Library of Congress Plans to Move Away from MARC in 10 Years

Library of Congress announced that it intends to replace MARC with another metadata schema in 10 years. The new schema is envisioned to make bibliographic information accessible in the semantic web environment. If this move is to be realized, the implications for all types of libraries will be substantial. Please read the full article about the LC announcement at  http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/890784-264/library_of_congress_may_begin.html.csp.

I recently discovered this word clouds website which creates an image with any words you provide. There are many options to modify and edit the generated image, you can change font, color, background, layout, size, etc. Try it and see if you like it. http://www.wordle.net/

This image was generated from our Tech blog's URL

Vocabulario TechTalk

How many times has someone told you what do the following initialisms mean: PDF, MP3, USB, ISP, FAX, DVD, CD (the easy one!!!), WI-FI (the initialiasm is actually WLAN), LED and VGA. If you can say all 10, your technological vocabulary is exemplary. (I did a survey at Koelbel with 5 staff members and only two new more than 2 initialisms). I myself only new CD (ouch!!) and I consider these to be frequently used in our era. For researching these initialisms please refer to WEBOPEDIA.com. Buena Suerte!!!

From Coolest Gadgets: (which I've added to my work desktop to stay informed of the lastest and greatest. While I don't have an iPhone, I thought this was really cool! Cindy McF


we reported on the Hoyos Eyelock USB Iris Scanner that allows the user to enter their laptop or desktop device via eye-scan. All it takes is just connecting it via USB, but what if you could get similar security on your mobile phone?
The technology is already here. What you can see in the picture and in the video after the jump is RecognizeMe, an App that is only available on jailbroken iPhones. This App uses the Facetime camera in order to recognized the registered user, and only then will it unlock the phone.
So who needs fingerswipes and passwords? Just look at the iPhone, which is something that you are probably doing anyway if you have your iPhone on hand.

Last to join social network?

Okay, everyone else in the world is already on facebook, but I have been holding back. What's in it for me? Isn't checking email and phone messages enough? I'm doubtful about being more connected.
On a whim I signed up on facebook last month and my first post was a question about why should I do this? I got various answers from family and friends. It took me a little more time to post my picture too!
Last week I was nearly in a bad car accident. I posted the story on my facebook page and soon comforting messages were coming in. I did feel relieved and pleased to get these messages.
I have also enjoyed checking out my daughter's page and keeping up with some of her daily jottings. And yesterday I saw a brand-new great-nephew's photo!

AccessMyLibrary

I downloaded AccessMyLibrary ap after the eref book training. I tried it when I was at the SH temp space to see if it would work. Of course it didn't show us in the new space, but it did show libraries within a 10 mile radius. I took the next step to see what I could get into. I got to the eref books right away to select one and then the experience went a little south. As the instructor said, the ap is made for mobile devices until you get to the search. He said they are working on it, which is good news, because it is hard to do a search on a phone in a screen built for a desktop. Fun to try it out and see I could search these ref books from anywhere.

The Cloud! The Cloud!

Almost a month ago now, I nearly pulled down a 'Murphy's law' style curse on myself. My sweet, dear, and dying computer (it is old and has suffered a few falls) stopped recognizing my external hard drive, which stores all my music. I was telling a friend about this situation and nonchalantly said, "So, as long as my iPod doesn't fail, I should be fine". Not wise, not wise at all. Less than a week later, while changing from my bike clothes, I placed said iPod on top of the paper towel dispenser in the bathroom at SH, promptly forgot it, and lost it. Tragedy had struck and I was left music-less. I started to panic a little about the possibility that it was the hard drive that failed (also a victim of one too many falls), and not my computer, and that ALL my music would then be gone, gone, gone forever! After breathing deeply into a brown paper sack, I sought the help of professionals, and with their magic, I am now back in sonic business. Huzzah!

This episode, however, got me thinking. I had felt confident in having saved my 'important' files in TWO places, but it didn't take much for that confidence to be shaken and to feel that my system had serious vulnerabilities (e.g. ME). I had been hearing about the rise of saving to the 'cloud' and had even been offered an introductory trial of Amazon's Cloud Player, but didn't know much about it any of it, if it was a viable alternative, or if it was all that secure. Recent news about Amazon and Sony's online information storage problems, Sharon's post asking about the security of GoogleDocs to store passwords, etc., as well as Rita's post about Dropbox all continued to peak my interest about The Cloud! The Cloud!

So, here you go. The Nitty-Gritty-Reader's-Digest version of cloud computing:

At its most basic, cloud computing allows for a "separation between the resources used and the user's computer" (i).. 'The Cloud' is a continuation of the paradigm shift away from having physical, tangible information sources and storage to using the infinite, though nebulous (pun!), 'space' created by the innumerable amount of networking computers that are the internet. One common analogy is that of public utilities. Having centralized public utilities (water, electricity, gas) frees the individual from needing the materials and machinery to produce the utilities for themselves. Similarly, The Cloud allows for companies, and increasingly individuals, to "increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software" (ii).. One 'library' example would be if a patron forgets their flash drive/ thumb drive/ whatever, and they email the document to their own email address. They have, effectively, 'increased their capacity' without spending $10 on a flash drive/ thumb drive/ whatever.

Okay. Okay. I see your yawns, and hear those whispers of 'old news'.

Keep in mind, that a lot of the discussion about Cloud Computing is designed for companies wanting to implement cloud computing, and not necessarily for the individual cloud computer, so this might not seem like the most applicable information.

So, here you go. The Nitty-Gritty-Reader's-Digest version of 'Is this Safe Or Are We All Just Drinking the Cloud Cool-Aid?' we have all been waiting for:

Webopedia.com identified three major security issues when dealing with The Cloud.

• Data Protection: Securing your data both at rest and in transit
  




• User Authentication: Limiting access to data and monitoring who accesses the data
  




• Disaster and Data Breach Contingency Planning
  (iii).
  

Data Protection: The key to data protection is ENCRYPTION. What is encryption? Think Wingdings or Code Talkers or Pig Latin, anything that 'codes' your data so that a person (or robot) would need the appropriate key to access it, but much more complicated, I'm sure.

In answer to Sharon's question about the security of GoogleDocs, Google says (not surprisingly) ENCRYPT! If you are on an unencrypted network (so an open wireless network, for example), use https://docs.google.com instead of http://docs.google.com. The extra 's' means 'secure', all traffic is encrypted. It may, however, be a little slower. I use Google A LOT and feel like I am almost always directed to the 'secure' site without having to intentionally direct myself there. If it makes you feel any better, Google itself stores ALL its confidential information using GoogleDocs, using the same servers as us. They're drinking the Cool-Aid, and THEY ARE geniuses.

On the other hand, from what I understand, encryption was the downfall of Sony in this last month's gaming gaff. Mid-April,

"Sony of Japan revealed that names, addresses, passwords and possibly credit-card details of 77m accounts were stolen when hackers gained access to the network it runs in 60 countries for its PlayStation online-gaming system, as well as for Qriocity, a service offering music, films and television shows" (iv).

Sony had thought their users' information was well encrypted, but their encryption software may not have been sophisticated enough. Hackers are an inherent risk of trusting The Cloud.

User Authentication: Another security weakness of computing in The Cloud is assuring that the people accessing the information are the people who are supposed to access that information. For the individual that means:

- create strong passwords and mix 'em up on occasion

- log out between sessions

- on public computers, make sure the 'remember me' box is not checked

Disaster and Data Breach Contingency Planning: This one seems to be out of our, regular ol' consumers, hands. It was a lack of disaster planning that knocked Amazon out this past month. Apparently, a problem in a data centre in Virginia upset a significant amount the of the servers that support Amazon's cloud computing, which in turn supports a large amount of other online companies. We can't control natural disasters, but as consumers we can choose companies like Dropbox, which are hailed for their contingency planning.

In summation:

If I may? A pithy existential thought about loss and loss prevention:

In this fleeting life of ours, how safe and permanent can we expect anything to be? My brief brush with music loss, reminded me that, had I stored all my music on CD's in a CD case, and it was stolen from my car, there would be no recovery. Or, one day, if/when Steve Jobs invents the NEXT format leaving my collection of digital music obsolete, there will be no recovery. While identity theft is THE PITS, there is nothing that can be saved to The Cloud that can be more valuable than our lives, health, family, etc. Is The Cloud inherently safer or more dangerous than a file cabinet in a house that could burn, be burglarized, or get swept up in a tornado? Life is tenuous, and information/technology is just stuff. That's all I'm sayin'.

That being said. Cloud Computing for the individual consumer is still relatively new and young. It has created new business models, new security issues, and inevitably new companies to address those issues. Keep an eye out, and pretty soon flash drives may be as antiquated as floppy disks. Welcome to The Cloud! The Cloud!

Resources and Additional Reading:

(i.) Wikipedia.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

(ii.) Infoworld.com

http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031

(iii.) Webopedia.com

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/Security/cloud_computing_security_challenges.html

(iv.) The Economist

http://www.economist.com/node/18620636?story_id=18620636&CFID=169975855&CFTOKEN=76864004

Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP04116285032f42558bfd0a043e1635d3.html?KEYWORDS=amazon+outage

PC Mag (about dropbox)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343852,00.asp

Angry Birds Comes to the Web

Speaking of the addicting "Angry Birds" again....my first exposure to this game was at our Neighborhood Libraries get together on April 30th. I am not really a "game" person, but the Birds did seem to hold my interest and attention. Today on CNN's website I just read that Angry Birds will soon be available on the web via Google's Chrome browser starting Wednesday. Here is the link to the full article:

Google Custom Search

I recently updated a list of storytime blogs to follow so I could gather more ideas for the ALD Storytime Resource Packs. I'm in the process of sending many of their feeds straight to my Outlook which is great to keep track of new posts. (I do have Google Reader but I never seem to remember to go there!) However, sometimes I'm looking for something specific (a new rhyme about flowers, or astronauts, for example) and it would be nice to be able to search in one place rather than in lots of different blogs.

I was messing around in Google and saw the "Custom Search" section, and remembered that a few years ago Amy Cervene taught a Google class and had us create our own custom searches. A custom search looks only in a particular website, section of a website, or combination of websites, rather than the entire web. I made a couple, but it never became an indispensible tool for me, so I thought I'd try again now.

I created a search to look in about 20-30 storytime blogs, wikis, and sites. I've tested it a little, but so far I'm not in love. Here's why:

The free version requires ads, so you have to scroll past some ad sites before you get to the storytime results.

Sometimes it doesn’t direct you straight to a particular relevant post on a blog, and you have to either scroll a lot or give up and do a separate search on that blog.

Many storytime bloggers also review books on their blogs, so a search for “pigs” returns review posts as well as storytime plan posts.

I have to go back and pay more attention to the URLS for the sites and enter them again, and I can’t get it to recognizes pages on the wikis, so right now it’s working mostly with the blogs.

There seem to be a lot of duplications in the results.

Doing a regular Google search for “X and storytime and blogs” seems pretty effective.

I will keep noodling around with this! Perhaps fewer sites will make it more useful, or maybe I should include only the sites that primarily are about storytime plans rather than book reviews.

You can try my storytime search out yourself on this page, or make your own custom search here.

If you've made one before, was it more useful than a regular Google search?

QR CODES

Thanks to Erin McBride I was introduced to the world of QR codes. Since I didn't know what that was I googled it and found out where and how it came from. But somehow I got fascinated by those images and got curious about them. So I went online again to explore more. I was able to find some websites like Free QR Code Generator and to create QR code for myself. This code contains my name, phone number and e-mail address. I managed to copy it and to paste it to a Word document. And then from the Word document I inserted it into my ALD e-mail address. This little journey was very interesting and exciting for me.

Angry Birds

Donna's post reminded me about an article I read the day after our last NL game night. I had tried and enjoyed Angry Birds and, so, apparently, does Rick Marin, author of a New York Times article entitled, "Sleep Can Wait. The Birds are Angry". I can't copy and paste either the URL or the article, but if you go to www.nytimes.com and search for Angry Birds, you will find it. This article tends to support my theory that boys in particular are wasting way too much time playing video games. I'm wondering whether any of you are discussing this at home - i.e., issues about too much technology time - is there such a thing? How do you know it when you see it? What kind of limits should be set? Are teens capable of self-regulation or not? Adults?!

April NL Techie of the Month Announcement

The Neighborhood Library’s Techie of the month for April was announced at our 21st Century Game Night last Saturday. The winner was Erin McBride! Erin works at the Jail Library. Erin was chosen as our winner this month for several reasons. Her post on our Tech Talk blog about QR codes generated many page views and lots of good comments from others. Also, Erin showed extraordinary intellectual curiosity around this topic. She started conversations about it not just in our blog, but at work, where she grabbed me to show her how to scan a code and see what happens. Then she downloaded a QR code generator, generated her own code, and then figured out how to post a code on our blog. Her excitement inspired others to learn more as well.

For her efforts, Erin won a $10 Amazon gift card!

Wondering how you can win too? As we’ve said, participation on the Tech Talk blog is the only way to win this coveted award. You don’t have to post some earth-shattering new idea to win. What we’re looking for is someone learning something new to them that they share. Maybe you finally tried facebook and posted a picture. Maybe you finally decided to play with an ipad and see what Angry Birds is all about. Tell us about your learning experience or be inspired by someone else’s learning and comment on that. Engaging comments on posts are just as vital to our learning as original posts.

I know there are many more of you lurking out there than are posting or commenting. We had over 1000 page views again this month. Jump in and join the fun. We do notice if you’re not there playing with us. Hey! Learn through Play!

QR Codes webinar

The Quick Response - QR code - can be read by mobile devices to connect to resources and is actually a 2-D barcode.

Carson Block, Poudre River PL, Ft Collins, presented this webinar. He talked about first commercial use of barcodes as an auto car id for railroads - which brought me back to my dating years in high school and when I dated a young man who worked weekends and summers for the Milwaukee Railroad in South Dakota and I would follow him around as he compared barcodes on his list with the car barcodes.

Carson's favorite use of the QR code is for his Boarding Pass on his phone when he travels, as it can be updated in real time, such as getting a new seat assignment in seconds.

Coolestgadgets.com

Others have posted that the Coolest Gadgets site has a lot of cool things and I agree. It has such wonderful new innovative items. Here's one. While I don't have the iPod, the more I use my new smartphone I realize how quickly the battery goes down.

mophie juice pack air targets 4th generation iPod touch
by Edwin - on May 5, 2011
The iPhone, regardless of which generation it comes in, is famous for being a battery guzzler especially when you have all the bells and whistles turned on. mophie knows of this situation very well, and in the past, the company has come up with some rather nifty solutions to keep your favorite smartphone juiced even when you push it to the limits. Most of these solutions came in the form of a storage case that has a built-in battery, and today, we shall look at the mophie juice pack air which caters for the 4th generation iPod touch.

Dropbox

REFORMA National is currently using Dropbox as a collaborative/planning tool for RNC IV (Fourth National Conference) in September. It basically facilitates the sharing of files, documents, photos, etc. by people all over the nation through the cloud. The super cool thing about it though, is that it integrates with your Documents folders on your hard drive. Therefore, you can access these files quickly without the need to access the Internet or authenticate (as you would with a tool like Google.docs). I have found it to be extremely convenient. For more information about Dropbox, here's a link that Suzanne Kaller provided on Staffbook. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343852,00.asp