A colleague of mine just told me of a very positive experience that she had in an instant messaging transaction last week. A patron had contacted her via our IM reference service and was needing to find financial ratios for hypermarkets in France. This sounded like a pretty tough business question, and unfortunately I've been... Continue Reading →
Guide for HDTV and Gaming
Gamespot has a guide for understanding HDTV, particularly in how the newer technologies apply to gaming on the new Playstation3. The guide gets rid of a lot of the jargon and is easy to understand, even if you're not into games. A new generation is upon us and like many, we are not prepared. Many... Continue Reading →
Librarycasting SE
This is sweet! Librarycasting SE: Screencasts, podcasts, tutorials and titles for the sciences and engineering. Librarycasting SE is a compilation of selected educational and information resources for the sciences and engineering, with a strong emphasis on new media and communication formats such as screencasts (pc screen video), video, and podcasts (audio). Resources covered include those... Continue Reading →
The world is becoming flat
In his keynote address on Monday at the ODCE conference, John Seely Brown discussed the idea that the world is becoming flat. Our world is no longer as divided by borders, time, or space as it once was, largely as a result of the technologies that we are using today. We have the ability to... Continue Reading →
A little Chinese Wisdom
Usually the fortunes I get from fortune cookies are pretty cheesy. However, I got this one a few weeks ago, and I've been carrying it around in my Palm ever since. With Computers in Libraries 2006 right around the corner, I figured my fortune would be relevant to share: This fortune came true for a... Continue Reading →
Librarians and IM Survey
Michael is conducting a survey of librarians and IM. It took me all of two minutes to complete, so if you use IM (or not) for personal, professional, or reference purposes, take a couple of minutes to fill out the survey. He's "interested to see how many librarians are using IM at their... Continue Reading →
Marketing Virtual Reference
This is one way to get students to use your IM/Chat reference service. From the University of Mississippi Libraries: Chat with a Librarian and Win an iPod Shuffle! During the month of February every student or faculty/staff member who chats with a librarian will automatically be entered to win an iPod Shuffle. You don't have... Continue Reading →
Tweaking our Podcast Tour
Greg contacted me via IM last week, and the conversation with him helped me to flesh out some ideas for the podcast tours. He writes that a podcast isn't really a podcast without an RSS feed, which I happen to agree with. One of the things that were lacking on the podcast tour page was... Continue Reading →
A First Try at Podcasting
On January 5, our library launched a podcast version of the library self-guided tour. This is the first publishable draft of the podcast, and we're continuing to get feedback that we're incorporating into later versions. It's a little too early to tell how successful the tour will be, but I can tell you that the... Continue Reading →