I've been meaning to subscribe to a couple more podcasts for a while. I love having a hefty stash of good podcasts to listen to on long car rides. So, I signed up for the NPR StoryCorps and This American Life podcasts.
I love the idea of having gallery tour podcasts available for download. It's like your own personal audioguide but you don't have to worry about what kind of cooties the last user had. Perfect!
I want to give a big THANK YOU to Katherine for organizing such a wonderful professional development program for the VHS. We didn't have to fly across the country or stay in a hotel, but we got some great education right on our own turf. What could be better!?
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Week 8: Google has got it all!
I'm a big fan of all things Google. I love Gmail and Google Talk and Picasa. I'm now lovin' Google Documents too. Collaborating on projects just got a little bit easier.
I can definitely foresee using this at the VHS. I know that revising the Digital Imaging Policy is somewhere in my future. Anyone want to join me?
I can definitely foresee using this at the VHS. I know that revising the Digital Imaging Policy is somewhere in my future. Anyone want to join me?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Week 7: It just keeps getting better
I think the VHS wiki is pure genius! Thanks to all who heeded my call to sign up for the Lumpkin's Jail tour through the wiki. Didn't it work well?!
I'm thinking I might add a page to the wiki that tells you what to do if you scan a collection item. My motto as image guru is scan it once, scan it for keeps. So, if someone on staff takes the time to make a good scan of something (maybe I ought to spell out what constitutes a good scan), I would love for them to send it to me so that I can file it away for the future. But I need more than just the Tiff. I'll have to post the laundry list of metadata that need to accompany every image so that we can all help build our digital collection.
I'm thinking I might add a page to the wiki that tells you what to do if you scan a collection item. My motto as image guru is scan it once, scan it for keeps. So, if someone on staff takes the time to make a good scan of something (maybe I ought to spell out what constitutes a good scan), I would love for them to send it to me so that I can file it away for the future. But I need more than just the Tiff. I'll have to post the laundry list of metadata that need to accompany every image so that we can all help build our digital collection.
Week 6: Easy as pie
MySpace -- check!
Facebook -- check!
Meebo -- check!
I must admit that Facebook has won out over MySpace. No contest really. I like how I can be a "fan" of VHS on FB rather than being a "friend" of VHS on MySpace. It just makes more sense. I do wish there was a better forum for a blog on Facebook since I think that we've done some pretty nice blogs on the VHS MySpace page.
I love meebo. I love the idea of being able to IM the reference desk. Some folks might not understand why someone would want to IM rather than pick up a phone and call. I talk to patrons on the phone quite regularly and I often end up saying, give me your email address and I'll send you a link to our forms, or our catalog, or whatever. I would imagine that our librarians often do the same sort of thing. When you're IMing you can have a conversation with the regular back and forth flow, but you can also beef it up with links.
Since I was already using Facebook, MySpace and Meebo, I thought I'd better try something new for this week's exercise. I signed up for LinkedIn. Once I get some connections it might be a neat tool. I can't really tell yet. I have located some people who I haven't found on Facebook, so there is potential here.
Facebook -- check!
Meebo -- check!
I must admit that Facebook has won out over MySpace. No contest really. I like how I can be a "fan" of VHS on FB rather than being a "friend" of VHS on MySpace. It just makes more sense. I do wish there was a better forum for a blog on Facebook since I think that we've done some pretty nice blogs on the VHS MySpace page.
I love meebo. I love the idea of being able to IM the reference desk. Some folks might not understand why someone would want to IM rather than pick up a phone and call. I talk to patrons on the phone quite regularly and I often end up saying, give me your email address and I'll send you a link to our forms, or our catalog, or whatever. I would imagine that our librarians often do the same sort of thing. When you're IMing you can have a conversation with the regular back and forth flow, but you can also beef it up with links.
Since I was already using Facebook, MySpace and Meebo, I thought I'd better try something new for this week's exercise. I signed up for LinkedIn. Once I get some connections it might be a neat tool. I can't really tell yet. I have located some people who I haven't found on Facebook, so there is potential here.
Week 5: Not nearly as exciting
I cannot tell a lie. I'm just not all that jazzed by Delicious or Technorati. I'll take Delicious over Technorati if I must choose one of them. Delicious did lead me to an interesting photo story about the floods in Venice...who knew that on Monday Venice was under more water than it's been under in 22 years? How did I miss that?
So, earlier this year I participated in a couple of online courses and the instructor had put together a Delicious page with bookmarks for helpful sites. Using Delicoius as a training tool...now that's tasty!
So, earlier this year I participated in a couple of online courses and the instructor had put together a Delicious page with bookmarks for helpful sites. Using Delicoius as a training tool...now that's tasty!
Week 4: So much to explore!
What would we do without the Internet? I don't know about you, but I'm completely hooked. The sites we had to check out this week only re-energized my addiction. There's so much cool stuff out there!
LetterJames - fun. Not all that helpful for work stuff, but fun nonetheless.
Flickr Toys - So many cool things to do with your images. I want to make a puzzle! I find the list of top digital cameras interesting, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's not a ranking of the best cameras on the market, but just the most popular ones used to take pics that end up on Flickr.
LibraryThing - A neat way to get our library out there. Just out of curiosity, how much activity do we see on our LT page?
Rollyo - This seems useful if you wanted to set up a very specific search. I don't see myself using it. I'll stick with Google.
Jott & RememberTheMilk - Cool in theory but it seems like it would take longer to set up the programs than it is worth. I'm going to stick with the old post-it system.
Live Mocha - I took the test and was recommended for French 202. I'm pretty sure that's the same class I barely got through my freshman year of college. I may have maxed out my foreign language capacity. Very cool site though!
Web 2.0 Award Winners - I'm definitely going to spend some more time checking these out. I took a brief look around and discovered Farecast. What a cool site! It tells you whether plane tickets will go up or down in price and when you should buy. Looks like I'll be waiting a while to buy tickets to Vegas for March. I'm also liking what I see at UrbanSpoon. I found more info about Mezzanine in Carytown from this site than I did from a Google search. I love restaurant feedback. I'm going to use this in conjunction with my one of my other favorite sites Chowhound.
LetterJames - fun. Not all that helpful for work stuff, but fun nonetheless.
Flickr Toys - So many cool things to do with your images. I want to make a puzzle! I find the list of top digital cameras interesting, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's not a ranking of the best cameras on the market, but just the most popular ones used to take pics that end up on Flickr.
LibraryThing - A neat way to get our library out there. Just out of curiosity, how much activity do we see on our LT page?
Rollyo - This seems useful if you wanted to set up a very specific search. I don't see myself using it. I'll stick with Google.
Jott & RememberTheMilk - Cool in theory but it seems like it would take longer to set up the programs than it is worth. I'm going to stick with the old post-it system.
Live Mocha - I took the test and was recommended for French 202. I'm pretty sure that's the same class I barely got through my freshman year of college. I may have maxed out my foreign language capacity. Very cool site though!
Web 2.0 Award Winners - I'm definitely going to spend some more time checking these out. I took a brief look around and discovered Farecast. What a cool site! It tells you whether plane tickets will go up or down in price and when you should buy. Looks like I'll be waiting a while to buy tickets to Vegas for March. I'm also liking what I see at UrbanSpoon. I found more info about Mezzanine in Carytown from this site than I did from a Google search. I love restaurant feedback. I'm going to use this in conjunction with my one of my other favorite sites Chowhound.
Friday, November 21, 2008
LetterJames
The LetterJames site is pretty cool. I love sending e-cards. Personalizing them is a lot of fun...
LetterJames E-card
LetterJames E-card
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Week 3: RSS and Blog finders
I've been using iGoogle for at least a year now. I like it. It keeps all the good stuff at my fingertips...my Gmail, the weather, my NPR feeds, Google Maps, a link to the oh-so-useful dictionary.com and wikipedia. Lately, I've even had my Google Reader report to iGoogle. Everything is in once place! It's great!
I checked out both Topix.net and Syndic8.com. Since I like to read about food, I searched for "food" on both sites. Topix turned up some interesting articles from newspapers in Seattle and Cincinnati about stuffing vs. dressing and Christmas cookies (apparently it's already time to be thinking about which types you'll make this year). I can see how this tool is helpful if you're searching for media coverage on a very specific topic. I don't foresee using it regularly and aside from it being a useful tool at the reference desk or maybe for exhibit/development/education research, I don't see it being too useful to the VHS either.
Syndic8 led me to some interesting blogs about food. I immediately flocked to megnut.com. "Meg" + food = nutmeg = megnut. The writer, also named "Meg", seems to have the same heart ties to my favorite spice and probably for the same reason. I have some friends that still call me Nutmeg...even when I thought I'd gotten rid of most of the nut in my system. Anyway, megnut.com seems interesting so I added the RSS feed to my Google Reader. I hope my counterpart in NYC has interesting things to say, otherwise she's gettin' cut. Again, Syndic8 is an interesting tool and good to know how to use, but I don't think it'll be all that valuable to the VHS.
I checked out both Topix.net and Syndic8.com. Since I like to read about food, I searched for "food" on both sites. Topix turned up some interesting articles from newspapers in Seattle and Cincinnati about stuffing vs. dressing and Christmas cookies (apparently it's already time to be thinking about which types you'll make this year). I can see how this tool is helpful if you're searching for media coverage on a very specific topic. I don't foresee using it regularly and aside from it being a useful tool at the reference desk or maybe for exhibit/development/education research, I don't see it being too useful to the VHS either.
Syndic8 led me to some interesting blogs about food. I immediately flocked to megnut.com. "Meg" + food = nutmeg = megnut. The writer, also named "Meg", seems to have the same heart ties to my favorite spice and probably for the same reason. I have some friends that still call me Nutmeg...even when I thought I'd gotten rid of most of the nut in my system. Anyway, megnut.com seems interesting so I added the RSS feed to my Google Reader. I hope my counterpart in NYC has interesting things to say, otherwise she's gettin' cut. Again, Syndic8 is an interesting tool and good to know how to use, but I don't think it'll be all that valuable to the VHS.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Week 2: Flickr
I've been putting off blogging about Flickr. As the keeper of the images around here, I feel like I ought to have something profound to say about this image-centric portal of Web 2.0. Alas, I do not have a final decision about this one.
The VHS restricts the size of the images that we put on the web. In most cases we shrink our images to 72 dpi at a maximum of 400 x 600 pixels. This is the size of the images you see in the online catalog. They fit nicely onto your screen and do not require any scrolling. Anyone who purchases an image and receives permission from the VHS to put one of our images onto their website must abide by the same specs. We trust that they do.
We're also trusting the world not to abuse the low-res images that we do put on the web. It's a risk that the VHS is willing to take in exchange for a little exposure. Putting more images on the web can be a really good thing for us. I've seen it first hand. I'll add an image to the catalog one day and then I'll get a photo order for the image within a month or so. It doesn't happen with every image, but it happens enough that I know that putting images on our site certainly helps bring in photo orders...and a little revenue.
So, is the VHS ready for the exposure that comes with Flickr? Yes. I think so. I think it could be good for us. It might bring in more orders. It might bring in more patrons. I don't think anyone would be against either of those things.
But is VHS ready to take on the extra work of loading and monitoring the images on Flickr? No. I don't think so. We can barely keep up with the posting of images on our own site. I can't imagine trying to load, tag, label, credit and check in on Flickr too. There are a lot of really cool things that the VHS could do with our images, but we just don't have the Visual Services staff to do it all...yet!
The VHS restricts the size of the images that we put on the web. In most cases we shrink our images to 72 dpi at a maximum of 400 x 600 pixels. This is the size of the images you see in the online catalog. They fit nicely onto your screen and do not require any scrolling. Anyone who purchases an image and receives permission from the VHS to put one of our images onto their website must abide by the same specs. We trust that they do.
We're also trusting the world not to abuse the low-res images that we do put on the web. It's a risk that the VHS is willing to take in exchange for a little exposure. Putting more images on the web can be a really good thing for us. I've seen it first hand. I'll add an image to the catalog one day and then I'll get a photo order for the image within a month or so. It doesn't happen with every image, but it happens enough that I know that putting images on our site certainly helps bring in photo orders...and a little revenue.
So, is the VHS ready for the exposure that comes with Flickr? Yes. I think so. I think it could be good for us. It might bring in more orders. It might bring in more patrons. I don't think anyone would be against either of those things.
But is VHS ready to take on the extra work of loading and monitoring the images on Flickr? No. I don't think so. We can barely keep up with the posting of images on our own site. I can't imagine trying to load, tag, label, credit and check in on Flickr too. There are a lot of really cool things that the VHS could do with our images, but we just don't have the Visual Services staff to do it all...yet!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Blogging Day 1
I must credit Chris VanTassell for my screen name "Jpeg Meg". It seems quite appropriate and is much kinder than the many other Meg rhymes that have been used in years past. Thanks Chris.
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