The last few days have been ones of accomplishment.  I was able to find and embed a forum discussion board into our website, as well as tie up many loose ends that we’ve been meaning to get to for a while.  It’s odd to think that after working on it all semester, this website just may well be almost through the tinkering stage.

The main things I’ve been attempting are:

• Trying to get the site to work on many browsers.  I’ve learned to dislike IE and its various versions very much.  I am so proud of our tabbed navigation browser, yet for some reason it doesn’t like to work in IE6 as opposed to IE7.  But it’s just fine in Opera, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.  Grrr!
• Getting all of our sites up and active.  I think we have all the content on them now, but most of the pages had little kinks (like the centering not working or looking funny).  I can’t believe how many different divisions we’ve made… it sure can be tedious!
• Making things a bit more pretty and not so text-based.  And now I might just have a tiff with Picnik, which has been so great so long.  I think either they’ve changed something or I’ve forgotten exactly how we got shadows behind the pics on the polaroid-like frames we have on several pages.  And it’s been really slow to load lately, which has been frustrating.  I”ve tried some other online photo editors ( SUMApaint, PicMagick, Aviary, FotoFlexer, to name a few –check out this website), none have exactly what I want.
• Embedding the forum. Which works.  AND the page validates.  Woohooo!!
• Looking into finding out if we can get free domain registration and hosting since the organization’s a nonprofit.
• Starting to get everything all validated and ready to be done.  A major task, and one I’ve realized I don’t like. I much prefer making something than having a bot tell me everything I did wrong.  In sometimes microscopic detail.  But then again, don’t we all?

Anyway, best of luck to everyone as we all tie up our loose ends.  I can’t wait to see everyone’s finished product!

Maxdesign’s Listamatic

Non-Profit Org Claims Rights In Library Catalog Data

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 13, @12:48PM
“The main source of the bibliographic records that are carried in library databases is a non-profit organization called OCLC. Over the weekend OCLC “leaked” its new policy that claims contractual rights in the subsequent uses of the data, uses such as downloading book information into Zotero or other bibliographic software. The policy explicitly forbids any use that would compete with OCLC. This would essentially rule out the creation of free and open databases of library content, such as the Open Library and LibraryThing. The library blogosphere is up in arms . But can our right to say: “Twain, Mark. The adventures of Tom Sawyer” be saved?”

After some quick Googling, I agreed with the poster that the library blogosphere is definitely up in arms about it. And it seems kinda of ironic to think that OCLC is making this decision, especially considering all the talk we’ve done this semester about Web and Library2.0. Not to mention the fact that I’m reading quite a bit about monopolization right now, and what it means regarding network neutrality.

I’m kind of in shock. I know OCLC must run a business somehow, and I suppose Library Thing and other bibliographic software could cause problems. But it just seems so…mean. And not like something a non-profit would do. It will definitely be interesting to see what will happen now that this box has been opened.

Anyway, I know that there is no way I could possibly be as well-spoken about this. Here are some links to a few blogs and other sources I found that I felt really described the many facets of this issue well:

• Blog: Bibliographic Wilderness: I don’t want to kill OCLC
• Blog: Tech from the Non-Techie: OCLC is to Microsoft
• OCLC’s Official Policy Change Announcement
• Blog: Serially Yours: Final ‘Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records’ Posted by OCLC
• And here’s a website created by Aaron Swartz (of the Open Library) with more information and a petition to sign to support the effort to stop OCLC from making this change:http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/oclcscam

Role of Reference Librarians:

• Digital, chat are good.
• Desk reference is going down.
• UMN library used more as study space — building as information commons as opposed to research space full of books. Also reinventing services offered.

Shane’s Website Pet Peeves:

• Improper use of main space on main page is
• Menu systems that hide information/important links — “mystery meat”
• Improper use of terminology

UThink: Blog at the University of Minnesota: blog host; increased standing at UMN, but also keeps individual  content from U students/faculty/admin of UMN with UMN, not farmed out to other hosting sites like  Blogger or WordPress, etc.  NO censorship/monitoring, but also lack of anonymity

a partial list of the types of pseudo-professional writing I’ve done thus far. I’ve written numerous program proposals, literature reviews, an in-depth business analysis, countless literature reviews and annotated lists (you write a LOT of annotations as a librarian!), pathfinders and subject guides, outlined and written a proposal for some collection development, book discussion guides, book reviews, website design outlines and proposals,as well as coding a creation of a real web-site, cost-benefit analyses, and so on and so forth. For a business reference course I took last fall, we even took turns taking “minutes” of our class discussions that we would then share with our classmates, to give you an idea of the ways some of my professors tried to incorporate real-life situations into the classroom. I basically have created a portfolio of resources to use as I move into my career, as well as developed the skills to know how to recreate other versions of them.

It was a fun way to reflect on all the things we learn and experience in this program.  At this point in the semester, I always get a bit overwhelmed; I already feel like I have been working hard and accomplishing a lot of tasks, but final projects and assignments are starting to loom large and real, and I have to kick into yet another gear.  A note to myself: I’ve done it before, and can do it again.  And I will definitely appreciate it later on!

]]> http://laurelaura.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/reflection/feed/ 1 laurelaura http://laurelaura.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/googolopoly/ http://laurelaura.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/googolopoly/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:36:39 +0000 laurelaura http://laurelaura.wordpress.com/?p=71 ]]> The readings this week gave me a little check. Is Google really as good as it is ? If not, a lot of people are in trouble, myself included.  Searchwise, I wonder at the fact that according to UC Berkeley, “less than half the searchable Web is fully searchable in Google.”  One-half is a HUGE amount to miss, especially when so many people depend on it.

It is so easy to fall into the trap of believing that Google is a benevolent, almost-omniscient internet helper.  I joke sometimes that Google owns my life, since I use it for my email, my husband and I rely on its calendar (he even uses it within his division at work to schedule meetings, etc!), iGoogle is one of the homepages I regularly load, and who knows what else is to come.  I’ve also forayed into the use of Google Checkout, Froogle, etc. Google’s business model is the “new” model.  People working for Google are to be admired and envied.  It hit me the other day that if there were an “Internet Monopoly”, Google would most definitely be in the Boardwalk place.  But what would be Park Place?  Yahoo?  If its earnings of last quarter are any indication, it may not hold that place for long.  And I’m not sure if there is anything to take it’s place…do we want that?

Fancy this… I did a Google search of “internet monopoly” to see what I could find.  Of course, I am not the first to think of Google and Monopoly.  There is actually a real board game called “Googolopoly,” (only one of a few!).  According to the blog in which I found it, the “goal of the game is to organize all of the world’s information by buying internet properties or by building it yourself. Once you have acquired a company or built a product, you can invest in developers and servers which are pretty much like what Google is doing nowadays.”  It’s produced by Box.net… and if you click on the image you can find out more.  Is this funny or scary? 

At first, it seemed to work great.  I started putzing with the color scheme, etc, just for the fun of it before uploading the new files to the server.  But then the first problem arose:

Our wrapper… our pretty, pretty wrapper, wasn’t working anymore!! It was cutting off in the middle of the body.

After much consideration, I realized that the horizontal listing I’d set up was set currently set to work on ALL list items, not just the ones in my tabbed browsing list.  So an easy solution was found: create another division around that list and make sure to put all of the information about the tabs within that section of the CSS.

But now……. for some reason our horizontal margins are all messed up.  Not floating or anything.  I haven’t quite figured it out yet… I’ve gotten to an ARG!! moment and decided I needed a break.

Hopefully I can figure out the problem after a bit of distancing.  Meanwhile, I’ll just keep telling myself that it will be so cool when I am done that it will be worth all of this hair-pulling.  Right?

UPDATE (an hour later):  I got it to work!!!!!!!!!! Yay!  I guess I just needed some lunch…  I don’t know what I did wrong, but I must’ve fixed something because now we have some beautiful tabs.  So happy!

I suppose there is a mindset out there, and perhaps it’s a good thing, that there are “real” websites and “unreal” websites. But how do you tell the difference? Is it mainly aesthetic?  Is a real website one that looks up-to-date or goes along with all of the current trends in web design?  Therefore, websites that don’t look the greatest aren’t… real? Or is it technical? Are only fully functional websites “real?”  If a link is broken, nope, nadda, the site’s not real.  Or maybe it’s a content-based issue?

One thing I’ve learned thus far is that it takes quite a bit of time and knowledge (not to mention decent software) to make a website look good and/or trustworthy… and potentially “real.” And to a certain degree, perhaps it is a good thing that we have a sense of what a “real” website looks like, even if it is a state that is incredibly subjective.

Because our site is eventually supposed to be quite functional and useful for the group we’re creating it for, I hope that it will continue to look increasingly “real.” Until then, I suppose the internet at large will just have to bear with us.  )