YAY!

I got my Dickens fragment posted! My html was very rusty but it finally worked.

Here it is for your viewing pleasure: http://www.pitt.edu/~lcs27/

I didn't take to many liberties with it. (It hyperlinks off of that page)

Are libraries in trouble?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/98091589.html

Here is a link to an article that was in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It may be more along the lines of a bleeding heart for the library but it is definitely trying to be a call to arms for Philadelphia citizens, although it doesn't make a very successful case since it doesn't give to many direct examples for Philadelphians to relate to. Check it out and decide for yourself.

Another post about e-books

I found this article to be very interesting. I posted another article from this site a few posts ago and it really has some interesting stuff about what's going on with the library science field currently.

This article really has a great history about how e-books started and where they may be going.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/white-labeled-specialty-stores-not-ebook-superstores-are-the-future

E-books

Since we always seem to come back to the topic of e-books....

The library I work in now has access to an e-book downloader where patrons can borrow e-books for free. It's really a great system. A major downfall though....it's not compatible (as of yet) with the Kindle or the iPad. However, free e-books! The provider we use, overdrive.com, also gives us access to audiobooks as well, which have been popular with our patrons who are somewhat internet savvy. The service is really very easy to use, but most patrons don't want to take the time to read the instructions on the site to download the software needed. Another downfall to the whole thing is that the site will only allow a few users to "borrow" a book at one time. Otherwise, you are put on the wait list. I find this to be pretty ludacris, but hey, it's better than no e-books or audiobooks.

Here are some links for you...

www.pvlibrary.net

Our Overdrive site for the county

Library newzzzzzzz

LOLZ. (Sorry. I love them LOLCats.)

There are 72 million baby boomers, 11,000 Americans turn 50 every day, 4.6 adults turn 65 each minute, and almost 60% of librarians are 45 or older. There is little balance: only 7% of the library work force is age 20-29! (DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN.) (Got this from LISnews.org)

http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/06/08/08readwriteweb-googles-new-secure-search-might-force-schoo-20681.html

Just imagine not being able to use Google. Google, the number one search engine, may not be available for children to use in schools, as well as some of the education tools that go with it because a new version, which is more secure, will not be allowed through the filters set up by the Children's protection act. Hopefully Google figures this all out soon.

http://www.idealog.com/blog/metadata-is-the-new-most-important-thing-to-know-about
Here's an article on metadata (topic of Everything is Miscellaneous for those 2000 people)

AND........

http://www.librarything.com/topic/92663
Twitter article on ebooks. Very interesting debate.

In other news, I need to start studying for the quiz/exam this weekend.
Good luck to all of you!

Zotero Assignment

Whew!
Finally got my microphone to work!

Dabble Assignment

Well, I just finished the Dabble assignment. It was really easy. I was worried for about 5 minutes when I saw that it needed to be done for tomorrow but now it is so I can rest easy.

In other news, I will soon be the proud owner of a Mac Book Pro. I'm really excited. I just need to move everything around so it is on my new computer, when it arrives. It was a total surprise from my parents, who I am so lucky to have.

I still need to do my Jing assignment. And my paper for 2000. However, I am super tired so neither will be getting done tonight. I'm going to try to get some reading done before bed but we will see how that goes.

Good night everyone!

Busy!

Hey everyone!
I've been super busy with everything for school as well as work/everything else! Sorry I haven't updated. I'm really horrible at this whole blogging thing. It never works out for me.

I just found out about the Dabble assignment so I'm going to complete that after this blog...blah.

I'm really horrible at keeping up with all of the lectures and webcasts. I just hate sitting at my computer for that long of a period of time. I started listening to the lectures on my iPhone so that helps to keep me interested and allows me to listen while driving/walking so I don't have to be sitting on my computer with my headphones on for hours a day. I'm also having issues being self motivated. Any one else? It also doesn't help that I was in Rhode Island this weekend and wasn't able to do any work really. It looks like a long night tonight.

I hope everyone is doing well with their work and is staying a lot more caught up than I am. It is a lot more difficult to do web courses than I anticipated, just for the fact that I don't want to be on my computer doing work when there are so many other things to do/people to see/places to go/books (not for school) to read/etc.

I must get myself all motivated and get on with it!

The Hunger Games

I LOVE THIS BOOK SERIES.

http://www.foreveryoungadult.com/2010/05/12/the-hunger-games-survival-mix/

Links

I read a really great article that I found on Professor Tomer's New Basement Tapes blog about links. It was really great. To summarize the article, the author is debating whether links are a bigger distraction or a bigger help to find more information. I personally agree with the author in the fact that when I see a link, I definitely want to click it to find out what that information is, which can be distracting while reading. HOWEVER, clicking that link may be more information about something that I wanted to know/learn that I wouldn't have gotten out of the first article. Yes, it can be a distraction, however, we aren't being forced to follow the breadcrumb trail.

Here is a link to that article : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/links_in_text.php

And that article had a link to this article (http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/experiments_in.php) which is also really great. Maybe once I have some time to read something other than school books I will pick up Nicholas Carr's new book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

Both of these articles totally fit in with the book I'm reading for LIS 2000, Linked. I think that without the links in these articles pointing to other places, people might spend a lot less time on the internet because they would have to work for the information they are looking for. Or maybe that would make people spend a lot more time on it. I feel that really, it would probably be the first option because it seems like most people, myself included, are inherently lazy.

Have a great day!

Week 3

Hello all.

Well, I just finished my Scopus / Google Scholar assignment. It wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be. I have never used any of the programs that we used for the assignment, but I didn't really have any problems with any of them. The Scopus document definitely helped me figure out the first part and then the Google Scholar part was easy. I wish there was an easier way to capture the references other than doing it one by one. I also watched a youtube video on how to use Google Scholar which was helpful. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYEYGortVf0). Hopefully everyone else doesn't have a hard time using it.

Apple's iPad is doing really well. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127292959). I'm hoping to get Best Buy to come demo one at the library I work at. If anyone is working at a library, Best Buy will come to your library to do tech related programs for free through their community outreach program. Also along the lines of Apple, they actually passed Microsoft in market cap. That is just crazy to think about. So many more people still use the Windows platform but Apple's profits are skyrocketing. Soon they may be making more money than Microsoft. I mean, check out the graph in this article. Crazy! (http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/another_milestone_for_apple_pa.html)

I also read an article on Cnet.com about gadget interfaces that went along with something I read in the textbook recently. It discusses how much better it would be if gadget interfaces, especially those for cell phones, were made more consistent. This article goes in depth with different products, but it definitely reminded me of what I read in Discovering Computers. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20006229-248.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1)

Ok, I'm going to go read now for 2000. Hope everyone had a good holiday!

Week 2 comes to a close...

So, I'm finally almost caught up. I'm finishing my essay for 2000 and I just have some podcasts to watch tonight! I'm so excited! I feel like then I will finally be on top of things!

So far, I've learned a lot about different operating systems that I don't know. I really am quite interested in Linux and I'm thinking about switching one of my computers over. I want to check out some of the graphics programs they have since I don't have photoshop and I really, really miss it. I was thinking about switching over before but after looking at http://tldp.org/guides.html it made me a lot more interested.

On the technology front, there is a lot of crap coming down the pipe about Facebook. Everywhere you look, there's a new article about different privacy breaches. I'm really thinking about deleting my facebook, (I was before and I pretty much made everything private), but it is really easy to use to keep in contact with other people I haven't seen. Thus the beast of social networking. It just takes up so much time.

Ok, back to papers. Update soon!

Week 2 Pt. 1

Here is the link for the Newsweek article I mentioned in the last post: http://www.newsweek.com/id/235565.
It's a discussion of how the iPad could change many different industries. Very interesting. I would like to get my hands on an iPad just to try it out. I love my iPhone so maybe I would love that as well....since it is sort of a really big iPhone....

I finally got my computer to let me watch the first lecture. It's not the Blackboard or anything like that's fault. It's just that my computer (at least this one) hate playing videos. Just absolutely hates it. After watching the lecture, I finally figured out why everyone is freaking out about the different programs we need to download. So far I haven't had any problems. I need to read more about the remote server connection. I did get it to work but I wasn't able to find the article I needed for 2000. More practice I suppose. And the Pittcat+ plug in is working on my Firefox, so I'm very happy, especially since I feel like I have so many things to catch up on.

I wish I was in the classroom however, it would make things a bit easier to concentrate on. (Part of that is my computer freezing every 20 minutes). I also would have liked the hands on part of the lecture. Getting to see the parts in person and look at them is quite a bit different than looking at a diagram in the book. I found the part of the lecture about solid state drive interesting so I looked up some more info about them. I found an article stating that Apple will give consumers the option of picking a SSD for the new version of the MacBook and MacBook Pro. (http://www.obsessable.com/feature/solid-state-drives-101-why-should-you-care/). There has been a lot of information in the lecture as well as in the book that I wasn't knowledgeable about. I knew a lot of the terminology but reading the textbook definitely helped to clear up a lot about different parts of the computer and what their functions are.

I also found this article interesting. It doesn't have to do really with what we are talking about in class currently but it does have to do with the ever changing aspect of technology. The article is more information about Google TV. Google just announced on Thursday that it is going to launch Google Tv which will allow users to surf the web and watch tv on their televisions. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20005527-1.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.0)

Ok, so now it's time to watch some webcasts! And download the podcasts to my iPhone! Yay!

Newbie!

Hi there,
Well, this is my brand new blog! I haven't really had a blog that I kept up with for a long while. I've tried various times with a personal blog but always end up letting it fall by the wayside.

A short introduction about myself. My name is Lois and I live outside of the Philadelphia area. I'm currently enrolled in Pitt's MLIS online program and trying to decide what I want to concentrate on. I work at a library in the Montgomery County system as support staff. I also schedule programs for all ages and am in charge of running them as well as all the publicity and our bulletin boards. Also, I work part time at Ulta Cosmetics. I graduated in 2008 with a BS in Digital Communications with a second major in Studio Art from Lebanon Valley College, where I also worked in their library in the Periodicals department (which is where my interest in library school has started).

I live with 4 cats, my boyfriend, my best friend, and soon my little brother who goes to West Chester University. My boyfriend and my best friend are in a band together (www.myspace.com/trunkstales) so I'm usually going to their shows/helping make merch/listening to them practice. I love music. I have a huge vinyl collection/cd collection. I go to shows a lot and have a lot of friend in bands that I love going to see. I'm a vegetarian and I love cooking and I have a large number of vegan/vegetarian cookbooks. As well as other books. Tons of books...

So far, I'm pretty excited / overwhelmed to start. Mostly overwhelmed because I feel a bit unprepared. I'm really excited I finally have my loans (which was an ordeal in itself) but I really am sort of worried that I don't quite understand how everything works yet. And also, this week my jobs overloaded me with hours (50!) and there is a lot of reading to do. A bit more than I expected for some unknown reason. However I feel a bit better because it seems like some of my classmates feel the same, overwhelmed and all. I have read the first chapter and did the activities / quizzes in Discovering Computers. I really found the time line interesting and it was a great refresher since I haven't really kept up too well with technology since my Digi. Comm. classes in college. It's also really neat to see the updates just since the book came out (the Kindle/other ebooks and the iPad came to mind). This made me laugh: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20004818-1.html?tag=mncol (I'm also a huge Star Wars fan). I also read a really interesting article about the iPad in Newsweek and I'll try to find a link to it for my next post. So for now, my blog is low on the class related topics and high on my personal life, haha.