Thing 10: Open URL Technology

A. I searched Google Scholar and found an article, Public perceptions of global warming: United States and international perspectives. This article has been made available as "a service to the academic community" through Open Access. However, it seems to only available because it is older than 4 years. This is a little disappointing in a situation where the current research is what everyone needs to access.
B. I entered the information from the Google Scholar citation into the Citation Finder form and changed small bits of information. The results were predictable in that without the correct citation information, the article did not appear. The time and detailed effort to maintain absolutly accurate links is obviously considerable.
C. I took a look at the citation and the OpenURLamd saw all the elements of the article's citation embedded in the URL. As we help students locate articles at the Reference Desk, it is so important that there be multiple sources to articles. Students are so grateful when they can get the articles full-text online.
D. Here is a fun article on hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains by Jaffe, Matthew. "California Eden: Hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains" Sunset 204.4 (2000):72-77.
http://sfx.calstate.edu:9003/fullerton?sid=HWW%3ARDGFT&genre=article&pid=%3Can%3E200009205212010%3C%2Fan%3E&aulast=Jaffe&aufirst=Matthew&issn=0039-5404&title=Sunset&stitle=Sunset&atitle=California%20Eden&volume=204&issue=4&spage=72&epage=77&date=2000-04 The article is a little old but the information is still good and would make a full afternoon hike.

Producing a wiki using pbwiki

In the 10 Things blog under wikie there was an optional feature: create your own wiki using pbwiki (it’s free!) which is now called PBworks. Well, if it is free, then that is the right price for me and so I have started working on a wiki to store Reference Desk information. So far, it is ok but taking too much time. I need to build enough information into this wiki to experiment with it and see if it could be a useful tool.

Exploring Wiki Wiking

Wikis can be such a great way to organize information for library users and library people. I took a look at the Library Success Wiki and found such interesting things. Take a look at this article http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11534 on finding free scholarly information on the web. It is a bit old at 2006 but still lists a number of very interesting sites and has some good ideas. I have started experimenting with putting together Reference Desk Information for Librarians through pbwiki. I can tell that to really make it useful, it will take a great deal of time and I will need to encourage the Reference Desk Team to contribute. It will be an interesting experiment. cwb

Question in regard to google doc

Question in regard to google docs. There seems to be some concerns the security regarding Googel Docs. Since you invite people in...is this secure enough for most work?

Google Docs and Cloud Computing

This is a really solid idea for use in the library. I can think of all types of possibilities. First of all, this just might be the thing for the elevate ur news posters that a group of us are working on. I think I will bring it up at the next meeting.

Book Burro, Moving back to thing #6

I finished with Thing #6 (except for all my questions) and moved on to Thing #7. Here is discovered that the assignment is to create a Delicious account and learn about social bookmarking. Since I have started working with that, and am very pleased, I decided to go back to Thing #6 and explore book burro. This is a really neat feature to assist our students when out at the Reference desk looking for textbooks. I also like the Worldcat function.

Question for Will on Delicious

Will, I have been collecting websites on scores and am pleased with my growing list. The part that I do not understand is the social part. How do I start getting bookmarks from other people? I am concerned because I am not interested in adding a bunch (and there are so many out there) of websites that sell scores and I could end up with a massive (and useless list)

I have another question. Now when I go into Mozilla, on the bar along the top is a growing list of the sites which I have bookmarked. How do I get rid of them? I just wanted to bookmark the website, I didn't want to get married. :)

Now I am adding bookmarks to my delicious account.

Thangs are going better and steam is no longer coming out of my ears everytime someone mentions bookmarks. Delicious has some neat features. There is the obvious feature for Reference Librarians, saving important websites that I will refer back to. However, I could also put together a number of examples that I use in teaching classes such as problems websites, descriptions of empirical data, soceity websites. Now I need to explore the organizational function of delicious.

FireFox and delicious

I have used FireFox for some time. So I experimented with adding on a delicious account. Such a simple process until I got to typing in the word in the box. It was as long as I have ever seen and I kept getting rejected. OK, I will try the next word but each time it would erases the whole screen and I would have to type everthing in again. An exercise in frustration..........Yes, I can read the english language and eventually the program and I agreed as to what is written down there and I got the delicious account all set up.

Will, Do I understand correctly that we are to be completed with the 10 things on Friday, MAY 22? If so, then we have plenty of time to complete this. Cynthia

New Possibilities: Using Jing to explain things to library users

Again and again the students have been asking me , through IM or phone calls or through email questions, how to find the full text of an article. Again and again, I tell them to start at the library home page, click on Find Journals, type in the title...on and on. Here is a Jing video(without sound) that could be used to demonstrate how to get to the full text of an article in the December 2004 issue of Journal of Drug Issues. Copy and past this link into your browser. http://screencast.com/t/rjxQix69jTF

Once I get good with this, I should be able to show students all sort of good things through quickly produced videos through Jing. I think I had better get aheold of some headphones and add sound to this mix.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
-- Voltaire

RSS feed is so interesting. I wonder if it would be worth my time (or would anyone who read it) if I were to attach a collection of RSS feeds to my Research Guides. For instance, on the home page for the Theatre Guide, I wouod attach a list of feeds, linking to theatre news on campus or from major professional theatre organizations. Could be an interesting thing to try.

Comment on Thing 2: Blogging what a lot of fun all of this is. I can see all sorts of applications within the library. One idea that comes to mind is a communication vehicle for the Reference Desk Team. I am going to have to give that a try. Cynthia