My First Website!

Well, I am just putting the finishing touches on my very first Website!  The link is listed at the bottom of this post; you should all check it out!  I created a Website for students taking a music history class called “Baroque and Classical Music.”  This is an actual course that I took as an undergrad when I got my B.A. in Music; I took the idea, change the curricular content, and made it my own.

There were several design challenges that I faced during the creation of this Website.  My homepage seemed pretty empty to me for a long time; I turned what was a list of links into a table and centered it on the page, taking up more horizontal space and less vertical space.  Less scrolling is good.    My dad also suggested linking to more complete biographies on the biographical info. page; clicking on a composer’s picture now takes you to their respective Wikipedia page.  The sound links on the listening list page were perhaps my biggest headache.  I have a few of the selections in my CD collection, which I have ripped into iTunes.  Unfortunately, computers without iTunes do not recognize .m4a files, so after some grumbling I managed to convert those files into .mp3 format.  Now those selections should work on most computers.  I downloaded the other clips off of the Internet, but they saved as .m3u (Winamp playlist) files.  This was a big problem, because they wouldn’t play when I transferred them to any other machine.  I managed to find an mp3 for the Mozart example, but the Monteverdi, Handel, and Rameau clips are still dead links.  I’ll continue searching for clips to put up on the site.

As promised, here’s the link to my Website: http://domin.dom.edu/students/greedavi/LIS753/mainpage.html.  My thanks to everyone who looked at the first draft and gave me suggestions!

Web Page Review

For my Web page review assignment, I looked at North Carolina State University libraries’ and Illinois Wesleyan University’s Ames Library’s Websites in order to gather ideas on how to improve Dominican University’s Rebecca Crown Library Website.

The first thing I noticed when I looked at the Website for the North Carolina State University libraries is that the headings for all of the sections are differentiated by color.  This makes it really easy for patrons to find the correct link quickly.  Additionally, each of the headings is associated with a graphic (a magnifying glass for “Search the Collection” and an “i” for “Library Information,” for example).  This allows the user to scan the page to find what they’re looking for, rather than having to read each of the headings.

Illinois Wesleyan University’s Ames Library’s Website looks a lot like the Crown Library’s Website.  Both have main headings in two columns with lists of links below their respective headings.  One of the things I like about the Ames Library page is that the headings are a different color from the links listed below them.  Unfortunately, a picture separates the four main headings at the top of the page from “Quick Links” at the bottom of the page, forcing the user to scroll down to find “Quick Links.”  The Crown Library’s Website, on the other hand, has all of the headings (and their respective links) visible on one screen without having to scroll.  Not only that, but there are fewer links per heading, giving the page an uncluttered feel.  From that standpoint, the Crown Library’s Website is much more navigable than the Ames Library page.

Another feature that both the Ames Library and the Crown Library have in common is a Meebo interface directly on their homepage.  However, I like the placement of the interface on the Ames Library page better than on the Crown Library’s site.  It is obvious that chat reference is available from the moment the Ames Library page loads, whereas the user must scroll down to the bottom of the Crown Library’s page to find it.  I believe that the Crown Library can put it in the same place as the Ames Library without sacrificing any features.  The gold bar on the left side of the screen on the Crown University’s Website seems rather redundant to me.  If the main section of the page were longer I could see its use, but since all of the headings are visible on one screen, that navigation panel is unnecessary.  Replacing it with the Meebo interface would be a great idea.

Web 2.0 Tool Review

For my Web 2.0 tool review for LIS 753, I will be examining Google Documents (Google Docs for short).  I first encountered Google Docs about a month ago, when my research team for Research Methods (LIS 769) started using it to create and edit our consent form and questionnaire.  Now each of us are analyzing segments of the data, and we are using Google Docs to fit our own work together into the whole.

There are several things that I like about Google Docs.  It functions a bit like a wiki in that whoever creates a Google Doc can assign contributor and viewer statuses to people, and people invited to be contributors can make any changes that they want.  If two or more contributors are logged on at the same time, a chat function becomes available so that the contributors can instantly communicate with one another, thereby reducing the number of edits and changes necessary on the document itself.

Finally, the feature that truly makes Google Docs a Web 2.0 tool, is the ease with which you can publish documents to the Web.  According to the tour on its Website, “You can publish your documents online with one click, as normal-looking web pages, without having to learn anything new.”  Documents can also be posted to your blog quickly and easily.

In addition to library science students using Google Docs to complete a class project, it is being used in a number of ways, both personally and professionally.  It has been a boon for Internet marketing.  Lesley Cutts, Marketing Manager for GoodnessDirect, uses Google Docs to keep her buyers, promoters, and photographers on the same page.  (You can read her promotional statement on Google Docs here).  Back in the library world, library chicken uses Google Docs to keep track of Staff Picks for the display at her library.

I can envision many uses for Google Docs in the library context.  Any instance where more than one person needs access to a particular document is an instance where Google Docs could come in handy.  People in acquisitions can keep track of book orders and purchases through the use of spreadsheets.  Committee members can edit documents online without having to physically meet in the same place.  Department heads can each add their own section to the big presentation for the director.  The possibilities are numerous.

One final note: a Google account isn’t even necessary to view a document stored in Google Docs.  However, if you want to edit a document, you need a Google account (which is free).  One other thing I noticed is that if you don’t have a Google account and the link to the Google Doc is in a forwarded email, it won’t let you view it.  Just a couple of bugs to be aware of.

Post #5: Trading Card

For my fifth required post, I chose to create a librarian trading card. I was hoping to find a Lord of the Rings trading card or Magic card template, but this’ll do. I created this with the resources at Big Huge Labs:

PS. The picture is Fierce Deity Link from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

Post #4: On the History of the Internet

In August of 1962, while working at MIT, J.C.R. Licklider wrote a series of memos describing a concept he termed the “Galactic Network.” His vision was of a globally networked system of computers that would facilitate the rapid transfer of data and programs from anywhere, to anywhere. This was made possible in part by Leonard Kleinrock’s work with packet switching. Kleinrock published the first paper on packet switching theory in 1961, and his first book on the subject was published in 1964.

Fast forward a few years, and ARPANET is up and running. In October of 1972, Bob Kahn organized the first public demonstration of ARPANET at the International Computer Communication Conference. Electronic mail also made its debut at that conference. Up to this point, ARPANET was a closed-architecture system. When Kahn came on board in 1972, he argued for an open-architecture system. He had four main ground rules:

1. Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to any such network to connect it to the Internet.

2. Communications would be on a best effort basis. If a packet didn’t make it to the final destination, it would shortly be retransmitted from the source.

3. Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these would later be called gateways and routers. There would be no information retained by the gateways about the individual flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from various failure modes.

4. There would be no global control at the operations level. 1

In the Spring of 1973 Kahn teamed up with Vint Cerf, and from these ground rules came the TCP/IP protocol suite that we still use today.

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1 Information for this post came from: Leiner, Barry M., Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. “A Brief History of the Internet.” http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml.

Post #3: Internet Copyright Filters

On January 30, 2008, the Advisory Committee to the Congessional Internet Caucus held its 4th annual State of the Net Conference in Washington, D.C.  The ALA had representatives attend the conference, and you can read their take on the proceedings on the ALA’s blog at http://blogs.ala.org/oif.php?title=state_of_the_net_report&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.  Videos from some of the sessions are available on the committee’s Website at http://www.netcaucus.org/conference/2008/video.shtml.  Representatives of several of the presidential candidates were also in attendance and shared with everyone their respective candidate’s positions on key Internet issues.  The committee also discussed privacy related to social networking, issues surrounding online gaming communities, and something that was totally new to me: Internet copyright filters.

There has been an ongoing debate in public libraries whether to filter user’s Internet access, especially regarding pornographic sites.  Sure the filters block (most) of the unwanted sites, but they also block some legitimate sites, which can be frustrating to our patrons.  Copyright filters would work in a similar fashion.  They would prevent the dissemination of copyrighted material to unauthorized users.  Unfortunately, just as regular Internet filters sometimes block legitimate sites, these filters can block legal access to copyrighted material, which is a disservice to our users.

Colleges and universities, which, for a long time, could claim academic freedom as an argument against filtering, are coming under increasing pressure to install these copyright filters.  So to all of you academic librarians out there: keep tabs on this situation.  It has the potential to be one of the biggest debates in academic librarianship in the next few years.

Post #2: You’re a doof! Huh-uh!

I was listening to music on Radio.blog.club (www.radioblogclub.com) the other night, and on one of the playlist blogs was an ad for a new social networking site called “doof” (www.doof.com).  My first thought was “Great.  Just what we need – a new social networking site.”  But their tagline, ”Addictive gaming.  Social networking.” intrigued me, so I thought I’d look into it.  Here’s what I uncovered (hopefully I’m not totally wrong and end up looking like a doof…):

doof is very similar to Facebook, in that you “friend” other people.  Anyone can post messages to a public “wall,” and friends can send you private messages.  You can send gifts, post photos, and pretty much anything else Facebook allows you to do.

On top of that, you can challenge friends to a game.  There are all kinds of games available, including arcade, puzzle, sports, racing, and word games.  Personal statistics are kept for all games, so you can see how well you rank versus the rest of the world.  You can compete in tournaments and championships, or join a league and play cooperatively against others.

Gaming and social networking seem to be the two big things among adolescents today.  doof seems to bring the two together in a creative and entertaining way.  Reviews on their blog speak very highly of it, and I expect it to become very popular in the not-too-distant future.

Post #1:Opacity vs. Transparency

I stumbled across this article (www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6515878.html) in Library Journal about anonymity and opacity in the library, and it reminded me of another article (www.slate.com/id/2182002/pagenum/all/) I read on AL Direct.  Amazon, it seems, is suffering from a similar problem in reverse.  There are a handful of reviewers who post hundreds of reviews a week, and the same people find all of their reviews “very helpful.”  This increases their ranking on Amazon, making them top reviewers on the site.  The problem is: are these reviews genuine?  How can a single person read a hundred books a week?  It seems a lofty goal, even for a speed reader.

But the problem is more insidious.  What are the implications for the library?  Book reviews from trusted sources like Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and Choice are a must, but what about patron requested books that aren’t reviewed by the big names in library literature?  Online reviews are becoming a popular source for gathering information about books that the library is thinking about purchasing.  Are these “false” reviews negatively influencing collection development?  Is the library buying books thinking that it is getting one thing, when in reality it is something much different?

Don’t get me wrong: online reviews are a great source of information.  But they should not be our only source of information.  In the absence of trusted reviews, ask around.  See if other people or other librarians have read it.  Check WorldCat and see how many other libraries own the book.  The more reliable information you have, the more transparent your decision-making process can be.

Salutations!

Hi all!
  Welcome to my blog for LIS753.  Check here periodically for my insights (ha ha), rantings (perhaps), and ramblings (most likely) about libraries, grad school, and life in general.  If you’re curious about what we’re learning in LIS753, check out our syllabus at:

http://lis753.wordpress.com/

  I hope everyone is surviving the frigid temperatures.
-David