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Tag Archives: Tech Sharecase
Tech Sharecase, 3 September 2010
Attendees
Janey Chao, Arthur Downing, , Stephen Francoeur, Jin Ma, Rita Ormsby, Ryan Phillips, Stella VarverisMichael Waldman, Kevin Wolff
HTML5
We began the meeting by watching the Arcade Fire music video for “We Used to Wait.” The video makes use of the native video and audio capabilities of HTML5 and incorporates a mashup of Google street views. It’s a clever video and a good song too. Currently, some browsers do not display HTML5 and the Arcade Fire video has to be played in Google Chrome.
WordCamp NYC 2010
Baruch BCTC is hosting WordCamp NYC 2010 October 16-18.
CUNY+
CUNY+ was discussed. We pondered how to add library locations to the book records–floor number, etc. Queens College places standard locating information in the location field in every CUNY+ records (e.g., Stacks (Call # A-L Level 4; Call # P-Z Level 5) PS3515.E37 O4 1952b ). We discussed the technical difficulties of adding site-specific information of every book in the library and how this would be complicated by the periodic physical shifting of our collection.
It was suggested that an algorithm could be added to the location field in the record that would generate the floor number.
New Technologies on Campus
We then discussed new technologies on campus. Clickers are being used more in the classroom. BCTC has invested in tablets and wireless VGA ports to help instructors untether themselves from the podium.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged CUNY+, HTML5, Tech Sharecase, WordPress
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Tech Sharecase, 17 September 2010
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Joseph Hartnett, Ellen Kaufman, Rita Ormsby, Ryan Phillips, Michael Waldman
Google Maps Mania
We looked at some of the mashups of Google Maps found on the site, Google Maps Mania:
- Commute Map (enter a ZIP code and see where residents commute to or where people are coming from who commute to that ZIP code)
- Public Data Explorer (this Google Labs project visualizes large data sets on maps)
Using Google Maps Drag and Zoom
We looked at an Google Map Labs tool (Drag ‘n’ Zoom) that you can turn on in Google Maps that lets you zoom in by drawing a square with your mouse on a map region.
Death of Bloglines
In talking about the recent announcement that Bloglines, a feed reader, would be shutting its service down soon, we discussed the increasing reliance of some on Twitter and Facebook for alerts to notable items from RSS feeds (especially blog posts).
Students on Twitter
We talked about whether it seems like more Baruch students are on Twitter these days and fewer are on Facebook. If you look at the Twitter search on “baruch college” you’ll see that a number of the tweets are clearly from students. It also appears to be the case that campus use of Skype is larger than expected.
Summon Adds Its 100th Customer
An announcement from Serials Solutions about Summon led to this interesting article by Sean Fitzpatrick in American Libraries.
Libraries Acquring Ebooks Rights?
An interesting blog post by Eric Hellman about whether it might make sense for a national consortium of libraries to form that would try to negotiate for rights to select ebooks.
Hathi Trust
We took a look at the Hathi Trust website to figure out what exactly the project offers (backup and preservation of digitized books). We then played around with the search inside books feature and compared it to Google Book Search and the Internet Archive’s collection of digitized books.
Google Instant
We discussed whether Google Instant might improve our students’ search skills or worsen them.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bloglines, Discovery tools, E-books, Facebook, Feed Readers, Google, Google Book Search, Google Instant, Google Maps, Hathi Trust, Mashups, Serials Solutions, Social search, Summon, Tech Sharecase, Twitter
Comments Off on Tech Sharecase, 17 September 2010
Tech Sharecase, 22 July 2010
Attendees
Janey Chao, Stephen Francoeur, Ellen Kaufman, Jim Livornese, Ryan Phillips, Linda Rath, Mike Waldman, Kevin wolff
LibGuides
We discussed Steven Bell’s study of LibGuides (pdf), which he presented at 16th Annual Reference Research Forum at the ALA Annual Meeting this year. Bell asked whether LibGuides help students do better research? The results of the student were inconclusive.
Gartner Research
On the CUNY Portal, we have limited subscription to Gartner Research (we do have access to the magic quadrant charts).
IT Needs for the Library
Jim Livornese asked us to talk about what IT needs the library has. Suggestions we discussed included:
- better, faster, more stable PCs at the ref desk (the best we can offer) that have dual monitors (one angled for the patron, another for the librarian) and speakers (so we can play videos to patrons as needed)
- digital signage
- longer period for guest logins (2 days? 3 days? 1 week?)
- better sense of who to contact in BCTC for what
- software that makes image on instructor’s classroom PC display on the student PCs
- multiple projection screens in the classrooms (and more whiteboards)
BCTC Projects
Jim Livornese ran through a list of projects that BCTC will be looking into or developing further: podcast producers, Boxee, iTunes U, media development, etc.
Videos
We watched the BYU video that was just released and parodies a recent ad campaign from Old Spice. Here is the BYU library video:
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/2ArIj236UHs” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Here is the original Old Spice commercial:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/uLTIowBF0kE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
It was noted that Yale and Middlebury have similarly well-produced videos for aimed at attracting applicants.
RSS Reader in Microsoft Office 2010
The new version of Outlook in Microsoft Office, which we are all getting in our desk PCs soon, has a RSS reader built in.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ALA Annual, Assessment, BCTC, Gartner Research, Information technology, LibGuides, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, PCs, Reference services, RSS, Tech Sharecase, Videos
Comments Off on Tech Sharecase, 22 July 2010
Tech Sharecase, 9 July 2010
Attendees: Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips, Jim Livornese, Michael Waldman.
We began the sharecase by welcoming Jim Livornese, the new Director of Instructional Technology & Client Services at Baruch College. We spent some of our time talking to him about the library’s technology needs.
We also entertained a brief discussion of Drupal and METRO’s offer of two July courses on Drupal. Courses are full and registration is closed. NYPL is also hosting a NYPL Drupal Camp at the end of August which is also full. The interest in Drupal may have to do with NYPL’s recent move to Drupal.
We then discussed a lead from AL Direct referring to a WebJunction survey on librarians’ use of technology tools entitled “Library Staff Report Their Use of Online Tools” The methodology for the survey is not given, so we were somewhat wary of the results; however, it showed librarians are lagging behind in the use of newer online tools such as RSS feeds and Blogs (see image below).
We then discussed finding a way for the library to place books in the public domain on the Kindle, or similar device–Nook or Sony e-Reader, et cetera. Books to be targeted will be English classics that are required reading for literature courses on campus.
The conversation then moved to the iPhone QR code reading application iCandy from Ricoh Innovations. Richoh is also working on integrating visual search into the application. This will allow users to point their device at text on a newspaper, for example, and the app will retrieve results based on the text that is read. It’s similar to the Shazzam application that listens to music and then recognizes the song that was played.
We then discussed the library’s purchase of Kik Scanner Bookeye 2 and how to make it available for use in the library and to the Baruch community.
Lastly, we discussed the state and challenges of student printing.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged AL Direct, Amazon Kindle, bookeye, Drupal, iCandy, nook, NYPL, QR codes, shazzam, Sony e-reader, Tech Sharecase, visual search, WebJunction
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Tech Sharecase, 18 June 2010
Attendees
Saad Abulhab, Joanna Cruz, Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Harold Gee, Joseph Hartnett, Ellen Kaufman, Wilcina Longdon, Jin Ma, Louisa Moy, Christina Muniz, Peter Philips, Ryan Phillips, Ester Ramos, Michael Waldman
Baruch iPhone App
We watched a screencast from the developer of the forthcoming iPhone app that is being designed for the Office of Student Development. There are placeholders in certain sections where library services and resources can be added. This app is being designed primarily as a student recruitment tool.
Microsoft Office 2010
If you are a faculty member, you can go to the CUNY Mall within the CUNY Portal and download for free the latest version of Microsoft Office, which was just released this week. The license is for home use only and not for work PCs. It is very possible that this fall, though, our work computers will get upgraded from Office 2003 to Office 2010. The 2010 version of Outlook (and the earlier 2007 version) has a built-in RSS reader, which will work once we get our Exchange server here on campus upgraded this summer.
Pew Report on Use of Social Media and Mobile Devices Among Teens
We took a quick look at the recently released report from the Pew Internet and America Life Project that about how teens use mobile devices and social media.
Online Education
This fall, the statistics department will use online course content developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative for its intro statistics course. We also discussed briefly the large library of video tutorials created by Salman Khan and published on YouTube. Over 1400 videos are available; most of the videos are about science, math, finance, economics. Here is a sample video on balance sheets:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged CUNY Portal, iPhone, Microsoft Office, mobile phones, Mobile technology, Online social networking, Reports, RSS, Software, Tech Sharecase, Tutorials, Videos
Comments Off on Tech Sharecase, 18 June 2010
Tech Sharecase, 4 June 2010
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Ellen Kaufman, Robert Drzewicki, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips
Kobo
We briefly discussed Kobo, a competitor to the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. A comparison chart provided at the Kobo web site charts Kobo’s features amongst its competitors.
Information Aesthetics
We then discussed the blog Information Aesthetics. This blog seeks out and presents projects that display information and data in creative ways. Some examples discussed were information arcs, the bible cross reference visualization project and a wheel of nutrition that displays portion sizes on dinner plates.
The conversation moved towards other ways of displaying information and the tools used to do so. Microsoft was mentioned given the fact that Excel 2010 is going to incorporate Spark Lines. We then took at look at Google Motion Charts that can be used in iGoogle and Google Docs. A few of us were introduced to motion charts through Hans Rosling’s Wealth & Health of Nations Motion Chart and his TED Talk . Also shown was the Wall Street Journal’s market sector maps for stock performance.
A couple of other web sites were mentioned: 1) Many Eyes a site for sharing data visualization and 2) InfoChimps for downloading all sorts of data sets.
Also touched upon was the Netflix prize. This was a $1 million contest for accurate predictions of movie ratings based on Netflix user movie preferences. The prize was awarded last September and a new contest was announced.
Miscellaneous
The conversation then moved to the current and future state of student printing, some of the issues and possible solutions. We also discussed the use of GoogleDocs on campus.
Lastly, we talked about the Boston, MA, public media outlet WGBH’s Open Vault–their online media archive and library. Roy Tennant’s covered Open Vault in a recent Library Journal blog entry.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon Kindle, Data sets, Data visualization, Digital Media Library, E-book readers, E-books, Google, Google Docs, Tech Sharecase, Videos
1 Comment
Tech Sharecase, 21 May 2010
Attendees
Robert Drzewicki, Stephen Francoeur, Gerry Jiao, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Wilcina Longdon, Jin Ma, Kannan Mohan, Ryan Phillips, Linda Rath, Mike Waldman
Database Trial Reviews
We discussed briefly the pros and cons of writing up reviews of database trials on the reference blog and the library’s internal mailing list.
Bike Route Maps and Directions
In celebration of Bike to Work day, we looked at a number of options for finding bike route maps and directions:
- maps can be downloaded and added to Google Earth
- recently added biking directions
- it would be nice if the maps displayed info from Twitter feed for different bridges in NYC
- missing some of the human element (insider knowledge about safest, easiest routes, etc.)
Call Numbers in Catalogs and Library Floorplans
We tried in vain to recall what library has a catalog that lets you click on a call number in the catalog to show you the location of that item on a floorplan. As we tried to remember which library has this feature in its catalog, we looked at the catalog from the library at the University of Huddersfield (UK), which offers on the item record a visual shelf browse feature, a QR code for the book (which probably leads to the permalink for the item), and circulation stats for that item (see for example this record for The Iliad of Homer).
OpenSciNY
At the recent OpenSciNY conference at the Bobst Library at NYU, a group of librarians, scientists, and publishers got together to talk about open access publishing, open source software, and opens notebook science. Among the more interesting things talked about were:
- Flickr and Astrometry.net: amateur astronomers are uploading images they’ve taken with their telescopes to Flickr. One of the presenters at OpenSciNY, David Hogg, worked with some colleagues to put together a service that uses the Flickr API to identify any images that have been recently tagged with “astrometry.” Once tagged in this way, an image on Flickr will be analzyed by the Astrometry service and a comment appended to the image that details the celestial objects visible in the image (see this one from Flickr as an example)
- ChemSpider: Antony Williams from the Royal Society of Chemistry talked about the problem of finding reliable and comprehensive information on chemical structures on the web. ChemSpider describes itself as a “chemistry search engine” that “has been built with the intention of aggregating and indexing chemical structures and their associated information into a single searchable repository and make it available to everybody, at no charge.”
Substitute for EtherPad
EtherPad, a recently shuttered free service that allowed for collaborative editing of documents, released its source code, thereby allowing a number of clone services to be created. One such service is Sync.in
Discovery Tools
We talked a while about the difference between discovery tools (like Summon and EBSCO Discovery Service) and federated search tools (like 360 Search, which we use for our own Bearcat Search). It was noted that with the new discovery tools, the thing that takes the longest to set up is getting your catalog records into the system. What makes a discovery tool different from a federated search one is:
- With a discovery tool, you are searching one, centralized index of records that the vendor has assembled; with federated search, your query is being transmitted simultaneously to all the vendors that you can connected to your fed search tool. Search results are returned faster in discovery tools because of this difference.
- The vendor of a discovery tool can normalize all the data stored in its index, making results more consistent (and helping to speed up the delivery of search results) and manipulable (the facetting of results works better in discovery tools).
We wondered if many faculty outside the library use Bearcat as a means to identifying databases that were previously unknown to them but might be useful for their research needs.
ERM System
We might have demos of two different ERM (electronic resource management) products this June.
Citation Management Tools
We wondered to what extent faculty and students are aware of and maybe use citation management options available to them:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 360 Search, APIs, Bearcat, Chemistry, Citation management software, Collaborative editing, Discovery tools, EndNote, ERM, EtherPad, Federated search, Flickr, GIS, Google Maps, ILS, Library catalogs, Maps, Mashups, RefWorks, Search engines, Tech Sharecase, Zotero
2 Comments
Tech Sharecase, 9 April 2010
Attendees
Janey Chao, Arthur Downing, Stephen Francoeur, Moon-Seok Kang, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Jin Ma, Ryan Phillips, Mike Waldman
Net Neutrality and the FCC
We discussed the recent court decision that ruled the FCC lacked the authority to regulate the internet, a move which presently curtails the FCC’s ability to issue policies relating to net neutrality (covered in this New York Times article from 6 April 2010). We noted, though, that because of this setback to the FCC, there may soon be legislation that will expressly give the FCC regulatory powers over the internet.
Launch of the iPad
Moon-Seok Kang, a BCTC lab assistant, showed us his brand new iPad and talked about its features and usability. We took a look at a blog post from NCSU Libraries about their new iPad loan program. We also discussed the news that Apple was developing a way to deliver ads in the apps that you can install on your iPhones and iPads (see this New York Times article from 9 April 2010). It was also suggested that we might benefit from having a regular gadget petting zoo, where library staff and faculty could get their hands on the latest technological gadgets to see what they look like and how they work.
Semantic Web
Jin Ma shared some notes of hers from what was Corey Harper’s presentation at the recent LACUNY/METRO event on the semantic web. We looked at the following:
- The Linked Open Data project at the New York Times
- Library of Congress Subject Headings in RDF
- VIAF (the Virtual International Authority File)
- Hellman, Eric. “The Library IS the Machine.” Go To Hellman, 7 April 2010. Web.
Flat World Knowledge
Arthur Downing gave an update on a recent meeting that he and a group of others from Baruch had with an executive from Flat World Knowledge to hear the company’s pitch to provide textbooks for selected courses here.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Apple, Authority files, E-books, Federal Communication Commission, Flat World Publishing, Identifiers, iPad, LACUNY, Linked data, METRO, Net neutrality, Semantic web, Tech Sharecase, Textbooks
Comments Off on Tech Sharecase, 9 April 2010
Tech Sharecase, 5 March 2010
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Robert Drzewicki, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips
Mobile Phones
We looked at a report from Gartner that predicted sales of mobile phones with touchscreens are expected to rise 97 percent in 2010. We also wondered if we were able to track how many visitors to the library’s website came there on mobile devices. There is some data to that effect in our library’s website statistics if you look at what browsers and operating systems were used by site visitors, but the data isn’t as complete as we’d hoped it might be. We also talked about how much we know about the extent to which Baruch students have adopted the latest cell phone technology.
Ebooks and Ebook Readers
After looking at a graphic from the New York Times comparing the “economics of producing a book” in print vs. electronic, we had a discussion of our school’s Kindle experiment and what we might do with the Kindles after the semester is over. One idea that was floated was what it might mean were we to load public domain editions of books that are required reading in undergraduate courses (especially ones that are part of the general education curriculum).
We watched a video from Flat World Knowledge about their “open textbooks” that can be freely read online as well as purchased as a file download or a print-on-demand book.
Video Collections
We looked at the way that the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University has created a “Toolkit” site where screencasts are collected. Each video offers an embed code, making it easy for instructors and librarians to deploy the videos on course websites, course blogs, etc. The embed codes are for the hosted webservice where the video file actually resides (YouTube, etc.). It doesn’t appear that the videos are locally hosted on the Toolkit site.
We also browsed the collection of screencasts that have been uploaded to our library’s YouTube account.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon Kindle, E-books, E-readers, mobile phones, Mobile web, mobile web development, Screencasts, Tech Sharecase, Textbooks, Videos, YouTube Inc
1 Comment
