The LetterJames site is pretty cool. I love sending e-cards. Personalizing them is a lot of fun...
LetterJames E-card
Friday, November 21, 2008
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!
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