August 2007 Archives

Chances are, if you work with me, you have heard me reference this slide from a presentation by Shane Nackerud and Chad Fennell of the University of Minnesota Libraries. It has gotten to the point where I'm even starting to bore myself when I bring it up.

The idea contained on this slide is amazing----it was the first time that I ever considered the possibility of widgetizing the library web site, or parceling out integral library search tools so that they can be taken away and used elsewhere (like the University portal, iGoogle, Facebook, etc...)

After seeing this idea from UMN, I contacted Shane to find out where their widgetized interface existed. Shane told me that it was a mockup, but that they would be working on it over the summer. And this week, I noticed that it is starting to happen. Wow! They've placed a widget on their home page (see the little plus sign in the corner of the opac / articles search tool box?) that works with their portal and iGoogle. They've also created a pretty neat widgets and tools page.

This general idea inspired our fully widgetized undergraduate interface, which will be a continual work in progress (and is coming together nicely!)

All amazing stuff. And all great food for thought as we move forward with our initiatives here.

Allegedly, Google has created a nifty application especially for Facebook. I say, allegedly, because every time I try to access it and add it to my profile, I'm told that it still has bugs and to check back. This app lets you perform searches and share the results with your friends. Could be a nice model for how we develop future aspects of the Libraries Facebook app.

If and when it finally works, this is going to be an intriguing example of a major player customizing their own tools for another platform.

If you're able to successfully add it to your profile at some point, let me know in the comments below.

I try hard not to post on anything unrelated to libraries and technology, but this is important.

MacKinnon's Cafe (aka the place in the library that serves food) has begun serving Dunkin Donuts munchkins. Including Jelly Munchkins.

Did I tell you this was important, or what? We are talking serious quality of life improvement here.

Between this and the new DD opening downtown, my life is now complete. It doesn't take much for me.

(one in a series of disgruntled posts)

--Run postalicious (ala the Free Range Librarian), and allow me to automatically share my del.icio.us links via my blog daily.

(Anyone figures out how to do this, let me know---this means you, Science Librarian!)

Despite what the Annoyed Librarian says (love her), the library landscape, 2.0 manifesto and all, has changed, whether you're a Twopointonian (her words, not mine) or not.

Case in point: Tonight I was teaching my very favorite class, CAS 602, otherwise known as the collective of new CAS graduate students and fixed term instructors. You could not ask for more enthusiastic audience each year, and they are always willing to put up with my whims and conversational digressions.

I only teach this class once a year, and each session is a snapshot of the current state of my library instruction. I swear, I never plan it that way. I remember when I first began teaching the class, it was very traditional---sample searches in seminal databases, important library web pages for their disciplines, etc...

In 2005, I began incorporating Google Scholar and Citation Linker into the discussion. The class moved away from a focus on static resources, and more into an exploration of manipulating freely available tools to find the information that you need.

This year, when I found myself in the middle of a detailed (and unplanned) show and tell on how to pull RSS feeds out of Ebsco databases, I realized how much the landscape we work in has changed yet again. We talked about the VPN, about the footnoting features in Word 2007, and about using Google Reader to pull content out of article databases. None of this was planned, and what struck me most was how much our territory has now extended into IT-land.

This class also highlighted how much 2.0 innovations are resonating with our users. The flow of our class discussion went toward things like RSS---I didn't guide it there. Like it or not, Annoyed Librarian, the Twopointonians are not the sole cheerleaders of this revolution----our users are actively participating in it too.

I've complained ad nauseum about the lack of discoverability of Penn State blogs (i.e., those created within the new blogs pilot project). The blogs (and all Penn State personal web pages in general) are not indexed by the Penn State search engine. (I'm not even going to go into why that is happening, because it frustrates me.) They are, however, indexed by plain ol' vanilla Google. (and Google's PSU search, as well.)

Leaving the blogs and personal web pages out of the local search tool makes it hard to discover other active blogs in the pilot project. I'm very interested in seeing what others on campus are doing with their blogs, and I wish there was some sort of browsable directory. Oh well.

This week, Elizabeth Pyatt gave a peek into the land that is the Blogs at Penn State. She identified some examples of different types of blogs involved in the pilot project. (and she listed my blog and Dolores' too!--Thanks, Elizabeth!) :)

Let's hope for more peeks into our local blog landscape, and greater findability (and browsability) in the future.

A while back, I posted on the UMN lIbraries toolbar. At yesterday's Web Steering meeting, we discussed creating one for the Libraries. This comes at a time when we are trying to leverage the prominence of library resources as we migrate our new Public computer image to one that mirrors the computer desktop students see in every computer lab on campus.

A customized toolbar would give us the option of promoting and providing ready access to a variety of University and library-specific resources, all nestled conveniently in the user's browser! Imagine how our accessibility will improve with custom toolbars, widgets and a Facebook App. The user will no longer need to to come directly to our site URL to get what they need.

One additional note...another one worth seeing and trying out is the UIUC Libraries Toolbar.

Fortune Magazine has a good article explaining the basics of widgets and their commercial potential in their latest issue. We get Fortune and Business Week for free at home, and I'm generally pretty surprised by the number of articles in each issue that are interesting and often applicable to libraries. Maybe I'll start reading the Wall Street Journal too!

A post from Chris Stubbs about the Libraries / ETS Facebook Hot Team. His perspective as a former student (and how that experience informs this project) is very interesting!

I'm hoping this is the first of many Libraries / ETS collaborations.

I'm making up for lost time, I think, having been away from this blog for over a week...

In today's workshop, one person asked about creating RSS feeds for regular web pages. I explained that it couldn't be done unless there was content attached to an active feed, but I was wrong. Check out Feedity, which can turn any web page into an RSS feed.

I tried making a feed for the Libraries homepage and the Communication Arts & Sciences homepage. It turned out to be a very convenient way to add a list of bookmarks to iGoogle.

Ignacio, Emily and I taught two workshops today on building a research desktop in PageFlakes and iGoogle.

Take a look at the very cool Gateway Library Resources page that Ignacio made! I think he did an amazing job of seamlessly integrating information, resources and utilities together in a useful package. This page will be used on the Gateway and Welcome Desks.

These workshops also marked the debut of the Penn State iGoogle Library Tools tab. It integrates in all of the library widgets we've developed thus far. If you're an iGoogle user, add it as a tab, and let me know what you think!

This post by Lorcan directed me to the University of Alberta's neat, new Facebook application. I love the way that they promote their ASK! services with lots of options and exciting graphics.

The best part, though, was seeing an iLink catalog (i.e. the same as Penn State) in Facebook. I still think displaying the catalog results in the Facebook environment is the way to go. And looking at their app highlighted some of the nifty customizations they've put into their catalog since we last looked at it. Do a search, and you'll see. On the item record page, in the left toolbar, there are now many different options, including Page Tools (Google bookmarks, Del.icio.us, Reddit and Digg). Wow!

We need to make our iLink do some of the very same things.