tools

Screencast explaining LibX

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I’ve made a screencast about what LibX does. It is here: What does LibX do?

A work colleague and I adapted a version for Murdoch University Library and I made this screencast to show staff what it does. If you want to play with LibX, you can download and install our copy here LibX (Murdoch University Library). It is still an experimental version- right now we are testing it for a month or so and trying to break it. If you do play with it, I’d appreciate feedback. Thanks to Matthias for some handholding while we made it.

WHAT DOES IT DO ?

LibX is a Firefox extension, which means that it can change the way your browser looks and displays information. It lets you access library resources without being on the any of the library’s home pages. It was developed at Virginia Tech and anyone can adapt a version for their library using the “do-it yourself” edition builder. Some of the voodoo magic it does is:

1. Puts a library search box into your browser

2. Hotlinks any ISBN displayed in a browser so that clicking it searches your library catalogue

3. Inserts SFX links into web pages so users can click on articles from places like Wikipedia, or books from Amazon, and see whether a library has a work.

4. Lets you authenticate to access a journal article by right clicking on the page and reloading it – rather than going through the library pages.

Voki, year ones and blogging in education

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I fiddled with Voki, which is an online tool to create a cartoon character that appears to speak an audio track that you record. I discovered it at the 1M Little Gems Blog which I discovered in turn via Tama Leaver’s excellent post about blogging in education: Reflections on the Australian Blogging Conference and Blogging in Education . If myVoki doesn’t show in your aggregator, you can go here .

Get a Voki now!

I love the Year One’s blog. As a parent, I would really appreciate a web page for the class that lists what is happening each day, what the kids need and significant dates – as they have icluded on the sidebar of the blog. I can see that they have used online graphing software to embed the kids’ graphs in the blog. The Voices of the World project in which they are participating is very cool too – kids around the world are using the same software (in September it was Voki) to record the same information. I love the voices of the Scottish kids featured on the blog.

Tama’s post outlines the pros and cons of blogging in education and is really worth a read.

Data as a social space.

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A change is happening in how we relate to our documents and data. We’re moving toward using them as social spaces.

At conferences, where the presentations and papers (the “data”) are the ostensible reason for people to be there, I’ve always found the informal exchange (the “social”) much more fun and beneficial. This is now happening online. Here’s some examples of what I mean…

1. Adding a “meebo me” widget to your library home page. Users don’t have to leave the site to connect with a librarian.

2. A “discuss” function in google docs. Ryan, the Other Librarian, and I have been sharing a couple of google docs while we work on a library related something. Last night I noticed the “discuss” tab on a shared spreadsheet and emailed him so we could test it out. While “in” the document, we were chatting, and uploading and amending the document. We could have opened another document and continued our chat there. He’s in Canada, and – while I can pretend to be a jaded, 2.0 kind of gal, used to the way the net has shrunk the world – I still found it novel and it gave me a buzz.

3. A couple of weeks ago I blogged on VLINT about visiting the Michigan Library Consortium’s library in Second Life and climbing all over a 3D graph they had, representing library membership.

mlcpiegraph_001.jpeg

4. Distance learning in Second Life. I can imagine a building set up with all the resources needed for a class…links to external sites and cached documents..video presentations available on a player. The difference between that and a tradtional web site is that students can send their avs. to that “place” and see who else is there. While accessing the info, they can discuss their experience of the course and are more likely to ask each other for help once they have made that casual contact. More like the intangible social and academic benefits gained by going to lectures or tutes on campus.

TODAY’S HIPPIE CARD: Up until now

Speaking in tongues: Libworm and VLINT

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Two new library resources:

1. Libworm: describes itself as:

“the librarian RSS engine
over 1000 RSS feeds go in
exactly what you need comes out!”

I still subscribe to feeds for individual blogs, rather than feeds for searches. I’ve noticed that some more techno-savvy bloggers are tending toward the latter. This may just be the tool that makes me switch – but I doubt it, I’m too attached to connecting with people’s voices and their individual lives

2. VLINT (Virtual.librariesinteract.info: blog central for Australian Libraries in Other Worlds)

Since Lorelei Junot very nicely offered me a building in Cybrary City for Australian Libraries to share, we’ve been pottering about the building. VLINT started as a place to record the nuts and bolts, daily operations of the project. This gives whoever takes on the project (soon I hope) a history to work with.

snail suggested that we could broaden it to include Australian Libraries in all “Other Worlds”. Great idea. I really hope someone interested in virtual library branches or gaming in libraries starts posting.



TODAY’S HIPPIE CARD: Let go of the past

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