I'm going out of order because I am STILL on the desk (I really hate weekend shifts sometimes, they just seem interminable) and it's pretty hard to look at YouTube videos on the desk. Will have to come back to that one later.
You might think podcasts are pretty hard to listen to on the desk. You would be right. Fortunately, I have no intention of actually listening to any podcasts. Here's the thing: there are few things I find more annoying than just sitting and listening to somebody talk at me. It's tolerable if there's something else I'm doing, like the dishes or possibly walking or a jigsaw puzzle or something. But I utterly detest being lectured at, and I am extremely unlikely to actually listen to something on a voluntary basis. Even a podcast of one of my favourite authors reading excerpts from his new book—nope, would rather wait till it comes out in print and read it myself. Even really interesting radio programs, like those on All In The Mind, will not inspire me to listen—either on the radio or as the podcast. Fortunately, they do have transcripts of the shows on All In The Mind, so I have duly added it to my Bloglines so at least I can get the reminder (if I remember to login to Bloglines) that there's been another show. However, Bloglines won't let me open up the link to the page, for some weird reason, so it's pretty frustrating.
Anyway, I did have a look at the various podcast search engines. Was not impressed with Podcast.net, looks very amateur. I liked both Podcast Alley and Yahoo Podcasts, both seem a bit slicker and have more features. I like the way you can find out a bit more about the podcast within the search results. Yahoo is good the way it automatically shows you the difference between a series about, say, libraries vs particular episodes that are about libraries. And both give you a link to the original website, which Podcast.net doesn't. So yes, if I ever need to find podcasts on behalf of a user, I now know my tools of choice.
As for how it could be used in the library setting, well, searching for libraries provides the clue that some libraries already are. Uncontrolled Vocabulary covers library issues, various other libraries have started up regular podcasts covering everything from information literacy to what's on to introductions to Second Life. It's one of those things that is obviously more useful for and interesting to people who either like to get information in an aural way or people with sight disabilities. But I think it really takes someone who enjoys that kind of thing to see all the possibilities, so I will leave it for someone else to develop.
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
18 August 2007
16 August 2007
#17 wiki encore
Have dutifully added my humble blog to the list of favourites.
Poked around a little bit more. I can see a lot of ways that having a wiki could be really useful—group assignments or tasks, for example, particularly if you set up the structure so that different people have the main responsibility for fleshing out the content for particular areas.
I think I remember my brother sending me a link to a wiki that was a reference tool for a fictional world, with entries on geography and history and politics and everything, all according to the interest of those who got involved. Although very geeky (my brother is a geek) it's also kind of neat.
It could work for book reviews (as one of the sites linked to in the other post showed; I actually liked that one). It could work as a way of managing user-generated input, although I'm not clear as to whether the software or functionality could be embedded as a component of a larger site. It does have a lot of possibilities, and if it's an add-on instead of the main focus of something you do, then it's not so important if nobody contributes, or does so erratically.
Basically, a wiki seems like a good collaborative tool—whether it's a collaboration of equals (roughly) or whether it's a secondary contribution.
I do find it mildly discouraging to have to learn an entirely new way of adding content (despite PBWiki's claim that it's as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich and requires little training and coding, it seems more complicated to me). It's a useful reminder that those without a basic grasp of html (mine is pretty basic, but fortunately I do have one) must find blogging and wikis and lots of other things more intimidating, which no doubt contributes to the WYSIWYG-induced popularity of, say, blogger vs other journalling software like livejournal, which does require more in the way of html if you want formatting.
The other thing that occurs to me (rather belatedly, and it's a bit of a chestnut) is that all these collaborative social networking technology tools are all very well and good if you have a computer and reliable internet access, but if you don't, you're pretty much stuck up the proverbial without the proverbial. I know that historically, new technological developments (oooh, paper! oooh, movable type!) have always created an initial division between those who had them and those who didn't before becoming more widespread. But I do think we need to maintain our awareness that not everyone wants to use these technological tools and not everyone who wants to use them has the ability to. I have already written longer than I meant to, so will not go into this more at the moment, but the library's role as intermediary and obligation to be all things to all people is certainly worth pondering.
Maybe in my free time.
Poked around a little bit more. I can see a lot of ways that having a wiki could be really useful—group assignments or tasks, for example, particularly if you set up the structure so that different people have the main responsibility for fleshing out the content for particular areas.
I think I remember my brother sending me a link to a wiki that was a reference tool for a fictional world, with entries on geography and history and politics and everything, all according to the interest of those who got involved. Although very geeky (my brother is a geek) it's also kind of neat.
It could work for book reviews (as one of the sites linked to in the other post showed; I actually liked that one). It could work as a way of managing user-generated input, although I'm not clear as to whether the software or functionality could be embedded as a component of a larger site. It does have a lot of possibilities, and if it's an add-on instead of the main focus of something you do, then it's not so important if nobody contributes, or does so erratically.
Basically, a wiki seems like a good collaborative tool—whether it's a collaboration of equals (roughly) or whether it's a secondary contribution.
I do find it mildly discouraging to have to learn an entirely new way of adding content (despite PBWiki's claim that it's as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich and requires little training and coding, it seems more complicated to me). It's a useful reminder that those without a basic grasp of html (mine is pretty basic, but fortunately I do have one) must find blogging and wikis and lots of other things more intimidating, which no doubt contributes to the WYSIWYG-induced popularity of, say, blogger vs other journalling software like livejournal, which does require more in the way of html if you want formatting.
The other thing that occurs to me (rather belatedly, and it's a bit of a chestnut) is that all these collaborative social networking technology tools are all very well and good if you have a computer and reliable internet access, but if you don't, you're pretty much stuck up the proverbial without the proverbial. I know that historically, new technological developments (oooh, paper! oooh, movable type!) have always created an initial division between those who had them and those who didn't before becoming more widespread. But I do think we need to maintain our awareness that not everyone wants to use these technological tools and not everyone who wants to use them has the ability to. I have already written longer than I meant to, so will not go into this more at the moment, but the library's role as intermediary and obligation to be all things to all people is certainly worth pondering.
Maybe in my free time.
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