A great example of the usefulness of Zoho!

I uploaded our New Materials Tracking spreadsheet to Zoho, and now Irene and I can both add titles to it as they come through circulation, without having to constantly email it to each other. This is so much more convenient! Not only that, but at the end of the month Tom can view the additions to the spreadsheet without me needing to email him the most recent version of it. Just one example of how useful applications like Zoho can be for the workings of our library.

Extra extra credit #2: Second Life

I created a Second Life account initially because the School of Library and Information Science at SJSU has an island there, and I thought I'd better check it out. It is a vast, confusing world, and I still haven't really figured it out. Moving around is okay, but I don't get the money thing. There are supposed to be money trees that you can use to get some Linden dollars within the first 30 days of your membership; after that time, if you want money you either have to come up with a good or service you can sell to other users, or you have to pay real world dollars and have them converted. I'm not sure why I'd want to do that, so I haven't yet.

Every time I go to the SJSU SLIS island, there isn't anyone else there. I've only actually ever talked to another Second Life user once, as a matter of fact. When I first signed up, and was putzing around on Orientation Island (the first stop, where you learn to navigate and such). A person bumped right into me, and was making these strange little waving motions with his arms. I thought, "what's wrong with this freak?" and tried to move away. He followed, doing that weird little arm-waving thing. After a minute, I realized there were words appearing in the bottom left portion of my screen. He was typing! Oooohhh!

All in all, I'm not sold. Maybe I read Snow Crash one too many times, but Second Life just seems like a glorified version of the Sims.

Woo Hoo, I'm Done!! Here's Extra Credit 1: YouTube

I'm embedding a video from YouTube that was posted by an amazing organization based in San Francisco called Bad Rap. The name stands for "Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About PitBulls". It's a rescue organization that works to re-establish the good name of these amazing dogs, and to encourage responsible dog ownership. Their mission is to find and rescue the "breed ambassadors", those that represent the best and brightest of this vilified breed, and place them with good people. Their rescues routinely go on to work as therapy dogs with special needs children, the infirm and the elderly; get service dog certification to work as companion animals for the disabled; and earn Canine Good Citizen certifications.

This is a little clip of a dog named Sophie. She's eleven years old, and was severely abused by her former keepers. She was fought and used as a puppy making machine. She's missing an eye and an ear, but her tail works just fine!



If you want to learn more about Sophie and the organization that's been her saving grace, check out the Bad Rap Website. I'm hopefully going to start volunteering with them soon, and I just think this is one of the best non-profit outfits I've ever seen!

MySpace?(Or Rupert Murdoch's Space?)

Okay, I admit it. I use MySpace. You might even say that I like MySpace. And really, who can blame Tom for selling out to Rupert? I'd have taken the millions and ran, too.

Originally, MySpace was a place for bands and musicians to share their music and information about shows, albums, etc. with other bands and music people. And, believe it or not, some people still use it for this very purpose! I do; I have bands and venues in my friends list, and they post bulletins that keep me up to date on what they're doing.

So how can libraries use MySpace for the betterment of humankind? I loved this page I found for The Loft, a teen space at the Public Library of Mecklenberg/Charlotte in South Carolina. They have an IM space, a great blog, information on all of the cool stuff their teen space in real life has to offer (a blue screen studio?! Recording space?! WOW!), special events, and over 1.000 friends! MySpace can be a great way to connect with young adults in their own environment. They may skip right over a piece of paper tacked to the wall, but post something to the bulletin board on MySpace, and you bet that almost anyone who's subscribed as a friend will read it. Sure it might be a fad, but isn't just about everything, anyway? Might as well ride the wave, and use it while it's popular.

By the way, Here's the URL for my Myspace page. It's set to private, so you'll have to send a request if you want to see it. Or just stop by my desk and I'll show it to you.

Online applications

I was suprised to find that I like Zoho better than Google Docs. I guess maybe because Google seems to have the corner on everything nowadays, they'd have the best online collaborative applications, too. Zoho excelled in a couple of areas: It is really easy to invite collaborators and viewers to see your documents. One window, one click of the "ok" button, and that's it. In Google, the user has to invite collaborators and viewers separately. I liked that in Zoho a list of all of your documents appears on the left while you are viewing one. I also like the "switch to" link, which allows you to quickly change to the spreadsheet, presentation maker, wiki, etc.

All of the apps we looked at are useful in one way or another. I wish I would have known about these a couple of years back, when I had this huge collaborative project to do for my Information Retrieval class! I spent so much time adding comments and highlighting changes in a regular old Word document, and emailing attached revised papers to my group mates (the thing ended up being like 38 pages long). Being able to access a shared document online, and having the ability to compare older and newer versions (like on Writeboard) would have been absolutely great!

I uploaded the New Book tracking spreadsheet to both Google Docs and Zoho, plus a couple of word documents (the copyright guidelines for reserves and the opening procedures). Yay!

More Wiki Madness

I have added a page about the library's fine policies, and edited a little of Irene's page regarding Desk Assistant training. She was really thorough; there wasn't much to add at all! However, I had to do something, because I am desperately trying to finish this 2.0 stuff up by the deadline. iPod Shuffle, here I come!

Finally got to the Wicked Wikis!!

Actually, I don't think that wikis are really wicked. They are pretty useful, as a matter of fact, and I can't help but be drawn to the idea of "radical trust". I like the community spirit that wikis seem to arouse in people, and it warms my heart to see individuals with similar interests and expertise all contributing to these online forums. Of course, there are the down sides of trolls, vandalism, and know-it-alls, but they make up a small subset of users. Besides, that's why the rest of us are here, right? To make sure the good information stays, and the unreliable information goes.

I created the Course Reserves Information Page on our wiki. Feel free to edit if you see anything I missed!