Category: Digital Culture

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Digital Culture

Future of OPAC

Tim Spalding, Librarything:

“The library is the most fun you can have with your pants on.”
“You are not better for being a mall…you can’t leave a mall”

Fun-ability

  • Focus on the OPAC, the website and the opac are not seperate things.
  • Allow inbound links
  • Link outwards: Why wouldn’t you link to commercial service?
  • Link Around: ubiquitous hyperlinks..everything is a first level entity. Everything is massively linked, and this is where serendipity comes in.
  • Dress up your OPAC (syndetics): someone needs to create a free database of covers
  • Get your Data out there: including RSS, but people don’t want YOUR content, peope want THEIR content. How do you tell people what you are reading from your OPAC? OMGWTF: LibraryThing sharing data with OPAC, including tags and recommendations.
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Digital Culture

Podcasting with a Purpose

Rachael Clemens, Cal State Fullerton

Focused on NURS 505, a nursing class with 40% of the students as distance ed

Modules developed:
Welcome
What is peer review
and 10 others that I couldnt’ get because she swapped the slide too fast. 🙁

Created PPT? Huh? *shudder*

Tools used: audacity, quicktime pro, sound recorder, digital recorder, Camtasia,digital camcorder, mediasite

Categories
Digital Culture

RSS Feed issue

I was alerted that my RSS feeds are currently very ugly, given that there are no line breaks or links.

This is a known issue with the version of Podpress that strips the formatting…I’ve implemented a hopeful fix, and would love for someone to let me know if it’s helping.

🙂

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Digital Culture

Dog and Pony Show: Aka Blogs and Wikis with Michelle and Meredith

An overview of their Five Weeks program (that, btw, was phenomenally good and wonderful and made of win and awesome)

Meredith showing examples of blogs used in class situations, as a CMS instead of WebCT or Blackboard.

“The best way blogs can be used is in reflective learning” – Meredith

They set their presentation up on a wiki! Cool! Visit it here….http://michellemeredith.pbwiki.com

Language learning is the killer app for blogging and education.

Blogs v. Wiki: FIGHT!
Timeline vs no timeline
Ownership of posts v. collaborative knowledge

After Mer goes through the goodness of blogs/wikis, Michelle takes over to talk specifically about 5 weeks.

Great examples of the participants in 5 weeks struggling with the new technology, and working out their thoughts inside the system on their blogs. Great reflective learning.

Michelle says “Fabulous!” a lot

The peer learning was the most valuable part of the program to the users, but the content is now there, and available for anyone to re-use.

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Digital Culture

Virginia Tech

I’m following the events and news from this event online, trying to find the Long Tail of the news. Some of the things I’ve uncovered:

A horrifying video from a student on campus during the events. No direct violence, but disturbing due to reality.

Another video, this one from an injured student describing the shooter.

The wikipedia page on the event is here.

And there’s a report online that Jack Thompson has already claimed on Fox News that this is because of video games.

Fuck you, Jack. Fuck you.

Categories
Digital Culture

Cool Tools for Webmasters

Yahoo Pipes
Google MyMaps
Yahoo Design Pattern Library
What Is my IP?
The Rasterbator
Web developer/web accessibility toolbar for Firefox
Zamzar
Gliffy
Firefox: Linkify
Firefox: Link Checker
Pixer.us
Trailfire – Web Tours
Myxer
MyBlogLog
CrazyEgg
ManyEyes

Google Webmaster Tools
Open source web design
Gvisit
LastFM

Open Source Federated Search
DBWiz – Simon Frasier University
Keystone ILS – Index Data

Categories
Digital Culture

Organization 2.0

Our heirarchical organizations may not survive the web 2.0/library 2.0 shift.

2.0 tech is changing the way we think about when we work, where we work, and how we work

We have become more distributed in our tools, more collaborative, etc…but not in our expectations or work hours.

Organizational change: nothing is more difficult. it is fundamentally about making choices and changes, and both are scary

Org. Structure

    Past structures are not effective in present or future work processes
    Younger the staff, the more comfortable they are with tech, collaboration, more uncomfortable with top-down
    Small, agile groups move faster than large bureaucracies
    Leadership & Followership are Critical Success Factors
    85/15 rule: process & Structure problems beat people problem hands down
  • Form follows function
  • Functions Change quickly
  • Form drives behavior
  • Reporting relationships create loyalty (who you report to is the most important aspect)
  • Collaboration decreases as distance increases (more than 50 feet apart)

Stability signals staleness and death
Clarity dissolves conflict

Authority and power is increasingly associated with the people that know and understand the 2.0 principles

2.0 Leadership
Make the invisible, visible
Make the intangible, tangible

Most of the time, most of the people do what they do best.

Categories
Digital Culture

Keeping you safe from the terrorists

While flying back from Detroit on Monday, I snapped this picture of the TSA security gate. I would have used a better camera, but of course I had that packed away so I wouldn’t have to put it in a bin. The phone captured the moment, though:

TSA_error.jpg

If you can’t make it out, here’s a closeup:

TSA_error_closeup.jpg

Yep…that’s a windows memory error screen on a TSA monitor. The irony of this knows no bounds.

Categories
Digital Culture

Data visualization

Talk about cool data visualization! I’m delighted by interesting ways to present data, and this one is just great…it’s a video of housing prices from 1890 to present, graphed, and then turned into a rollercoaster. Yes, a rollercoaster.

Categories
Digital Culture

DMCA Notice

Huh.

So I noted yesterday that I had attended Wrestlemania 23. I took a bunch of photos and a handful of video at the event, as cameras were allowed at the venue. In order to share the videos (two of them) I uploaded them to YouTube. The two videos were < 30 seconds long, and were taken from my seat, faaaaar up on the second level of the arena. Not 12 hours later, I recieved a DMCA takedown notice for them. My question now is: are they actually a violation of copyright? I'm not certain...I checked the back of my ticket for a contract notice, and found this gem: "By using this ticket, the ticket holder agrees that he or she will not directly or indirectly transmit or aid in transmitting any picture, account or description (whether text, data, or visual) in any media now or hereafter existing of all or any part of the football game or related events." I didn't see a football game, nor any events related to one...but I suppose there is an argument that this is a general prohibition for "events at Ford Field." But that is not what it says. As well, as I read it, that agreement prohibits everything...even talking about the game afterwards with your friends. As I noted, cameras were allowed at Wrestlemania...they even sold cameras at the merch tables. So clearly that can't be the case for still pictures. There is also the warning they broadcast inside the venue before the show...which I didn't see. We didn't arrive until a bit after the first match, so I missed it. However, there's a photo on flickr: Wrestlemania 23 copyright

But that is the warning that is intended for the viewers-at-home so to speak…and again, they clearly allowed for photography within the arena.

So, copyright peeps: did YouTube (and thus Google) jump the gun on this? I think they did, and my inclination is to send a counter-notice to them. What say you all?