The Distant Librarian

Run Meebo in Firefox Sidebar

Lots of libraries seem to be using Meebo or MeeboMe to collect IM requests from multiple clients (AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk).  Up until today I used Trillian to manage all my accounts.  While Meebo works just fine, I didn't like the fact that I had to have a web page open in order to see the chat requests come in.  Well taking a lead from Amit at Digital Inspiration who showed how easy it is to run Google Talk as a sidebar in Firefox, I thought I'd see if the same thing could be done for Meebo, and it can!

The steps are identical; we'll just swap out a couple things in Amit's explanation:

To add Meebo to your Firefox sidebar, bookmark the following URL (right-click and choose Bookmark this link):  http://wwwl.meebo.com/index-en.html

Now go to your Bookmarks menu, navigate to the above bookmark, right click and choose Properties. Tick the checkbox that says Load this bookmark in the sidebar.

Whenever you choose that bookmark (why not put it in your bookmark toolbar?) it will now open as a sidebar in your browser, and thus will always be visible.

So now I can browse away in Firefox, but Meebo follows along in a sidebar.  Going to take a little while to get used to my slightly reduced screen space, but I think I can handle it.

Thanks for the inspiration, Amit!

Five non-liblogs

Rachel Singer-Gordon started a meme last week by posting about five non-library blogs, in the interest of promoting a little diversity.  Meredith tagged me, so here are five that give me some inspiration outside the library world:

1. Jon Udell, by, um, Jon Udell - I've posted about content from this one many times before.  Jon could've been a librarian, but could've been a lot of other things too.  Currently working for Microsoft, Jon is a technology and social visionary.  'nuff said.
   
2. Digital Inspiration, by Amit Agarwal - Oddly, this is one of only a handful of my 322 subscribed feeds that comes from outside North America.  Amit is like a one-man Lifehacker, and in fact LH often gets content from Amit.  If you enjoy LH, check out DI as well.
3. Twenty Sided, by Seamus Young - A relatively recent subscription for me - picked up for the Dungeon Master of the Rings serial.  Fun stuff if you appreciate that culture :-)
4. Michael Geist's Blog - Michael is a Law Professor at the University of Ottawa and a staunch supporter of copyright rights and reform, especially in Canada, but necessarily around the world as well.  Maybe Canada's version of Lawrence Lessig?
5. O'Reilly Radar - Interesting hearing from a progressive publisher's POV.  I enjoy Tim's posts the most...

Followup: A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials

Just a quick followup to my Jan 25 post about this article - it's now in print, though still nowhere to be seen in the U of T Institutional Repository :-(

Helms-Park, R., Radia, P., & Stapleton, P. (2007). A preliminary assessment of Google Scholar as a source of EAP students' research materials. The Internet and Higher Education. 10(1), pp 65-76.

doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.10.002

Technorati Tags: Google, Libraries, Schoogle, Google_Scholar

Co-Browsing Tools And Technology: A Mini-Guide

Ahhh, how time flies.  It was just about two years ago that my fellow bibliobloggers and I were agog over the co-browsing potential shown by a product called Jybe.  Just visited their website and it's all gone - hope the developers have moved on to other good things - they seemed like good guys.

Anyhoo, Kolabora.com has a posting today bringing us up to speed on the latest co-browsing options.  Most of them do cost money, but there were a couple that appear to be free, including a lite version (vRoom) of Elluminate, which we use here to great effect at the U of C.  There's a full review of vRoom here, and while the review doesn't read as very positive, my personal experience with Elluminate leads me to recommend that, if you're looking for a tool that will allow you to co-browse websites with a small number (1-3) of students AND offer very good Voice over IP quality, you should take a good look at this free tool.

And since I've put the cart first, co-browsing is the ability to share your web browser (and often any other application on your desktop) with someone in a remote location.  Need to walk a student through a tricky database search?  Almost impossible on the phone, but dead simple if you're both seeing the same screen.

I use Elluminate (full version) to teach to classes of students, but have fallen back on Skype and Unyte for my on-the-fly co-browsing needs.  One of the nicer things about vRoom though, is that it's completely web-based and thus platform independent.



Technorati Tags: co-browsing

EBSCO to deliver blog content

Sorry I couldn't come up with anything more original than David Rothman's original title, but that pretty much spells it out.  What an interesting idea.  David posts about a press release in which EBSCO and Newstex announce that EBSCO databases will begin delivering selected blog content alongside standard search results.  Sure hope one can easily filter that out!  David notes that there are only 10 medical blogs (his subject area); I note there are NO Information Science blogs listed!  I wonder how much the bloggers are getting paid, or if they have to be part of some advertising affiliate already.  Maybe this is my big chance!


Technorati Tags: EBSCO, Newstex, databases, blogs

New York TimesSelect available to students and faculty in Canada too

I was mildly cheesed when I read the announcements last week that the NY TimesSelect service was going be offered for free to students and faculty with a .edu email address, 'cause here in Canada we don't have that domain.  But then I thought I'd check and see so at least I'd have proof when I whined to the Times, so I went through the registration and was pleased to see that there's an option to choose "Outside the US", and that it worked.  So I'm signed up, and we'll see if I become more worldly and if I use the NYT more often.  Wonder what their business model is...

You can read about what TimesSelect is here.  Costs $49.95 US for mere mortals.


Technorati Tags: NY_Times, Education, Canada, Freebies

She hearts ILL

LIS News points to a great piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which Professor Susanna Ashton tells the academic world how great ILL is in the US.  In my limited experience, pretty much everything she says is true of ILL in Canada as well.  A good read, and positive quotes from Michael Gorman to boot!

Speaking of the hidden (to the end user) cost of ILL transactions,

"It isn't the sexiest line on a library budget. But there is something profoundly democratic, surprisingly compassionate, and deeply civic in sharing our national resources in this manner."

Technorati Tags: ILL

Mac Screencasting Tips

Still no perfect all-in-one package, but Miraz Jordan has a nice post with tips and tools for screencapture and screencasting on the Mac.


Technorati Tags: Screencasting, OSX

UNC Greensboro Information Literacy Game

This may be well-known in the InfoLit circles, but it was new to me.  UNC Greensboro has a nifty little Information Literacy (board)Game you can play, and download for use at your institution!  Go ahead and give it a try - it'll only take a few minutes - think your students will go for it?


Technorati Tags: Info_Lit, Games, Libraries

Find X

Couldn't wait until Friday to post this one - nothing to do with libraries, but it's a rare thing that makes me laugh out loud so I thought I'd share it.  A colleague forwarded a half-dozen funny responses to physics and math questions written by frustrated students.  This gem was right in the middle: 

Maybe it's only funny if you think of math the way I do (as little as possible)

Interview with BookSwim

I mentioned BookSwim a couple of months ago.  Being sold as Netflix for books, it's still not available to the public, but Joe Wikert has a brief interview with co-founder George Burke that you might find interesting.


Technorati Tags: Books, NetFlix

LJ on Federated Searching

Jonathan Rochkind has a really good article in Library Journal on the current state of Federated (Meta) searching, with Google Scholar as the catalyst.  In it, he explains why Google Scholar seems more attractive than library solutions - they index information locally instead of searching it live each time.  Good examples of a couple of big Canadian initiatives - Scholar's Portal and the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library.


Technorati Tags: Schoogle, Libraries, Federated_searching

CFP: Internet Librarian 2007

I don't think funding will allow me to go this year, but the Call for Presenters for Internet Librarian 2007 (Oct. 29-31) is out.  The theme this year is 2.0: Info Pros, Library Communities, & Web Tools, and proposals are due by March 26th!  I've spoken at IL the past two years and really enjoyed the experience.  Monterey is a wonderful location, the organizers really have it all together, and most importantly, I've learned useful things and met good people each time!  Even if you don't throw in a proposal to speak, you should go.


Technorati Tags: IL2007, Monterey