Ref Tech Rob

Hello everyone! I'm back after a long hiatus. My wife and I have been travelling and running paperwork here and there for the purpose of adopting our new daughter, Aly (see photo.) We have a little more work to do, but we're nearing the end (or beginning) of our journey. Anyway, I'm going to have a little time in the next few weeks to catch up on my reading and web experimentation. In the meantime, I've been looking at Google's combination of JotSpot, Google Docs, Google Pages, Blogger, Gmail, Google Calendar, Notebook, Picasa, and Google Base. I have been wondering how far they are from combining these items into a centralized screen and if they will allow users to create faceted displays. There may also be a way to combine these items into one Personalized Google page using widgets, but I am most interested in the ability to set up separate displays. For example, if someone had an interest in computers, libraries, chess, Superman, Chuck Berry, and the Baltimore...

For those of you who are interested in web-based word processing, Writely is now accepting new registrations. It will take me a while to see if there are any new features and to explore its capabilities, but I will post again if I find anything newsworthy.

Now I'm really starting to get annoyed. I have not been able to put my AdSense ads back on my blog. Now I know that this doesn't particularly bother the rest of you--I mean, who really wants to see the ads on my blog, anyway? It just detracts from the high quality content, right? But that's just my point! I have all of this great stuff on my blog today, but I won't get a red cent--in spite of the millions of people who are reading this blog right now! There's nothing to click. How are the people going to know that Google provides blogs through Blogger if there are no links to click? How can the economy survive if Madison Avenue can't reach the consumer hoards through my high quality blog? I'm not sure I can handle all of this stress. I need a drink.

I am writing this post using Windows Live Writer (Beta). The interface is simple and fairly intuitive. I can change the font if I want to. I can insert links, pictures and a Microsoft Virtual Earth Map: Image would have been here. Now, the big question for me is, how well does it publish the post? Here goes nothing. Well, I was informed by the program that my weblog won't publish images. As you can see in other entries, this is not true. Well, let's try again without the map image. Again, nothing. Well, I am now cutting and pasting this entry directly into Blogger. So much for my first test of Windows Live Writer (Beta). In all fairness, I must point out that I have just upgraded to Blogger beta, so it may be a few days before I figure out where the glitch is. Better luck next time, I suppose.

I upgraded the blog to the new Blogger beta format. In the process, I lost a couple of feed buttons and my WorldCat search box, but I like the look of the blog, the atom feed at the bottom, and the ability to tag blog entries. I also have the option to modify the layout without hand coding the template--I can use the mouse to drag sections around, create new ones, or edit the labels. I'll let you all know how it goes from here.

Google has added a link to their Spreadsheets and another one to bring up additional services at the top left hand corner of their GMail and Calendar pages. I hadn't even looked at the spreadsheet service since I tried it out once during the early testing phase. There were some problems with rendering at the time which seem to have been corrected since then.

I have added a search box for WorldCat.org's new web search service. Check it out today.

This is a test of a podcast . I don't think that this is the best way to try this, so I'll keep at it.

Google has centralized all of their help information at Google Help . They have divided the information into broad categories which seem to give an indication of how they think of their own organization. I'll take a longer look at it later--it may be a way to pick up some new tricks.

I could just kick myself. I have always been looking for a simpler way to take notes. I have considered software, notebooks, notecards, voice recorders, ripping the pages out of materials and filing them as is.... I never considered voice transcription software, however. Now, after reading David Pogue's review of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 , I could just kick myself for not thinking of it sooner. Imagine looking up from the middle of a good read and saying "note", to see your computer set itself up for a note entry, and then dictating the note without picking up pen or paper. Unless you have your own personal secretary, I can't think of anything that would beat it. This fulfills my ease of transfer law . Now if it were only portable...

Our library held a technology conference for its employees at our main location today. I had the privilege of giving digital photography demonstrations. I spoke about Picasa, Flickr, and Adobe Photoshop Elements among other things--which is great because I'm at about the same level as the listeners! I'm the guy the family designates to take off-center pictures, annoying candid shots and those great shots of headless people. It was reassuring to see that there were people who had less experience than I did.

There are so many formats and protocols for information these days. I think it would be a good idea to develop some guidelines for evaluating and developing new information tools. People want information to be free. People want information right this instant . People want information to be ubiquitous. People want information to be accurate. People want information to transfer easily to other devices or formats. People want information to come from one tool. People want information to be free. I think that this is the case in so many ways. First of all, nobody really wants to pay for anything . Secondly, we have gotten so used to free information from the library and the internet, it is especially galling for the majority of the public to pay for it. People want information right this instant. Technology should be shortening the distance between our information need and our information acquisition. If I'm hiking in the wilderness and I think that I hear a bear, I will want to know ...

Anyone who has a web page may want to take a look at this recent entry in the Official Google Blog about Google Sitemaps . The Google Webmaster Help Center lays out what they are looking for in a web page. Google has also included a robots.txt tool.

Hello! My name is Rob, and I'm a reference librarian at a public library somewhere in Ohio. I'm starting this blog with the purpose of exploring the role of new (popular) technology in the traditional library setting. I may discover that the two are incompatible, or that the two go together like peanut butter and jelly, or that I'm totally out of my depth (highly probable). In the coming weeks, I want to take a look at, among other things, the Web 2.0 phenomenon, AJAX, the Semantic Web and SPARQL, social software, tagging, blogs, wikis, podcasts, vlogs, digital rights, web development, the open source movement, and the giant that is Google. It's just a small amount of information to cover, but I think we could probably stretch it out into a few posts.