Monday, October 29, 2007
#12 Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat!, How I Wonder Where Your At
Rollyo was very intuitive and self explanatory. I have composed and added a search roll on DVD reviews to this blog. I think I could use this tool for my own private research, and a carefully crafted, it could be used on a public library site.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
#11 "Helps me find James Joyce, She always makes the right choice"
Librarything done and dusted. As others have mentioned a useful social tool to connect readers with other readers if it could be integrated into public library catalogues. I entered a bookshelf
of Doc Savage's library to test LibraryThing and it was easy to use although I needed to add some other resources to find bibliographic information for some older, obscure editions. I searched by ISBN because I wanted to record the actual edition I owned and this worked reasonably well . Tagging is an interesting concept and useful for a personal library, although I am not sure how well it works in larger groups. However I think the mixture of controlled vocabulary subject headings and the more spontaneous and common-language tags is the way of the future.
Librarything is fairly flexible in how it displays records and gives users the oportunity to change display formats. Subject headings generated even from Amazon seem reasonably accurate.
Librarything is still in it's Beta stage and seemed a little slow at times but I think this may ahve been a combination of my slow web connection and some problems the site was having at the time
I have also added the randomiser widgit to my blog to generated titles from my library.
of Doc Savage's library to test LibraryThing and it was easy to use although I needed to add some other resources to find bibliographic information for some older, obscure editions. I searched by ISBN because I wanted to record the actual edition I owned and this worked reasonably well . Tagging is an interesting concept and useful for a personal library, although I am not sure how well it works in larger groups. However I think the mixture of controlled vocabulary subject headings and the more spontaneous and common-language tags is the way of the future.
Librarything is fairly flexible in how it displays records and gives users the oportunity to change display formats. Subject headings generated even from Amazon seem reasonably accurate.
Librarything is still in it's Beta stage and seemed a little slow at times but I think this may ahve been a combination of my slow web connection and some problems the site was having at the time
I have also added the randomiser widgit to my blog to generated titles from my library.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
#9 Feed Me
Well I tried all of the blog finders and found all but Technocrati easy to use and quite powerful. I tried a search on capital punishment and Australia (quite topical at the moment) as a sample search. All search tools have different emphasis and if I have the time I would like to find out what method they use to rank their search results. Topix.net interests me, because of its current affairs/political bent, and I like the simplicity of the blogline and google search tools. Maybe I just don't get Technocati, so week six in this course will be good opportunity to reappraise it. I have added news feeds to my bloglines account . However these have all been favourites I have had recommended to me by friends, colleagues and experts I respect. Unfortunately search tools do not identify quality.
I also tried to add a widget for searching from the Feedster site but again not sure where to put the html coding.
I have also subscribed to RSS feeds for new material in the "Library Journal" through Ebsco ANZ Ref Centre. I subscribe to a similar service where publishers send mail alerts of new material appearing in particular jouranl titles, so I guess this is a development of this ssort of service.
I also tried to add a widget for searching from the Feedster site but again not sure where to put the html coding.
I have also subscribed to RSS feeds for new material in the "Library Journal" through Ebsco ANZ Ref Centre. I subscribe to a similar service where publishers send mail alerts of new material appearing in particular jouranl titles, so I guess this is a development of this ssort of service.
#8 Can You Hear Me Major Tom?
RSS feeds are something I have been aware of for sometime, so its been a great opportunity to learn how to set up and use them properly. You can find the Man of Bronze's RSS feeds at
Doc Savage's Bloglines Account
I have organised some of my favourite feeds into two folders, "book reviews" and "MVLS Blogs". There is a way to create links directly to those two particular folders and generating the html coding is easy. However I cannot figure out how to add this coding to his blog in any other way than going directly to the htmal coding of the blog template and putting it there (beyond me at the moment).
Adding feeds to bloglines and organising them is dead easy. I tried various methods, from cutting and pasting addresses, to using features in Firefox, to using RSS options indicated on particlar sites and they all work equally well.
I think using feeds around book reviews and authors' web pages are obvious ways that public libraries can serve a group of patrons. More widely it could be used to aggregating news sources. Perhaps one danger of the new media is that as it becomes more targetted to a particular audience so people only sample views that they agree with. Blogline accounts that sample a diversity of views could be a way of exposing people to a more balanced view of the world.
Doc Savage's Bloglines Account
I have organised some of my favourite feeds into two folders, "book reviews" and "MVLS Blogs". There is a way to create links directly to those two particular folders and generating the html coding is easy. However I cannot figure out how to add this coding to his blog in any other way than going directly to the htmal coding of the blog template and putting it there (beyond me at the moment).
Adding feeds to bloglines and organising them is dead easy. I tried various methods, from cutting and pasting addresses, to using features in Firefox, to using RSS options indicated on particlar sites and they all work equally well.
I think using feeds around book reviews and authors' web pages are obvious ways that public libraries can serve a group of patrons. More widely it could be used to aggregating news sources. Perhaps one danger of the new media is that as it becomes more targetted to a particular audience so people only sample views that they agree with. Blogline accounts that sample a diversity of views could be a way of exposing people to a more balanced view of the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)