Week 5 - Photo Sharing

Welcome to Week 5 of Ezra Edition

Photo-sharing and image-creation (Flickr, Picasa, etc.)

A picture says a thousand words - imagine what you could say in pictures about the library!
Photo sharing in Plain English

Archives is using Picasa which does similar things

Online photosharing can open a can of worms when it comes to copyright and intellectual property. Many people attach a a Creative Commons license to their photos, videos, blog posts and other born digital creations. This license specifies what other people are allowed to do with the content(s)/creation(s).

There are 7 permutations of the Creative Commons - or CC - licenses:

• Attribution : CC BY View License Deed
• Attribution-ShareAlike :  CC BY-SA View License Deed
• Attribution-NonCommercial : CC BY-NC View License Deed
• Attribution-NoDerivs : CC BY-ND  View License Deed
• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike : CC BY-NC-SA  View License Deed
• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs : CC BY-NC-ND View License Deed
• Public Domain (or "All Rights Granted") : CC0 CC0 tool

These licenses are based in US Copyright Laws and are generally observed by legitimate re-users of other people's content. I generally use CC: BY-NC-SA for my pictures and CC: BY-SA for my blogging and micro-blogging content.

Several of my friends in the computer have their photos re-used all over the place because their choice of CC license is conducive to remixing and recycling internet content. I also know a few people who CC0 (make public domain) anything they publish on the internet, so their ideas and content will get wide distribution.

Suggested Activities:

• Explore information about Creative Commons
• What do you think about CC licenses? Are they worthwhile? Why/Why not?
• Check out Aaron's flickr photostream 
• What stories in pictures is he telling?
• Compare to pictures tagged with aaronthelibrarian
• What stories in pictures are being told about him?
• Check out the Libraries and Librarians flickr Group
• What are these libraries saying with their pictures?
• University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
• Utah State Library
• UGA Library
• Search flickr for interesting pictures
• Look for any licensing restrictions (such as CC: BY, NC, etc.)
• Check out the Lehman Library Archives images available on Picasa
• How does the Picasa layout compare with the flickr layout? Which do you prefer?

Week 4 - Wiki

Welcome to Week 4 of Ezra Edition
Wiki (Wikipedia, pbwiki/pbworks, library success wiki, etc.)

Wiki are Doug's favorite thing (or they were until LibGuides arrived anyway). Think of a wiki like a shared word document on the S drive. Anyone with edit permissions and access to the wiki can update the content. For example, some libraries are using wiki to house their policy and procedures manual(s).

Here's a quick overview of what wiki are and can do:

Basically Wikis are group collaboration on speed.

Another way to describe a Wiki is to think of a shared LibGuide. One person creates the LibGuide and then anyone with edit access can make changes. The main difference is the LibGuide takes pre-authorization, where a Wiki is more freely editable (unless access restrictions are applied).

Discovery Exercises:

• Check out some things which are interesting to you on Wikipedia
  (I chose to do look for the wikipedia page for Corvairs and learned about a few Corvairs I did not know about (specifically the hockey team))
  
  • Look at the “Discussion” tab on wikipedia articles which interests you to see what things have been removed/added/disputed - sometimes these discussions can get heated.
  • Find web articles comparing the reliability/accuracy of Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia for comparison information - how many articles about this on the web are actually in a wiki? :)
• List a few ways you think a wiki could improve your workflow and/or how a Wiki might actually dis-improve it.

Week 3 - Social Networking

Welcome to Week 3 of Ezra Edition

Social Networking or Microblogging (Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, etc.)

"Social Media" is the current communication-channel darling. This is where a lot of the current conversation about library topics takes place. The "old" places (conferences, blogs, email lists, webpages, journals, etc.) still are valid communication channels, but the newest stuff is coming to the fore in social media. The communication channels are fragmenting/fragmented - for good or bad.

Here is a quick overview and some of the platforms being used:

• More students are using “Social Networking” for everything
  
• Create a Twitter account for yourself, find interesting people to follow
  
  (@awd for example)
•  Social Feed Aggregators
  There are websites which allow "lifestreaming" which aggregate and broadcast the updates from many Social Networking services. The library uses Freindfeed to aggregate Shiplibrary blog and Twitter updates, flickr & Picassa uploads, LibAnswers Questions answered, LibGuides created or updated, and much more.
• Check out Friendfeed
• Check out Facebook
  If you’re not on Facebook, and don’t want to be either, you can get with someone who is on Facebook (or who doesn’t mind creating a Facebook account) and friend folks you feel like catching or keeping up with. I've heard from folks that the only reason they are on Facebook is to keep up with their kids or grand-kids)

Discovery Exercises:

• Check out the ShipLibrary Friendfeed page
• What do you think about it? Write a blog post and link it in the comments below
•  Take look at some library twitter accounts to see how libraries use (or don't anymore) twitter
• Create a Twitter account and follow a few libraries
• Take a look at "Social Feed Aggregator" websites (like Friendfeed or Facebook)
• Specifically check out the trivia found in this feed and comment on the pros and cons of following or sharing this kind of information.
• Friendfeed offers an option called "Rooms" - check out the Library Society of the World
• What do you think of the topics on the first page or two? Would this kind of resource be helpful to use here at Ship? How about at the KLN level for keeping up and discussing who is doing what and how in KLN libraries?

Week 2 - Instant Messaging

Welcome to Week 2 of Ezra Edition
Instant Messaging
(Using AIM – same as ShipLibrary reference chat, meebo, and more)

Instant Messaging, or Chat, is a quick substitute for a private conversation or an email when there may be a lot of back-and-forth in a discussion. Quick Reference qiuestions are a good examples of chat in libraries. The Library Success Wiki has a good page on which libraries are using what kinds of chat service(s) to provide quick answers to library users and patrons.

Some of my friends in the computer use chat in their libraries to facilitate internal communication. For example, if everyone were to have a chat application open on their workstation questions and discussions could happen without the interruption of a phone call. If someone were busy, the question would be waiting on the chat application (similar to an unread email) and a quick reply could be dashed off by the recipient as time and workflow allows.

Discovery Exercises:

• Chat with the person monitoring the ShipLibrary AIM Chat? 
• Create an AIM handle (aim.com or aol.com?)
• Try out AIM Chat (and/or other options like Meebo, Pudgin, gTalk, etc.)
• Some libraries use Chat to replace quick emails back and forth, do you think doing this would work for you?

Week 1 - Blogs and Blogging

Welcome to Week 1 of Ezra Edition

Blogs and Blogging
(Using Blogspot – same service as Ship Library Blog)

The purpose of this exploration is to go through the process of creating content to share with others online. We're not here to turn everyone into an A-List Blogger, just to get our feet wet and share ideas and/or feedback about our jobs and our interests.

• Create your own blog to track your impressions while doing this activity
  
• Have fun, find things which will help you with your job as well as away from work 

More blogs have been started and abandoned than all the books in the world ever written (I made that up). Thinking about it, I know I've started several blogs and cannot remember where they (the URLs) are or under which pseudonym(s) I've written.

One of the reasons (given by my friends in the computer) for starting a blog is to keep track of a particular project, another is to keep track of thoughts on particular topics.

Another thing to remember as you create blog content, phrasing things with a positive tone can generate informative discussions. Informative and helpful is the tone and purpose I aim for in my (sporadic) blogging.

Discovery Exercises:

• Create a blog (use a pseudonym if you wish) to track your impressions and ideas for this week
• Reply to this Blog Post with a link to your Blog
• Review what we did last week with Google Reader
• Does your organization of feeds make sense?
• Skim through your new items in Google Reader and write a blog post on something which catches your interest
• As a Work-related-wise example: "eBooks" is a very hot topic in libraryland right now (see the Harper Collins 26 circs and you're done brouhaha) - if this touches on what you do at work (or as a library user) maybe toss out an idea or two on how to address this event and discussion.
• If this seems artificial, feel free to write about something that interests you (gardening, knotting, good books, motocross, Bourbon, whatever. The idea here is to go through the process of putting something online which others might find and/or read. It's not as easy as it sounds.
• Another idea could be to respond to the reasons given by my friends in the computer (which I referenced above)
• If you track what you are thinking while you're participating in this program, we could take the feedback and use that to tailor future activities, too :)

Week 0 - Welcome and Introduction

Welcome to Week 0 of Ezra Edition.

The format for future weeks of Ezra Edition will be a blog post similar to this one.
The Topics page gives an overview of what tools and/or technologies be covered for that week - the topic details will be shared in a blog post.
When you have an idea for how to apply one of the tools or technologies we explore to processes in the library, feel free to add it to the Tips page.

• Introduction to the tools and technology (f2f meeting)
• Original "Learning 2.0" introduction:
  
  7.5 habits of highly successful lifelong learners – from the original PLCMC slideshow
• RSS {Really Simple Syndication}
  
  • What it is. What it does. How to leverage it.
    
    
• Suggestions for using RSS readers as part of job
  • Set up personal account in Google Reader
    
    
  • Find and follow interesting blogs (work or personal)
  • 1.Catalogablog and many others in the biblioblogosphere
  • 2.LOLcats/ LOLdogs (Laugh Out Loud Funny -- or maybe not, sometimes)

Once you have your Google account and Google Reader setup, it's time to find blogs and other websites which provide feeds to make keeping up easier.

Discovery Exercises:

• Create a Google Reader account (which we did together)
• Add the Ship Library Blog to Google Reader
• Find blogs which cover what you do in the library
• Add some to Google Reader
• Find blogs which interest you
• Add some to Google Reader
• Organize your Google Reader into logical groups