So, I explored the "Fun Stuff" category of the Web 2.0 Awards. The top selection was really cool. It was cocktailbuilder.com, and what you do is enter in the ingredients you have in your bar (soda, mixers, alcohol, fruit, etc.) and the site generates a list of cocktails--with recipes--that you can make! How awesome is that?! That would have been so handy when I was in college, instead of making all those gross experiment drinks like tequila & Sprite. And there was that one time when I drank a whole mug of vodka because I didn't have anything except for Gatorade to mix it with. I guess the "Web 2.0" aspect of it is that users can contribute their own recipes for cocktails. Anyway, this is the coolest site I've found in a long, long time.
There was another site I looked at, called onesentence.org, where you're supposed to tell a true story in only one sentence. Some of them were rather good, others were clearly written by people who thought they were being intelligent/poetic, and still others by folks trying (and failing) to be Hemingway [that's an allusion to his famous six-word story, of course].
The third site, fuzzmail, was ridiculous. I couldn't get it to work. It kept telling me that the e-mail address I was trying to use didn't work, even when I filled out a feedback form. Unless it's supposed to be a joke, it's dumb and needs to be debugged.
That is all.
wtorek, 26 lutego 2008
What's up, [Google] Doc?
Since signing up for my Gmail account several years ago, I have tried to keep abreast of Google's various extras, so this was not my first exposure to Google Docs. What I like about Google Docs is that I can treat it like an online memory expander, uploading things that I want to make sure I don't ever lose, or I can use it to edit the same material from any computer. This comes in handy for me, especially when I'm working on a new story. Recently, I couldn't get the opening line of a story out of my head, but I wasn't anywhere near my laptop, so I logged into Google Docs, wrote the opening, saved it, and then the next day accessed it from my laptop and was able to work on it more. I like that you can upload a document or start something completely new.
Before finding Google Docs, I'd been familiar with uploading documents to websites and then being able to edit the text there. The site I use to publish some of my prose fiction uses that type of interface; you can upload the story (in a supported format, of course) and then use the site's tools to edit it if you need to. One of my other favorite sites has the same feature (I think they were patterned after the same site), only you can also type your entire entry on the site. The pitfall with creating something original on the site, though, is that if your contribution is rejected, it gets deleted, so you'll lose your work unless you've saved a copy elsewhere.
Before finding Google Docs, I'd been familiar with uploading documents to websites and then being able to edit the text there. The site I use to publish some of my prose fiction uses that type of interface; you can upload the story (in a supported format, of course) and then use the site's tools to edit it if you need to. One of my other favorite sites has the same feature (I think they were patterned after the same site), only you can also type your entire entry on the site. The pitfall with creating something original on the site, though, is that if your contribution is rejected, it gets deleted, so you'll lose your work unless you've saved a copy elsewhere.
sobota, 2 lutego 2008
♪..A Wac shared her wiki with a naughty Marine..♪ (An homage to Mother and Barbara)
When wikis are monitored by editors, or even patrolled by non-users (through rating systems, etc.), I like them very much. I'm not such a huge fan of Wikipedia, because I think people rely on it more than they ought to (misguidedly expecting it to be more factual than it sometimes is), but I have a great respect for certain other wikis, and I think they could be useful for libraries.
I don't know what I thought of the provided library wikis. A lot of them seemed outdated, and I wonder how frequently they get used? I'm also not entirely sure what all of them were supposed to be. The Bull Run Library one? Not sure about the purpose of that. The Library Outreach one? Felt like a shared workspace more than anything else--or was that what it was supposed to be?
If someone could arrange for a patron's card number to serve as their login--to ensure that only valid library-cardholders had access to editing a library-sponsored wiki--I think that a library wiki could be very successful. It could provide a forum for discussion about books and the sharing of opinions and recommendations. Or can wikis--or wiki features--be combined with existing sites? Would be any way in Pamunkey to combine a wiki with PamCat?--so that, when a patron is logged in as him/herself, s/he can write reviews of library materials either from the account summary screen or just the browse screen. I don't know anything about programming--like, even HTML stumps me sometimes--but I wonder if there would be a way for patrons to tag books and make the tags searchable? I guess that would be along the lines of opening the record to patrons... And I wonder if patrons could offer suggestions about further reading? And the suggestions could link to other records in the catalog... kind of like the "Customers who bought this also bought..." feature on Amazon.
At any rate, I think that a wiki would be one of the more useful "Web 2.0" features that a library could employ.
My favorite wiki (non-library) is the user-edited, reader-rated, pop-culture dictionary found at UrbanDictionary.com. Is there a slang term with an alternate meaning you didn't know? Look it up in UrbanDictionary! People around you raving about the newest Internet craze, and you feel foolish not knowing what they're talking about? Do some research at UrbanDictionary! Did you just get a slur hurled your way and don't know how to react? Figure out your response with UrbanDictionary!
UrbanDictionary allows users to add their own words/phrases and definitions, as if it were a standard dictionary. Any one term might have as many as 25 authors writing definitions for it, but the merit of a definition can be easily judged by how many "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" votes it has. Any reader can give it a rating; if you agree with the definition or find it helpful, give it a thumbs-up. If you disagree or know the definition to be false (or the examples are terrible), give it a thumbs-down. The top-rated definition appears at the top of the page. Also, a lot of terms have different meaning or connotations, and different authors will provide different insight. You can peruse the various definitions and determine which one fits the scenario you're in. (Just like a regular dictionary, considering a word's context clues is vital. Example: "No one knows this, but I was actually a Chegwidden/Mac shipper during the run of 'JAG.'"* What does this mean? Do you know what a "shipper" is? If not, click here. Scroll down to Entry 5. Which definition seems the most appropriate, Entry 1 or Entry 5? Based on ratings, which meaning of the term is the most common one?)
There are also tagging features at UrbanDictionary to help you search for and connect to related terms, and if an author references another entry, s/he can link the new contribution to the other term. (To follow up on the "shipper" example, look at the definition of fanfiction. Within the first entry, there are direct links to the terms "fandom," "het," "slash," "AU," "blog," and "zine." Considerate authors will have linked their entries so you can easily define terms you've never heard of before; just click on the linked term, and you'll go straight to that UrbanDictionary entry!)
In general, I think wikis are helpful tools and good ways to open channels of communication among different people. They can create communities where there otherwise were none, and they allow for the free sharing of ideas. I think their validity and usefulness is increased when someone ultimately has the authority to edit and monitor available information--like on UrbanDictionary, there are editors, and a lot of freedom is given to the public so that one can consider the "general consensus" definition of a term. (See wikiality.) So yes, wikis have a place in the future of libraries... as long as we're smart about how we use them.
*For the record, this is so not true.
I don't know what I thought of the provided library wikis. A lot of them seemed outdated, and I wonder how frequently they get used? I'm also not entirely sure what all of them were supposed to be. The Bull Run Library one? Not sure about the purpose of that. The Library Outreach one? Felt like a shared workspace more than anything else--or was that what it was supposed to be?
If someone could arrange for a patron's card number to serve as their login--to ensure that only valid library-cardholders had access to editing a library-sponsored wiki--I think that a library wiki could be very successful. It could provide a forum for discussion about books and the sharing of opinions and recommendations. Or can wikis--or wiki features--be combined with existing sites? Would be any way in Pamunkey to combine a wiki with PamCat?--so that, when a patron is logged in as him/herself, s/he can write reviews of library materials either from the account summary screen or just the browse screen. I don't know anything about programming--like, even HTML stumps me sometimes--but I wonder if there would be a way for patrons to tag books and make the tags searchable? I guess that would be along the lines of opening the record to patrons... And I wonder if patrons could offer suggestions about further reading? And the suggestions could link to other records in the catalog... kind of like the "Customers who bought this also bought..." feature on Amazon.
At any rate, I think that a wiki would be one of the more useful "Web 2.0" features that a library could employ.
My favorite wiki (non-library) is the user-edited, reader-rated, pop-culture dictionary found at UrbanDictionary.com. Is there a slang term with an alternate meaning you didn't know? Look it up in UrbanDictionary! People around you raving about the newest Internet craze, and you feel foolish not knowing what they're talking about? Do some research at UrbanDictionary! Did you just get a slur hurled your way and don't know how to react? Figure out your response with UrbanDictionary!
UrbanDictionary allows users to add their own words/phrases and definitions, as if it were a standard dictionary. Any one term might have as many as 25 authors writing definitions for it, but the merit of a definition can be easily judged by how many "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" votes it has. Any reader can give it a rating; if you agree with the definition or find it helpful, give it a thumbs-up. If you disagree or know the definition to be false (or the examples are terrible), give it a thumbs-down. The top-rated definition appears at the top of the page. Also, a lot of terms have different meaning or connotations, and different authors will provide different insight. You can peruse the various definitions and determine which one fits the scenario you're in. (Just like a regular dictionary, considering a word's context clues is vital. Example: "No one knows this, but I was actually a Chegwidden/Mac shipper during the run of 'JAG.'"* What does this mean? Do you know what a "shipper" is? If not, click here. Scroll down to Entry 5. Which definition seems the most appropriate, Entry 1 or Entry 5? Based on ratings, which meaning of the term is the most common one?)
There are also tagging features at UrbanDictionary to help you search for and connect to related terms, and if an author references another entry, s/he can link the new contribution to the other term. (To follow up on the "shipper" example, look at the definition of fanfiction. Within the first entry, there are direct links to the terms "fandom," "het," "slash," "AU," "blog," and "zine." Considerate authors will have linked their entries so you can easily define terms you've never heard of before; just click on the linked term, and you'll go straight to that UrbanDictionary entry!)
In general, I think wikis are helpful tools and good ways to open channels of communication among different people. They can create communities where there otherwise were none, and they allow for the free sharing of ideas. I think their validity and usefulness is increased when someone ultimately has the authority to edit and monitor available information--like on UrbanDictionary, there are editors, and a lot of freedom is given to the public so that one can consider the "general consensus" definition of a term. (See wikiality.) So yes, wikis have a place in the future of libraries... as long as we're smart about how we use them.
*For the record, this is so not true.
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