http://pittlibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-13-require-readings.html?showComment=1227844920000#c9187200440824591970
http://corrinewxly.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-13-readings.html?showComment=1227845340000#c2591608225975393553
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Week 13 Readings
There are a few disconnected things worth saying about "No Place to Hide", but none of them have anything to do with library science. When considering companies that gather data about behavior, it's crucial to consider whether or not that data is connected to individuals by name. I understand that the CIA and the FBI not communicating with each other is a huge problem, but I don't understand how it's supposed to be a concern for the average American. "No fly" watch lists are ridiculous and need to be practically wiped clean.
I have to say that I'm glad the Information Awareness Office never quite got off the ground. The idea of attempting to monitor all actions of all people at all times is moronic at worst and Orwellian at best. Also, the Office's original logo was totally creepy. I should note that the one video we were supposed to watch this week is no longer available. Could this be the work of the IAO, continuing its mission in the shadows? Start your conspiracy engines!
I have to say that I'm glad the Information Awareness Office never quite got off the ground. The idea of attempting to monitor all actions of all people at all times is moronic at worst and Orwellian at best. Also, the Office's original logo was totally creepy. I should note that the one video we were supposed to watch this week is no longer available. Could this be the work of the IAO, continuing its mission in the shadows? Start your conspiracy engines!
Muddiest Point: Lecture 12
When libraries decide to put digital collections online and let users help out with the tagging, what can they do to deal with incorrect or malicious tags?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Week 12 Readings
The article on blogs hit home for me with one of its points about what it's like trying to collaborate with people for a project via e-mail. That's what I'm doing for my poster project in 2000 right now, and - like the article predicted - my inbox has quickly become twice as full as it was before.
The article on library instruction and wikis recalled for me time wasted in my undergraduate studies not too long ago. While I did occasionally learn something from these sorts of sessions, I usually just wanted to zone out. If I could have instead taught myself what I needed to know when I needed to know it by reading wikis, that would have been an improvement.
I wasn't terribly persuaded by the article on "folksonomies" - a term I feel justified in placing in scare quotes since it's only been around for three years and it sounds ridiculous. Why enlist faculty or librarians to create special bookmarks when they could simply submit lists of useful sites along with their respective hyperlinks? Allowing users to post their own tags sounds almost as stupid as the you-won't-find-that-in-any-dictionary term for it: "spagging".
Even though I knew plenty about Wikipedia before watching the video on it - shot in mid-2005 - I still learned a few interesting facts about the site. Those facts are: 1) only 1/3 of the traffic to the site is to English-language pages, 2) perhaps 1,000 people are responsible for the majority of edits made to the site, and 3) freely-licensed textbooks are in the works. That last point is actually quite exciting!
The article on library instruction and wikis recalled for me time wasted in my undergraduate studies not too long ago. While I did occasionally learn something from these sorts of sessions, I usually just wanted to zone out. If I could have instead taught myself what I needed to know when I needed to know it by reading wikis, that would have been an improvement.
I wasn't terribly persuaded by the article on "folksonomies" - a term I feel justified in placing in scare quotes since it's only been around for three years and it sounds ridiculous. Why enlist faculty or librarians to create special bookmarks when they could simply submit lists of useful sites along with their respective hyperlinks? Allowing users to post their own tags sounds almost as stupid as the you-won't-find-that-in-any-dictionary term for it: "spagging".
Even though I knew plenty about Wikipedia before watching the video on it - shot in mid-2005 - I still learned a few interesting facts about the site. Those facts are: 1) only 1/3 of the traffic to the site is to English-language pages, 2) perhaps 1,000 people are responsible for the majority of edits made to the site, and 3) freely-licensed textbooks are in the works. That last point is actually quite exciting!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Muddiest Point: Lecture 9
We were told that every XML document begins with a prolog stating what version of XML is being used. What major changes have been made to XML as it has repeatedly advanced from one version to the next?
Week 10 Readings
The article on digital libraries' challenges opens with the observation that "we live in interesting times". As is often the case when I hear that expression, I can't help but wonder whether it's meant as a positive or a negative. Carnegie Mellon's development of "integrated speech, image, video, and language understanding software" sounds like an interesting positive. When the interesting negatives come along, I guess we'll just have to reach for the tools "in our armamentarium".
The article on digital libraries' origins seems to dramatize the conflict between librarians and computer scientists. I'm not sure what the big fuss is about. Then again, I'm still not even sure what digital libraries are all about. Is there anything more to them than catalogs, finding aids, and digital media accessible from afar? That all sounds like old hat at this point, as opposed to something worth fighting about.
In the article on institutional repositories, Clifford Lynch does a good job of describing the kinds of services that librarians need to provide in order to be effective. Among other duties, we should capture events digitally, open up new forms of communication, and ensure that patrons know what materials are available to them. The main idea is that we ought to be making information as easily accessible as we can, and that seems like a reasonable goal.
The article on digital libraries' origins seems to dramatize the conflict between librarians and computer scientists. I'm not sure what the big fuss is about. Then again, I'm still not even sure what digital libraries are all about. Is there anything more to them than catalogs, finding aids, and digital media accessible from afar? That all sounds like old hat at this point, as opposed to something worth fighting about.
In the article on institutional repositories, Clifford Lynch does a good job of describing the kinds of services that librarians need to provide in order to be effective. Among other duties, we should capture events digitally, open up new forms of communication, and ensure that patrons know what materials are available to them. The main idea is that we ought to be making information as easily accessible as we can, and that seems like a reasonable goal.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Assignment 4: Jing w/ Flickr
Jing Video Set:
http://www.screencast.com/users/randhall/playlists/twitter_tutorial
Note: I taped my tutorial in three segments, not realizing that Jing doesn't allow you to edit clips together. The above URL links to my playlist of those three clips; please simply watch them in order and think of them as comprising a single video.
Flickr Photo Set:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919556395/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919557807/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919560359/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919562945/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919566637/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2920413380/in/set-72157607800019414/
Alternately, you can watch a slideshow of the six photos with just one click:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/sets/72157607800019414/show/with/2919556395/
http://www.screencast.com/users/randhall/playlists/twitter_tutorial
Note: I taped my tutorial in three segments, not realizing that Jing doesn't allow you to edit clips together. The above URL links to my playlist of those three clips; please simply watch them in order and think of them as comprising a single video.
Flickr Photo Set:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919556395/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919557807/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919560359/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919562945/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2919566637/in/set-72157607800019414/
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/2920413380/in/set-72157607800019414/
Alternately, you can watch a slideshow of the six photos with just one click:
http://flickr.com/photos/30346155@N04/sets/72157607800019414/show/with/2919556395/
Friday, October 3, 2008
Muddiest Point: Lecture 6
I understand that computers send messages over networks by splitting each message into packets and sending those packets out individually. However, I don't understand how packets get put back together again to reform messages. How does TCP work?
Week 7 Readings
The article on Internet infrastructure was most helpful for me when it explained how caching works. I understood that my computer was saving some sort of information to make for faster loading times, but I didn't understand the principles involved until now. Article author Jeff Tyson is right to say that Domain Name Servers' ability to work together to handle billions of requests every day is a testimony to their design.
Reading the article on Integrated Library Systems felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end; I can't remember the last time that I read anything so impenetrably jargon-laden. If I understand the gist of the article, libraries have had no luck establishing standards for themselves, and vendors can't be persuaded to design interoperable modules. But the upshot is that the Web is currently making both of those problems irrelevant. Right?
The video on Google was fairly interesting even though it was filmed over four years ago. I found it amusing that when I did a search for Google Answers, I learned that the service was discontinued two years ago. I then found it even more amusing that when I did a search for Orkut, I learned that over 60% of the site's users are now located in Brazil. I can only imagine what was on display at Google's invite-only meeting this year!
Reading the article on Integrated Library Systems felt a bit like being thrown into the deep end; I can't remember the last time that I read anything so impenetrably jargon-laden. If I understand the gist of the article, libraries have had no luck establishing standards for themselves, and vendors can't be persuaded to design interoperable modules. But the upshot is that the Web is currently making both of those problems irrelevant. Right?
The video on Google was fairly interesting even though it was filmed over four years ago. I found it amusing that when I did a search for Google Answers, I learned that the service was discontinued two years ago. I then found it even more amusing that when I did a search for Orkut, I learned that over 60% of the site's users are now located in Brazil. I can only imagine what was on display at Google's invite-only meeting this year!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Assignment 3: Zotero & CiteULike
http://citeulike.org/user/randhall
Note: every time that I tried to import new articles from CiteULike to Zotero, I got an error message stating, "An unknown error occurred while saving this item." I posted about this problem days ago on the Technical Discussion board, but no one was able to help me. So, for the second time in a row, I've been unable to do everything that was assigned, through no fault of my own.
Note: every time that I tried to import new articles from CiteULike to Zotero, I got an error message stating, "An unknown error occurred while saving this item." I posted about this problem days ago on the Technical Discussion board, but no one was able to help me. So, for the second time in a row, I've been unable to do everything that was assigned, through no fault of my own.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Muddiest Point: Lecture 5
I was most interested this week by the comparison of the many different image file types that are available, and I was wondering: if PNG seems like the best-of-all-worlds, is there any reason not to discontinue the use of GIF and JPEG entirely?
Week 6 Readings
Encarta's article on computer networks offers a shorter, more authoritative definition of LANs and other networks than anything available on Wikipedia. Most of this information I already knew: LANs handle small distances, WANs (like the Internet) handle huge distances, and Ethernet is used to wire everything together. The YouTube video was helpful for its brief descriptions of PANs and MANs, neither of which I had noticed before. In sum, this was all pretty basic information, and I'm sure it will be covered almost identically in our next lecture.
The article on RFID tags in libraries was actually a really interesting one. I'd read about the technology's applications for fast transactions and package tracking, but I hadn't thought about its potential applications in our field. The several limitations noted - for example, size and cost - are a little discouraging, but the technology is improving all the time. I was most impressed with the idea that RFID tags could prove helpful even when books aren't going anywhere, just by facilitating inventory sweeps. Shelf reading, we hardly knew ye!
The article on RFID tags in libraries was actually a really interesting one. I'd read about the technology's applications for fast transactions and package tracking, but I hadn't thought about its potential applications in our field. The several limitations noted - for example, size and cost - are a little discouraging, but the technology is improving all the time. I was most impressed with the idea that RFID tags could prove helpful even when books aren't going anywhere, just by facilitating inventory sweeps. Shelf reading, we hardly knew ye!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Muddiest Point: Lecture 4
We briefly noted that there are four main types of databases: relational, object-oriented, object-relational, and multi-dimensional. What's the difference between an object-oriented database and an object-relational one?
Week 5 Readings
As much as it pains me to say it, the Wikipedia article on data compression was really helpful for understanding what the concept is all about. The basic example provided to show the difference between lossless and lossy compression was such a useful one! Sure, it's cool that you can compress 25.888888888 to 25.[9]8 and save space without losing any information, but if you just round to 26, you can save even more space... as long as you don't mind losing some of your original information.
The article on imaging Pittsburgh was amusing for its anecdotes on the difficulties inherent to any grand cross-institution project. The author writes, "Speaking as project leader, it’s difficult for me to judge whether the silence means everyone knows exactly what to do and are doing just that, or they are so busy doing other jobs that they don’t have time to communicate. Likely it is a bit of both." Dear Mr Galloway: likely, everyone involved grew silent because they stopped caring about the quality of their work once they realized that virtually no one will ever want to seriously utilize a database of old pictures of Pittsburgh.
My favorite article, though, had to be the ALA article on YouTube. It is totally, absolutely true that libraries could conceivably make little home movie how-to videos and upload them for patrons' benefit. It's just funny to think that librarians will be uploading these self-help clips to the same site that I use to watch music videos and Rick Roll my friends. In all seriousness, though, the potential for distance learning is enormous.
The article on imaging Pittsburgh was amusing for its anecdotes on the difficulties inherent to any grand cross-institution project. The author writes, "Speaking as project leader, it’s difficult for me to judge whether the silence means everyone knows exactly what to do and are doing just that, or they are so busy doing other jobs that they don’t have time to communicate. Likely it is a bit of both." Dear Mr Galloway: likely, everyone involved grew silent because they stopped caring about the quality of their work once they realized that virtually no one will ever want to seriously utilize a database of old pictures of Pittsburgh.
My favorite article, though, had to be the ALA article on YouTube. It is totally, absolutely true that libraries could conceivably make little home movie how-to videos and upload them for patrons' benefit. It's just funny to think that librarians will be uploading these self-help clips to the same site that I use to watch music videos and Rick Roll my friends. In all seriousness, though, the potential for distance learning is enormous.
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