So Easy a Caveman Can Do It

Please view and comment on this video.

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This is my first experimental use of Camtasia 3 (available for free download at Techsmith) to make a video. This video may be a bit primitive, so please send any suggestions you have to improve it.

Blu-Ray DVD's are here!

Hi Everybody!

We've now have 3 Blu-Ray DVD's in circulation! This is a trial to see whether these DVD's would circulate well or not. Springville Road Library has 2 BD movies (Stealth and The Guardian) and Inglenook Library has 1 BD movie (Corpse Bride). As a reminder, these Blu-Ray Disc can only be played on Blu-Ray DVD players. Please pass this information along! Awesome picture!

Thanks!

FileUrl

As I was browsing Google Reader, I found this website called FileUrls. This site allows people to share files from one computer to another by giving a unique URL. This URL is only good for up to 7 days. You can also choose to password protect it as well.

Extranet for Librarians

See what Hennepin County Library does for the library community:

http://www.hclib.org/extranet/

Welcome

Michael,
Glad to have you aboard.

PC Magazine's 100 Favorite Blogs

We probably all saw PC Magazine's Top 100 Undiscovered and Classic websites. As I was reading a blog, I came across a link to PC Magazine's 100 Favorite Blogs. Click on the link below.

PC Magazine 100 Favorite Blogs

New L2 Crew Member

I hope you all will help me welcome Michael Fagin as a new member to our L2 Crew group. Michael will be a great asset to our group and I look forward to working with him.

Welcome Michael!

Tech Tuesdays and RLCC

Sandi Lee has notified us that there will be Tech Tuesdays in March, April and May of 2008. She has asked for our (RLCC) assistance in developing classes that would coincide with the workshop being held on Tuesdays. Sandi has suggested that on the Tuesday before we teach the class in the RLCC, that the Tech Tuesday subject that day be on what we will cover during our class. Tech Tuesday will be just a brief introduction to that particular application and our class will go into more detail. For instance, on one Tuesday the subject of Tech Tuesday would be on YouTube. On the following Monday or Tuesday, the RLCC will teach a two hour class on YouTube. Janice asked me to get everyones input on what "Web 2.0" applications need to be covered during this time. There will be two Tech Tuesdays per month. I know we need to do Flickr, YouTube and Blogs. Is there anything else that could possibly be a good program and class to have for these dates? Possibly Wikis or Internet Radio?

BPL Digital Camera Clinic on blip.tv

The BPL Digital Camera Clinic is now on Blip.tv. Images from the PowerPoint were used and then narration was added using Microsoft Photo Story 3 . Since Photo Story 3 lends itself to visuals, a few more CC images were added as well.

Check out the videos:

BPL DCC Part 1: Introduction & getting to know the camera.

BPL DCC Part 2: Composition Techniques

BPL DCC Part 3: Downloading images to a PC

BPL DCC Part 4: Uploading images to Flickr

Linking Problem

Melinda and I ran into a problem yesterday when we tried to link BPL@Night in a blog entry. Blogger sees the @ symbol and assumes it's an e-mail address. When we tried to change the mail to: to http:, the URL was placed into the blog entry in the place of BPL@Night. We never could seem to tweak our way around the problem.

I hope this makes sense. I'm not so good at explaining technical problems. Any of you tech wizards have any suggestions? Kathy? Richard? Heeelp.

Photography Contest?

Sometimes I think that our staff gets wrapped up in what they are doing and forget to take photos.

To encourage people to take pictures at BPL, what do you think of a photography contest to choose the best pictures taken at BPL 2007 -2008. Photos might show displays, programs, candid shots of a staff member, or anything else at the library.

A selection committee may set up a few categories (like best staff shot, best display shot,...) or set it up as a best photo of the season (fall, winter, spring, summer). The top picks from the categories or season could be voted on by staff and the best picture award could be given at next year’s staff day.

In addition to recognition and adoration during staff day, maybe a small prize could be arranged for the best picture winner.

How to enter: post the photos on the Flickr upload account and tag them.

Photos judged on visual appeal, clarity & creativity?

Any ideas, opinions, or suggestions on this?

Cool tools for webmasters

I attended this session and there were wonderful links that we may be able to use. Thought I would share with you all.

Cool Tools for Library Webmasters - Internet Librarian 2007
Neat tools for library webmasters to help design, publish, code sites, share ideas, etc.

Need to copy a full webpage?

There is a great feature with Picnik.com where you can add an extension in Firefox (if you are lucky enough to have it loaded on your computer) and copy the full page of a webpage. Really cool and useful.

http://www.picnik.com/info/tools

Flickr Mashups

This looks like a good Flickr resource to bookmark:

http://www.programmableweb.com/api/flickr/mashups

Create stories online

I learned about this site at the Internet Librarian and thought it might be a fun way to create very short stories for children. It looks easy to use.

http://www.kerpoof.com/

Harper Lee blog post

Would someone like to volunteer to write a blog post about Harper Lee winning the Medal of Freedom with links to her book in the catalog and a mention about the entire county reading her book next year including a link to the JCLC Big Read info site?

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2007/11/medal_of_freedom_goes_to_state.html

Screencast-O-Matic.com

Screencast-O-Matic is an interesting free online screen-casting website.

With the features it has, we could use it for many types of training tutorials. It records video from the computer screen and sound from a microphone. The tutorials can be up to 15 minutes long. Once created Screencast-O-Matic will host it for us or we can save it as a quick time file.

After experimenting with it I have found it works pretty well and I see a number of applications for this technology. Here is my first attempt of screencasting the Camera Clinic part 1 (of 4). http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/ciXnifHr . Parts 2-4 are almost finished as well.

What do you think? There is a little buzz in the background, but if a USB microphone is used this should be eliminated. There may also be some editing that can be done to the quick time files for a more polished video and sound.

I think that after a little more experience a variety of quick personalized tutorials could be made with this site.

RLCC and Web 2.0 Classes

The RLCC will be revamping its class offerings beginning in January 2008. One of the classes that we will be offering is a "Library 2.0" class for staff and a "Web 2.0" class for public. So for the "Library 2.0" class, this will be our opportunity to push the current Web 2.0 services that we currently are working on and it is a means of educating the staff on what these services can do for the library in general. I am working on a handout, to be given out to to the staff and public. I probably will make the handout for the staff a little different than the one for the public. Anyway, I thought I would give a heads up on what is going on in the RLCC.

Library 2.0 Core Competencies

Yesterday a speaker listed the core competencies for a library 2.0 library or group. I thought I would share the list with you since I believe our L2 Crew has these qualities.

Wanna (as in you want to do this)
Initiate
Communicate
Collaborate
Independent
Confident
Entrepreneur

So...pat yourself on the back and keep up the good work!

Shaking in Monterey

Yikes. I just experienced my first earthquake. It was very minor but being on the 7th floor I felt it and it scared the heck out of me. My desk and walls were swaying.

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40204628/ciim_display.html

Using a wiki for the library's intranet?

I have been contemplating this question for quite awhile. So I had to go and hear how one library did just that. After hearing two librarians discuss how they set it up for their library I came away with some new thoughts and questions.

I do think it would be easier for more staff to be able to add and edit content for our intranet. Of course there is still the issue of a learning curve for staff. But it is a way to let those who are actually creating the content to be able to add to the intranet without having to send it in to me or to someone else who has FrontPage and access to the server.

One idea I had was to have a mashup of sorts and have a wiki as part of our intranet. Some of the things used by this particular library is a place for putting up files for all staff to see such as ideas for crafts, teen reads, and tutorials. It would be a good way to keep notes, display exhibit ideas, security alerts with descriptions of problem patrons (they actually put up photos from their security cameras).

One cool idea is a place for staff profiles with photos, background, and contact information.

I think it is something to think about and something to consider.

Does anyone have thoughts on this idea?

Internet Librarian Conference Highlights

Greetings L2 Crew from Monterey.

I am writing from the Internet Librarian Conference where about 1500 people are in attendance. So far, I have heard about many cool things other libraries are doing and some ideas for us to think about. First of all, I have to say we are right in the top mix with what other public libraries are doing and that is thanks to all of you!

In Online Marketing: Outreach and PR most of the suggestions are things we are already doing. Yea! Some sites we need to check to make sure we are listed are: Wikimapia, Blogdigger and in Google under “link:www.bplonline.org”.

To find out what our patrons are saying in social review sites and to respond to any remarks, we need to check such sites as yelp, citysearch, judy’s book, insiderdpages, and local2me.

Another way to reach out is to identify yourself as a librarian from BPL and answer questions posted on internet boards. In fact on Tuesdays, librarians are “slamming” the boards to show that librarians have the answers and it is all free. Some of the boards mentioned: Ask Meta Filter and Answer Board Librarians. We could also list staff members by name who are experts in various free expert finding tools such as allexperts.com, ziki, and illumio.

We need to make sure our wifi service is listed in: wififreespot, wifihotspot, wifi411, wiwinder, jiwire, wi-fi zone. Once we have all our locations hooked up for wifi, we will need to go back and edit these sites.

We need to push our info OUT via email and RSS The best way to get the word out about signing up for email is to acquire email addresses through sign-up sheets at all the events we participate in such as neighborhood meetings, festivals, etc. People are more likely to sign-up that they want to get a newsletter or want to receive our blogs via email by adding their email address to a paper list.

We can list our contact information in online directories such as Askcity, Yahoo! Local, and google maps.

Other things mentioned to push our info out: instant messaging, text messaging, youtube, google video, blip.tv, blinkx, singingfish.

With podzinger it is possible to transcribe audio content. Debbie is looking into a local person doing our transcriptions but if that doesn’t work out, we need to look at this and see if it is a good option to use.

We could look at twitter to see if we see any use for it for us. It could be one way to answer reference type questions.

That was just one session. Whew! I will post more later.

Cool Online Tools From Pcmag.com

Here are some sites that I have found interesting and useful from the Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites at PCMag.

http://www.makeuseof.com/ writes about any new web applications that it considers cool, useful, and accessible.

bubbl.us is a free website to help you collaboratively brainstorm and organize ideas online. An online meeting of ideas on a subject.

http://www.zamzar.com/ convert files without the need to download software. Ever had a patron come in with a file in Microsoft Works or some other file format and cannot open it on our public PCs? All you get it gibberish??? The next time this happens consider http://www.zamzar.com/. Zamzar supports conversion between a wide variety of different file formats and are adding support for other formats all the time.

Online Collaboration Tools

Here is a great resource for locating online tools to help with project collaboration.

http://mashable.com/2007/07/22/online-collaboration/

The only link in the group that I have used so far is gliffy.
http://www.gliffy.com/

Project ideas and brainstorming

I created a page on our wiki for everyone to list and discuss possible project ideas. If you have any ideas, interests, or thoughts about new projects, this is a great place to discuss them.

TechMixer 4.0

Thought you all might want to know about this event coming up. I went to the last techmixer and it was interesting and fun.

TechMixer 4.0 Unplugged
11.6.07 @ 5:30 pm
Innovation Depot
1500 1st Avenue North
Birmingham, AL

No Suits, No Booths, No Bags

Mark your calendar for TechMixer 4.0, Tuesday, November 6th at 5:30 p.m. This casual event will bring together Birmingham's tech crowd to meet fellow professionals, network, and share ideas.

Join us at Innovation Depot, the newest hotspot for Birmingham tech companies and a great place to throw a party!

Enjoy live music, finger food, and a cash bar while you meet and mingle with other tech-minded professionals in a fun and laid-back environment.

The last TechMixer drew over 600 attendees, so remember to forward this invitation to your friends and colleagues. You won't want to miss it.
As always, there's no cost to attend!
Register To Attend

http://www.techbirmingham.com/default.aspx?id=171

Our future patrons?

Helping to get the word out

In order for administration and the coordinators to keep up with what our L2 Crew is creating, questioning, and exploring, I am inviting all of them to join in reading our blog and our wiki.

So please keep us all informed with the status of your projects via the wiki and continue to bring to our attention the cool new tools, articles, and questions that come up by blogging on our L2 Crew blog.

Thanks!

Wiki for Paraprofessionals

This is just a note to let everyone know that Robert is the process of creating a wiki for the LAIIs so be on the look out for it soon!

Projects, tasks, software and hardware

Hello All.

I needed a way to keep up with our accomplishments so I created a page for reports on our wiki. I hope to start doing this on a monthly basis. The first reports covers the period from our creation as a group through Sept. 30.

I listed all the things I could think of but I know I am missing some. Would you take a look, make additions and/or edits?

http://bplondemand.pbwiki.com/Report+July+18-Sept+30

Thanks!

Grab Bag on the Wiki

Since everyone is always coming up with interesting things to blog on our BPL News, Reviews & Info Blog, I'm going to create a Grab Bag section on the wiki where we can add ideas as soon as we think of them. Even L2 Crew members who don't normally blog there should feel free to post some ideas. Someone else might take it and run with it.

If you want to be the one to create the entry on that particular subject, just put your name next to it. Listing potential entries and works in progress will ensure that two people aren't working on the same idea. Nothing worse than putting sweat, blood, and tears into an entry only to discover someone else is, too.

Jing

Kathy, please take a look at this site and tell me what you think of Jing. I haven't had time to look too closely at it, but it looks like a good product. I'd like to create a short video using screenshots for ILL instruction and I'm sure I'll need your help. I hope you'll make time for me later when I have a chance to start on it.

Library 2.0 Roundup

A compilation of blog posts concerning Library 2.0.

Library 2.0 Roundup

Instructional Blog Entry about Placing Holds

Has a blog entry ever been done instructing patrons on how to place holds on the catalog? We get a lot of patrons needing holds placed on books and, of course, DVDs. In talking to them we discover that they either don't understood how or don't even know they can place holds themselves.

I always steer them towards placing holds themselves because this saves a lot of manpower. I bet Richard could write a fantastic instructional entry on how easy it is. ~wink wink~

Blip.TV

Melinda and I were on IM this afternoon and she mentioned Blip.TV as a place to store our videos. I found this article about how Blip.TV ranks first in PC World in the quality of its video.

http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20070829/4760/

Photo Developments - August 29 2007

• After looking at other photo sharing websites, there does not seem to be any advantage to using them over Flickr to upload images. Since Melinda and I are already familiar with Flickr, using this service as a holding spot for images being sent in is currently the best option.
• A Flickr account for us to upload photos to has been set up. (bplonlinepics). The account is set to accept photos in private mode by default. The upload email for this account is called24always@photos.flickr.com .
• The hands-on photo workshop, "BPL Camera Clinic," is ready. It includes instructions on taking photos, connecting the camera to the computer, and uploading images to Flickr using the uploader. I guess it is about time to start considering dates for the training.
• Instructions for installing Flickr uploader are complete. The install is straightforward and should be a simple procedure for any CSL.

Great Job on BPL's First Podcast!

After listening to the first podcast, all I can say is great job. The sound and editing was well done. The topic and associated blog entry were interesting.

Article: The Future of the Workplace: No Office, Headquarters in Cyberspace

Imagine a work world with no commute, no corporate headquarters and perhaps not even an office in the physical world at all.

rest of article

E-LEARNING : TRAIN YOUR STAFF THE NEWFANGLED WAY

Are any of you planning on attending the E-Learning: Train Your Staff the New-Fangled Way September 19th, ULC Audio Conference ?

It sounds very Library 2.0. Helene Blowers is to be on the panel.

Can't just back out of L2 Crew blog?

Just a slight irritation, but when I'm ready to leave the L2 Crew blog, I can't just click on "back" but have to hit "view" and "go to" to exit. I don't have to do this for any of the other blogs on my Dashboard.

Does the poll have anything to do with this? It seems like it started happening about the same time as Richard posting the poll. Or does my tinfoil hat just need some minor adjusting?

Social Networking 101 posts on the Staff Blog

Thanks for noticing the "Social Networking 101" post on the staff blog.

My hope is this will be a series of posts that can introduce more Web 2.0 ideas to the staff. This would be similar to other blogs that have simlar entries like The Internet can Change Your Life and Learning 2.1 except on a much smaller scale.

Wiki Updates

I have added a list of web pages that contains lists of Web 2.0 applications. I have also added the links that were mentioned on this blog. Tressa has also made quite a few changes and it looks great. I have also added a link to the BPL Staff blog.

Photography 2.0 Developments

Since the last update:

• Bob, Melinda and I met to discuss methods to share photos. A shared network drive and Picasa were set up to find out if this would work for sharing our photos.
• As of right now, I am not optimistic about using Picasa. The application was intended for individual use and testing so far has been disappointing. Using the program is frustratingly slow over the network and at our locations with slower connections this may be worse. The way Picasa tags with keywords is another drawback of using this program. If the image is moved from the folder, renamed, or edited the keywords are often lost.
• The other option that Melinda suggested , using another Flickr account along with the Flickr uploader, looks like the better way to proceed. I am testing this method right now.
• Not all branches are using the Cannon A550. There are at least 4 models of cameras that have been purchased at for staff to take photos. Since the majority of the cameras are the A550 model , the BPL photo workshop will focus on this camera, but should be generic enough to apply to any digital camera.
• The hands-on photo workshop, codenamed "BPL Camera Clinic," needs just a little more tweaking, but should be ready by early next week. Due to the hands on nature of the workshop, the number of participants per session will need to be limited. We may need to do these workshops region by region.
• Once we have one of the BPL Camera Clinic workshops, we could add the slideshow to the intranet or staff blog. A podcast of the program to accompany the slideshow may be possible as well.

Once again, I would also like to encourage any ideas you may want to share on the photography front.

Blogs and Libraries

Interesting article.

http://www.infotoday.com/MLS/nov03/fichter.shtml

LibraryThing

This is a great site.

What is LibraryThing?

Enter what you're reading or your whole library—it's an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things.

Go ahead and take the tour.

What's good?

• Meet the world's largest book club. Find people with eerily similar tastes.
• Catalog with Amazon, the Library of Congress or 82 other world libraries. Import from anywhere.
• Get recommendations. Tag your books and explore others' tags.
• Put your books on your blog.
• Enter 200 books for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life).

Cool software for polling via email

This looks like a great free product:

Ask a Simple Question Get a Simple Answer with CircleUp
“How do you poll multiple people via email?” Send the question out to 10 colleagues, invariably get 30 replies back and you dig through the banter to try and get a consensus of opinion. CircleUp proposes a solution anytime you need to compile opinion, get feedback or even get the answer to a simple “chicken or fish” poll from multiple brains. The service facilitates delivery of your question to your targets, driving recipients to the web to enter their answer without bothering you with all the noise and discussion in email. You can then review the responses on one page and (hopefully) get a clear answer.

Official name

We now have an official name for our group . . . L2 Crew. What I really like about the name is the naming process we all went through. It is a kind of "mashup" of several names proposed by many of us in this group and then voted on. This is the way I hoped we would work together. I appreciate the initiative and enthusiasm. What a great way to begin L2 Crew.

Web 2.0 is What?

Take a look at this new blog called "Web 2.0 is What?" It focuses on controversy and confusion concerning Web 2.0. See the blog here.

Also, for a Web 2.0 laugh try this. Does Dewey have E.S.P. or something?

Vote!

Richard created an automated way for us to vote on our name. Please look in the right-hand column of this blog and vote.

Thanks!

Group Name

OK. I am waiting on a few more of you to chime in and give an opinion and then we will vote on a name. Calling David, Hunter, Frank, Robert, Tiffany... did I miss anyone?

Here is the list so far:
Libary 2.0
Social Butterflies
Quasi Crew
BPL 24/7 On Demand
Progressives

Teens Think Email is So 1999

http://geeksugar.com/429818

Updates on Wiki

Both Richard and I have done some updates to our wiki. Take a look and see what you think.

The end of e-mail: discover new ways to stay in touch

Here's a good article describing the ways I see our group operating. http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2800175.ece

The internet research firm Gartner Group predicts that wikis will become mainstream collaboration tools in at least half of companies by 2009. E-mail is also threatened by another mode of communication: instant messaging, or IM. It is popularly perceived as the preserve of teenagers – many of whom now actually refer to e-mail as "snail mail", the unflattering term given postal mail when e-mail first became popular. But IM has not gone unnoticed by people looking to streamline their communications.

Tip of the hat to Renee for sharing this article.

Photography - 2.0 Update

Just wanted to keep everyone informed on what has been going on and to invite any ideas you may want to share on the photography front.

Here is what has been done since the meeting last week:

• Contacted some branches to find out what camera was purchased. The camera purchased for the branches I contacted was the Cannon A550. Assuming this was purchased for all branches, I downloaded the manuals for this model for future reference and workshop development.
• Later, I cobbled together a guide for downloading images from this camera since some staff mentioned having trouble with the downloads.
• Contacted IT about a method to share photos, suggested shared network drive, and am now awaiting IT's responce to the network drive idea or alternative method.
• Created a draft of a photo workshop, codenamed "BPL Camera Clinic."

Post Atoms, Feedblitz, RSS...my head's about to explode!

What's the best way to notify blog readers about new posts? I'm going to have to admit that I'm a little dazed and confused about the different ways available to bloggers/readers.

I get notified about the BPL blog through RSS and email, but when I tried to use Feedblitz on my personal blog I'm not sure if it's working right. I did some practice runs for a few test blogs and was never notified. Plus, the BPL blog notifies me the next day about new entries.

Concerning the Fiction Dept. blog, I'd like staff to be notified about new posts immediately, and it seems like email is what gets checked most often.

My Bebo Account

If Mrs. Sirmans can do it, so can I. Well, that was my thought yesterday as I set up my Bebo account. Here is the link to my account:

http://www.bebo.com/a/invite/4421585638a594580145b65

Wiki

Kathy just set up a wiki for our group and she is sending out invitations to all of you. This will be a place where we can keep up with our procedures, ideas, assignments, etc. If you haven't used a wiki before, give it a try.

http://bplondemand.pbwiki.com/

Instant messaging

Tressa had a good idea about this group using instant messaging as a means of communication also. So if everyone (if you haven't been set up already) will get a yahoo account and a create a user name using the same name as your bpl email account with an underscore and bpl. For example, mine is mshelton_bpl. The bpl directions for meebo may be found here: http://www.bplonline.org/Intranet/Instant%20Messaging/instant_messaging_pilot_program.htm

Let me know if you have any problems or questions.

Greetings

Hello All! I set up this blog for all of us to use as a means of communication. I think this will be a lively group with many ideas and much enthusiasm. I look forward to working with each of you. --Melinda