Tag Archives: Twitter

Tech Sharecase, 14 July 2011

Attendees
Arthur Downing, Lisa Ellis, Stephen Francoeur, Joseph Hartnett, Jin Ma, Ryan Phillips, Stella Varveris, Michael Waldman

Intro
In advance of the meeting, attendees were asked to focus on the topic of social networks and academy:

  • how do students use social networks and which ones are they using now?
  • what might students expect of the library and its staff who are on the same social networks (for example, how do they want to interact with an institutional accounts on networks? how do they want to interact with us as library staff with personal/professional accounts on these networks?)
  • how do faculty use social networks and which ones are they using now
  • how is scholarly communication being altered by the growth of social networks (see, for example, this report by the Centre for the Study of Research Communications at the University of Nottingham titled “Social Networking Sites and their role in Scholarly Communications”pdf)
  • how we we use social networks for professional development? for pinging the hive mind?

What We Discussed Regarding Social Networks

Mobile Databases Page
We got a preview of the mobile databases page that will link users to library databases that are optimized to work on mobile phones. The page itself is just an ordinary LibGuide page that looks kind of odd in a regular browser but renders in a much more mobile friendly way in a phone’s browser. The draft of the page shown was the result of the second round of usability testing; the release version of the page will be subject to one more round of usability testing.

LibX Toolbar
A new Firefox/IE toolbar is being developed that will let users search the catalog, our e-journals lookup tool, or Bearcat regardless of what site the user happens to be on. Another notable feature is that when the user is on a book page in Amazon or other online booksellers, a Bearcat icon will appear on the screen that when clicked will run an ISBN lookup in the catalog to see if we own a copy of that item.

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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.

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Tech Sharecase, 13 November 2009

Attendees
Stephen Francoeur, Ellen Kaufman, Louise Klusek, Jin Ma, Kannen Mohan, Ryan Phillips and Michael Waldman

Searching Blogs
Went over a patron request for finding quotes on blogs. The patron wanted to locate negative quotes about the Marvel acquisition by Disney. Discussed the resources for searching blogs: Factiva, Google Blog Search, LexisNexis and Twitter Search.

Baruch Blogs   
Noted how to find the RSS feed for the Newman Library News “blog.”  One has to navigate to the “News Archives” on library website (RSS icon not visible until you get to the WordPress version of the News Archives). Or, click on the following link: http://www.newman.baruch.cuny.edu/wordpress/?cat=4

Amazon Kindle
Discussed recent news that two colleges, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University, are not moving forward with wide distribution of the Kindle because of perceived discrimination against the blind.  Activating the audio feature on the current Kindle is a challenge for the blind given it requires navigating through the touch screen. Read the Associated Press article via NPR: “Schools shun Kindle, saying blind can’t use it”

Also discussed the Kindle application for desktop that was released this week.

Google Wave
Went over some features of Google Wave and Stephen and Jin demonstrated a discussion. Showed the Doctor Wave video which provides a good introduction to Google Wave. Cameron Neylon’s ChemSpidey robot, an application for tagging in Google Wave, was presented. Aunt Rosie translation robot was also shown.

EtherPad and Wikis for Student Participation
EtherPad and Wikis were discussed for use in class participation. Wikis in Blackboard can encourage class participation for those who prefer to type rather than speak aloud in class.

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What Data Do New Yorkers Want?

The City of New York is ramping up its efforts to make some of the vast amounts data it gathers and stores more easily accessible. A recent post on the New York Times blog, City Room, detailed major web initiatives that the city just announced it is working on:

  • Launch NYC Big Apps, an annual competition for technology companies to develop proposals for new applications to make data sets more usable (the city has selected eighty data sets from thirty-two different agencies for entrants to work with).
  • Create a 311 portal site that pulls together all the data on complaints that New Yorkers have left on the city’s 311 phone number.
  • Use Skype and Twitter as additional ways to communicate with the city (you’ll be able to call 311 via Skype and receive alerts from the city via Twitter)
  • Work with Google to get a better handle on how users are searching for information on NYC.gov and for city information generally in Google searches

You can read more about these initiatives on this press release from the city.

A number of outside companies are already scraping data from various city data sets and offering a friendly interface to that data. A great example of such an enterprise can be found in the EveryBlock service, which offers data harvested from municipal sources in fifteen cities, such as:

Chan, Sewell and Patrick McGeehan. “City Invites Software Developers to Crunch Big Data Sets.” City Room. The New York Times. 29 June 2009. Web. 8 July 2009.

City of New York. Mayor Bloomberg Announces Five Technology Initiatives to Improve Accessibility, Transparency and Accountability Across City Government. 29 June 2009. Web. 8 July 2009.

EveryBlock. Web. 8 July 2009.

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METRO Universe

Jason Kucsma, the Emerging Techologies Manager at the Metropolitan Library Council of New York, has recently created a portal web site of library news and commentary using Netvibes, a free service that allows you to create your own customized start page. The METRO Universe offers a quick way to dip into the river of news that streams by daily in great volume. The eight pages on the site feature:

  • News: RSS feeds of news items from METRO, ALA, Library Journal, etc.
  • Libraries: RSS feeds from blogs created by staff at local libraries (NYPL, BPL, Pratt Institute, Baruch, etc.)
  • Librarians: RSS feeds from personal blogs of local librarians
  • Groups: RSS feeds from blogs of local library organizations (ACRL/NY, LACUNY, etc.)
  • LIS Schools (RSS feeds from blogs of local library library schools)
  • Tech Scan (RSS feeds from library tech blogs and general tech blogs)
  • Also of Note (RSS feeds from notable personal blogs of librarians around the country)
  • Search (widgets with search boxes for various search engines)

I sometimes get asked how I keep up with all the feeds I subscribe to. The answer is that I don’t “keep up,” I take dips periodically. If I miss a really important blog post somewhere, I figure that it will eventually get mentioned again in Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, someone else’s blog post, or even an old-fashioned listserv message. I’ve pretty much given up on thinking of print LIS publiciations (especially the trade ones) as must reads; if there is an interesting article it will likely get mentioned online somewhere, probably repeatedly, in one of the channels that I monitor.

For an interesting discussion of the shifting habits of professionals to “keep up,” you might want to check out two recent blog posts from Roy Tennant on his Library Journal-sponsored blog. Read the comments, too, as they add useful clarifications and disagreements over Tennant’s idea.

Tennant, Roy. “‘The Flow’ Revisited: The Professional Angle.” Tennant: Digital Libraries, 30 June 2009. Web. 7 July 2009.

—. “‘The Flow’ Revisited: The Personal Angle.” Tennant: Digital Libraries, 3 July 2009. Web. 7 July 2009.

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