The Distant Librarian

Value added with social media

One of the things I really like about Rollbots is that the creator (author?), MCM, each week posts a behind-the-scenes recap of the show, explaining some of what was supposed to happen in the episode, or why what did happen happened the way it did.  It's neat to learn extra little tidbits about a piece of media you care about.

That reminded me of how social media, specifically blogs, podcasts and twitter, can be used effectively as marketing tools by libraries, and of course any other business.  I'm thinking of other media examples like the podcasts produced by Lost and Battlestar Galactica, where you can learn more about the shows you love.  I don't follow the twitter feeds of many libraries, but Vancouver Public Library is one that I really like, because they take the opportunity to talk about a little more than the type of stuff that would appear on the regular blog. 

Is anyone aware of libraries that are letting folks know WHY things are happening at their library?  Maybe not quite as mundane as why a book was catalogued with a specific subject heading, but surely there are behind-the-scenes tidbits the public would care about that would make us seem more human?

Serenity Now! - Library Lullaby

"iSerenity offers a relaxing web-based experience that delivers soothing sounds and images designed to reduce stress and calm nerves. Use iSerenity while at work or at home. You can even leave it running in the background while you work on your computer."

I just found Library Lullaby, which will provide background noise of, well, a library.  Does your library sound like this?  Nice pictures too!  There are other environments such as waterfalls, rain, and purring too!

Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008

From the Educause website:

This report is the sixth in a series of annual reports on a study
conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group for the Sloan Consortium.
Using responses from over 2,500 colleges and universities, the study
sought answers to several questions on online education:

• How many students are learning online?
• What is the impact of the economy on online enrollments?
• Is online learning strategic?
• What disciplines are best represented online?

It's a 28-page PDF with nary a mention of libraries, library, or librarian.

Extensive knowledge of the Star Wars film series is a major plus

A job ad for Image Database Administrator, Lucafilm , San Francisco, California was posted to LISJobs a month ago, but was recently forwarded to the Web4Lib list.  That might be a cool job!

I'm # 51,008 in the Kindle Store!

You may recall that last year I discussed some options I was considering for commercialization of this blog.  I have gotten one $25 payment from Newstex in the last year, so my content's obviously trickling out there somehow.  Just got a notice that I'm now available in the Amazon Kindle store, where you can now subscribe to me for $.99 per month!  I didn't set the price, and obviously I don't suggest you pay to receive my content when you can get it here for free.  But I guess if you live and die by your Kindle you now have the option. :-)

3.94 million online students in the US

So says the most recent Sloan-C publication, Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 (28 page PDF).  Lots of good general statistics (how many, which programs, drivers of distance ed, etc.) but not a single mention of libraries.

Google Prefs for Mobile Devices and XHTML

I'm on the Google Preference page from time to time, and noticed something new today.  Google now allows you to output search results in HTML (default), XHTML or for PDAs!  Or does it?  I just went back to grab a screenshot of what the different outputs would look like, and the setting is gone.  Weird.  Something to look forward to I guess.

The Annoyed Librarian goes for World Domination

I don’t follow the Annoyed Librarian, and I didn’t pay much attention when it was announced that Library Journal was paying him/her to move his/her blog over there.  But holy cow, now the AL has shown up as the author of every article in a “special issue” of the Journal of Access Services! (volume 5, issue 4).  I’m on the  editorial board for this journal and this was news to me; it just showed up in my mail Friday afternoon.  I’ll skim through the articles to see how funny they are, but even if we’re having trouble scaring up contributors, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the path we want to go down with our peer-reviewed journals!

Learning where the money went

Spent my drive up to Edmonton for Netspeed listening to episodes of the new NPR podcast Planet Money.  Fascinating stuff.  Kinda makes me wish I hadn't taken my final undergraduate semester's Economics class as a pass/fail option.  Since it was P/F, and my last semester, and a 3-hour course to boot, I ended up playing a lot of golf instead, so I don't "remember" much, so Planet Money is a great learning opportunity.  As mentioned in one of the episodes I heard, http://bailoutsleuth.com/ - also quite interesting.

Wow!

Just Wow.  (Thanks for the pointer Darlene)

Wow

My secret career as a music critic of albums for kids

Back in July I posted a PSA entitled Road trip survival - children's music you'll atually enjoy too! As a result I was contacted by two different small publishers asking if I'd review their CDs as well. I said sure, send 'em up and I'll have my kids pass judgement, and lo, they did. Here's a quick review of those two, plus one recommendation I can't believe I forgot last time around. 

• Rock Daddy Rock: silly short songs for silly short people. (also available on iTunes). You can listen to  samples on the website. The subtitle speaks volumes on this one - it's for silly short people, but not their parents. In fact, the kids didn't seem to care for it much either. A fair amount of body-related humour, but even more prescriptive songs about turning off the tv, cleaning rooms, don't spit, etc. 
• Let's Go Green Kids (also available on iTunes and with song snippets on the website). This one was much better for both my kids and the parents. Much better songwriting and singing, with a good message as well. The only drawback is that while individually the songs are very good, listening to a whole album about going green became a little repetitive for the Wife and me. Kids didn't seem to mind, and the 4-year-old regularly sings the Tin Can Can around the house.   As expected, this one ships in a simple cardboard sleeve.  :-)
• Finally, I should've included Charlie and Lola's Favourite and Best Music Record in my first posting. Definitely a winner at our house; a CD I'll actually choose to listen to from time to time (like, over adult music). Wonderful reproduction of the whimsy of the show and books by the same name.  I think the magic here is in the percussion instruments, somehow.  Only drawback is that it appears to be a real bear to obtain in North America, but it's worth it - trust me on this one!

That's it for the early Fall installment.  That'll probably be the end of this segment, unless I trip across any more winners, or unless someone out there wants to send more - I'm happy to let the kids to the reviewing :-)

JSTOR - PDF Incompatibility with Mac Preview

JSTOR reports "We are glad to report that we have located and fixed a problem that caused an incompatibility between JSTOR PDF files and older versions of Mac Preview. This problem caused only part of the article to be viewable in Preview. The fix released today means that JSTOR PDF files should now be viewable in their entirety in Preview 3.0.9 (the current version integrated with Mac OS 10.4) as well as newer versions integrated with Mac OS 10.5. Users of Preview 3.0.9 should note, however, that the page images of articles are usually highly compressed to save file size, and may be slow to open on this version of Preview. It is believed that this is a limitation of Preview that Apple corrected in the version of Preview shipped with Mac OS 10.5."

I've had one patron report this problem, and thought I'd post the official word from JSTOR for wider discoverability:

We have recently become aware that certain versions of Mac Preview are incompatible with the newest generation of JSTOR PDFs. For some users, this means that only the cover page is displaying. Other users have reported that the downloaded article appears to be missing the first portion of the article—it begins somewhere after the first 10 pages of the article. The article is in fact intact and complete, but some pages are not displayed properly. We are working to fix this and plan to continue to support the use of Preview with JSTOR PDFs. We apologize for the problems that this is causing for Mac users.

For now, the quickest workaround is to download the latest free copy of Adobe Reader, available on the Adobe web site:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html

Once Adobe Reader is downloaded, please check to make sure that the default PDF viewer is set to Adobe Reader rather than the original PDF viewer installed on your Mac.

The default viewer for PDF documents in Mac OS X is Preview. To change the file association for PDF files:

* Select any PDF file and choose File > Get Info.
* Choose the application that you want to open PDF files from the Open With menu.
* Click Change All, and then click Continue.

You will also want to make sure that the popup blocker is turned off for the JSTOR site. The new PDF files are set to open in a new window and popup blockers may affect this.

jstor, pdf, preview, acrobat

Rocking out in the library

My Uncle found and sent this one to me - that's one happy library user!

Campus Community Advisory!

Bet most of you don't have this much fun on YOUR campus! This arrived via email a short time ago:

Moose tranquilized and safely removed from campus

Alberta Fish and Wildlife Officers successfully tranquilized and removed a young moose from campus this morning.

The moose wandered onto campus at about 8:20 a.m. and broke through a window in the link between Reeve Theatre and Craigie Hall. Fish and Wildlife Officers had been in the area and were able to tranquilize the moose shortly after 8:30 a.m.

Alberta Fish and Wildlife Officers were to monitor and then release the moose.

Poor moose.

Road trip survival - children's music you'll actually enjoy too!

Absolutely no relevance to libraryland, but as a public service I thought I'd throw you the names of several artists your children will love to listen to in the car, and that you'll actually appreciate too! 

1. Wiggles - NOT!
2. They Might Be Giants - not only their three wonderful kids albums (123 and ABC are my favs) but many of their "adult" songs will go over with the rugrats too - my kids love Birdhouse and Dr. Worm.
3. Ralph Covert (aka Ralph's World) - any of his albums - there's some damn good and funny stuff in here.
4. Barenaked Ladies - Snacktime.  Not as good as either of the two above, or even some of their adult stuff, but still pretty good.
5. Peter Puffin - A Calgary artist, so you may not have much luck tracking him down.  Maybe try that ILL thing I've heard about.  Again, not quite as good as #2 and #3 above, but much better than the average kids crap, and will really instill a sense of earth conciousness in your kids.
6. StoryNory Podcast - Great stories told with a lovely English accent.

I'm sure there are many others, but these have worked really well for my kids, and should work well for ages 3-9 and their parents.

Your turn - what do you listen to with your kids in the car that doesn't drive you insane?

Oh, and check out Audiobook Builder for easily building slick audiobook files for your iPod (Mac only).

Happy Road Tripping!