet application to date has been backed by a specialized database." WOW, wish we could get examples of what this means...!

I DO like John Reimer's urging public libraries to adopt the model of Amazon with patrons potentially writing their own reviews of our books, etc.

BUT Dr. Wendy Schultz writes about Library THREE point oh where "books themselves may have avatars and online personalities."....! whew, then she goes further to lib 4.0 and a library with 'comfortable chairs, quiet, good light,..." hmmm, "the more things change, the more they stay the same" eh...?!

BUT ANYWAY: whatsmatta with an official encyclopedia written by EXPERTS?! This democratization of everything tends to reduce value of everything...can't we still have traditional 'monotheistic' omniscient sources?!!
Where's the objective correlative (to cite TS Eliot, that bore!)

go thou & digest & discuss....(!)