Ask a Ninja About Overdrive Audio Books

Seriously. If you could have this (admittedly chock-a-block full of actual factual Useful Information^[TM]) web-tutorial on Overdrive Audio Books at the Library... or,

Well... This:


C'mon. You know which one you'd want.

Kind of Like the New OPAC...

My library's "new" OPAC (that's on-line public access catalog for the non-library-nerds) is called Aquabrowser, which is an amazing tool for finding things in the library—unless you know exactly what you want. In which case, it's usually not there. Or you're looking it up wrong. Or something.

Either way, it's pretty frustrating.

Today, in the Internet Neat-o-Stuff Training Thingummy (that's ordinary nerd speak for KCLS's "Learning 2.0: 27 Things") we were supposed to "look up" podcasts) at one of three sites Podcast Alley, Podcast.net and Yahoo Podcasts

Well me, unless it's a language, I hate having to learn from audio: Visual and tactical are my media. Talk radio--? Blech. So the whole wide (web) world of pod-ville is not so much terra-incognita as that swampy area behind the town dump that, yeah, I suppose you think you saw a Great Blue Heron there once, but, ah... I'm going stay here and have another cuppa', mkay?

So I decided to go looking for the one podcast out there in Teh internets that I actually find kinda nifty: James Lileks "The Diner". On the first two sites, just like the old Aquabrowser, "The Diner" was nowhere to be found. I looked for another on-line aural experience I enjoyed: John C. Wright's (BookCast interview with the Fairfax Library : no joy. But Yahoo Podcasts actually worked, and pulled them both up.

And then, I admit, I remembered what Aquabrowser is absolutely great for: serendipity. You're not sure what you want, but you have a vague idea and you plug in a few things and poke around and boy howdy!, there it is: Something cool.

And sure enough I found this killer Early Music Website.

Here's the Yahoo Podcast link

(Because, yanno, that's just what makes me such an empathetic teen services librarian: I know my musical tastes are utterly bizarre and don't expect anyone to understand them, but thanks to the magic of the internets, I can get my 11th century funk on, just the same.)

In summary: Yahoo=good. Author interviews=good. Wacky music=good. The Podcast Alley and Podcast.Net: Meh.

Just a few more lessons to go, before this blog retires into well-deserved obscurity.

Been There, Done That--

Got the T-shirt Blog Entry.

What would a homework-set be without at least one cheat recycled assignment.

From my "real" blog: That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates--

If Bilbo Baggins were a librarian, that is.

A strangely satisfying^* video, "I want to be a Librarian"

Hattip to my fellow librarian Michelle at KCLS.

* * * * *

[*] Though, to my Winterdark (RPG game) friends, not nearly as nasty as what my librarian-character did: She had Helion smite book-thieves and vandals with Fire from Heaven. Maybe it's all just as well that librarians are (relatively) powerless...

Who Knew (Part 217)--?

So I drop by the web 2.0 awards and I try various categories: books, marketing, photos and digital images, health, etc. etc. etc. (as the King of Siam said to Anna). Nothing really new (or seemingly useful)

Finally I hit "fun stuff" and right at the top--? Cocktail Builder.

Plug in what you happen to have on hand and bam--! Up comes a list of nifty to drinks to build with it. Yum. Plus, it's dead easy to use. Color me impressed.

(What, you think I was kidding in the title of this blog--?)

Nice Try (But hey, it's Beta, right?)

Thanks to the KCLS Library 2.0 study-project, I finally took a gander at the stuff in Google Labs. (And it's about time: cue "nerdette hangs head in shame at appalling lack of ordinary curiousity" image)

So:

"Nice Try" in that snarky unimpressed voice: Google search "by timeline" is pretty pointless, compared to any library's magazine index. It doesn't actually set the wayback machine for you. How do I know? I call it the "Kenneth Starr" test. Do a magazine index search and grab anything prior to the 1990s. Consensus? An all-around decent fella and a fine lawyer. Post 1990s--? El Grand Inquisitor who eats babies for breakfast (why this should be, I leave as an exercise for the student)

The interesting thing about easily-accessed digital media is that it preserves the opinions and attitudes of the time. Why librarians should care? Because we're proud members of the anti-"we have always been at war with EastAsia" team.

And:

"Nice Try" in "Howza-bout that" impressed voice: The King County Metro Trip-planner sucks hard vacuum. Trying to help library-customers get from point-A to point-B is an exercise in pain all-round. The nice folks at Google seem to be going for the "We Love Capitalism" award. Follow the link (above) and go ahead and try to figure out how to get from down-town Duvall to Redmond Town Center. I dare you. Now try Google Transit. Here's what I got.

Pretty sweet. So, even though they're still weasels for playing footsie with the Chinese gulag-masters, I have to say: Go Google!

Now This: I Like!

New toy!

New useful toy!

Specifically, Google Docs and Zoho.

Since I have google accounts (this blog, my gmail) I expected to be happy about adding the on-line documents feature to the mix: No new passwords, no new user-interface, just new functionality. Yes, it's all that and a bag of chips. Best of all, the "file download" options let me dump it as a fully-functional word document onto whatever computer I'm using, so I can "share it" using those old-time-y e-mail attachments, print it using the Word features on my (several) computers and so forth. Very nice--!

Zoho surprised me: I think this is the one I'll be sharing with my library-customers who don't have discs and for whom the shared "P-drive" stands for "Painfully-inadequate-drive" (What happens to your documents accessibility when you "run out" of internet time on your card--? Uh huh...)

I'll probably be using the "poll-generator" feature right away, myself: both on my "real life" blog (rather sadly neglected for this student-driver-edition) and for some of my group projects. Here's the one I wrote for the Evergreen Nominating Team:

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

...and no, I don't think that even if I try "real hard," I'll get what I need. Well, not unless you count logging in to the WorldCat feature of our OCLC database whilst at work (the which is very cool, granted).

What I wanted (needed?) is an ability to search local library catalogs "all 'twonc't" as the saying goes. Sno-Isle + KCLS + Seattle Public (for all of which I have library cards) = Totally Cool.

Or would, if I could, using this week's tool: Google Search.

No joy.

The thing of it is, as a librarian, the sites I usually "search" aren't sites: they're the databases hosted by said sites. Mostly, that is [cue Newt voice]. Mostly.

Because I did build a one-stop booktalk-shopper for when I need to build-a-booktalk. These days, I mostly write the things in between customers on the circ/reference desk: Short-cuts are definitely a plus.

And did it work? Yes: just as well as searching each of the book-talking sites individually. But (and it's a big "but"), not appreciably better than just using the main Google search page. For why? Because both the Google "Custom" Search and the Google main page grouped the "best answers" at the top.

Does that mean I found it useless? No. It might still come in handy at some point, some day. But for now, the "custom search" tool won't get pride-of-place in my "Library 2.0" toolbox.

And It's All True, I Tell Ya--!

Your Superhero Identity For Today Is:

Name: Blaze Sister

Secret Identity: Rosa Nutkana

Special Power: Somatic Stick

Transportation: Electric Bathtub

Weapon: Lightning Bolt

Costume: Fibersteel Gauntlets

Sidekick: Igor (Igors are very handy. Considering the random damage I do myself on a regular basis, they'd make a fine sidekick)

Nemesis: Cindy the Younger

Tragic Flaw: Fear of spiders

Favorite Food: Cheese (Mmmmmm.... Cheese)

Hattip to The Generator Blog for the link to the Humorscope Super-Hero Page

Too good to be true?

Wikis.

I haven't built one yet--my library system is just getting started building them--but already I want one.

They're like uber-databases, only much more user-friendly (Quoth the woman who has only ever used Microsoft's database program, pain-in-the Access) and I just love databases. Organized, searchable information=LOVE.

I want a booktalks wiki and a teen program-builder wiki and the wiki for my Teen Advisory Commission and middle school board...

It's not that I'd never used wikis--I worked on a tiny corner of the Hurricane Katrina Wiki, made copious use of ALA's Midwinter Conference wiki, robbed blind was inspired by the "uncyclopedia" for Solinus, even made my own tiny contribution to the famous-est wiki of all. Of course, my entry has been updated and changed--the changes are correct, as far as they go--but less informative.

Knowing what I knew (or thought I knew) they all seemed so... frivolous, uncontrolled and disorderly.

I just didn't perceive how, well, how incredibly librarian-cool wikis could be.

And it's Tasty, Too--!

Today I discovered Del.icio.us.

You know: the tagging site? For organizing web-documents?

The site with all the yummy, yummy cataloging possibilities: Indexing information is LOVE--! The tool that's totally portable from job-site to jobsite (cough. clusters. cough)

What an ultra-maroon.

Me, I mean. I can't believe it took me so long.

Hitting the Wall

I knew it was coming.

I breezed through photo-sharing and RSS feeds and this blogging account: no worries.

They were nice about it, the training people at Library 2.0. They eased me into the thing with intriguing essays about user-stats for Facebook and a real (!) virtual library on second life and a podcast from a very cool librarian.

It didn't make it any easier: Social networking.

MySpace.

Bleh.

Dancing baloney? Check.
Messy, cluttered, visually-appalling page-design? Check.
Reader-unfriendly? Check.

I stuck my the Library 2.o training course on the shelf: Later Dude.

Much later.

But! And!

I know MySpace = love for so many, many people.

So I did the lesson.

And I've got a Myspace page.

And I even volunteered to help moderate my library system's teen MySpace presence next year, when, presumably, I may still be giving it the hairy-eyeball, but it'll be a hairy-eyeball of user-competence.

Here goes nothing.