Extra Thing 6 (week 11) : visualising that data

A thing on making things look pretty - or really presenting your data in a clearer way.  I had a go with wordle - I am not a big fan of these images created from word frequencies that crop up on lots of sites now (including library catalogues).  The dominant words don't always seem that relevant because context is not taken into account. I tried to create a wordle on my blog and removed the common English Words and it was dominated by "also" - is that not a common English word???  I couldn't see a way to remove individual words so following a colleague's suggestion I gave tagxedo a go instead.  Apart from the option to have lots of different shapes it also allows you to skip words to make the result a bit more relevant.  So here is my tagxedo - it includes the blog posts from 23 things last year as well as the new Extra things (I was pleased to see that Extra did feature high up).

I chose an umbrella as it looked a wet miserable day.  This was a good choice as the sun then immediately came out!

I had a quick look at Gliffy which did look useful for floor plans and diagrams although I didn't have anything I needed to create at the moment.  Definitely something to return to when producing documents.

Extra Thing 5 (week 9) : Getting creative and common

Last year on 23 things I looked at flickr.  I can't remember if I set up an account, certainly didn't use it so I have had another go.  I did use lots of images from flickr, though, with creative common licenses which are very useful.  So I thought I would load some of my own images on flickr and then try out ImageCodr on my own photos.

So here goes with a sunny afternoon in Cambridge punting down the river.

  by  lettylib28 

Or let's go further afield to the Pantheon in Rome...

  by  lettylib28 

Or some childhood memories with my rag doll, Katie, made for my 1st birthday so now too old to mention and a very well loved teddy bear.

  by  lettylib28 

I can see this becoming very addictive.  ImageCodr is so simple to use and makes adding photos to your blog really quick.  An excellent tool.

Extra Thing 4 (week 8) : tumblr(ing) into posterous

A chance to try a couple of new blogging sites. I had come across tumblr before (excuse to use an image of tumbling water - it was that or a glass tumbler!) from reading other blogs but never posterous.  I set up a test site on tumblr and it was very easy to do once you picked a URL name that no-one else had used.  It is a bit like when you are trying to set up a free email account and you work your way through every combination of name, nickname and dates that seem possible but someone else got there first!  

I need to spend more time trying out the themes and posting something but it does seem an easy site to use.

As for Posterous, it is an example of the changing landscape of social networking. Just since the blog back in August it has now become "Posterous Spaces" and is focussing on being a social network site and not just a blog site.  Definitely useful for group and I may try setting up something for the book group I am in. 

Extra Thing 3 (week 4) : widgets

Library Widget on Classics Page

The extra thing for week 4 is using the Cambridge Library Widget.  I promote the widget to our users and we have it embedded on the Classics library page.  I find it useful to direct students towards it rather than logging in to Newton.  I had not tried the RSS feeds or adding it to my google calendar before.

The RSS feed worked well - I issued myself a book as I realised I had nothing on loan - as my loan appeared straight away. Although whether it sends me a reminder when it is due I don't know. That would be more useful than knowing I had just borrowed it.

I also added it to my Google calendar but it did not show there even though I refreshed the calendar. There is obviously a delay in data appearing and so its usefulness is dubious, especially as at Classics our undergraduates have a 2 day loan and so need the information quickly.  I will need to check when I am borrowing properly to see if things appear or not.

Extra Thing 2 : More (t)wittering

I have to admit to a bit of a love/hate relationship with twitter - or more a love/apathy relationship.  For cam23 last year I joined twitter as instructed.  I followed people but found it difficult to keep track of everything.  Someone recommended giving tweetdeck a try and I installed it on my computer and found the whole experience much better.  I could create boxes for my saved searches, lists and fav people.  I was becoming addicted.  Then I changed computers and tweetdeck was gone.  I drifted for awhile back on twitter before losing interest. I found it useful if I couldn't go to a conference to follow some of the tweets, although often they mean nothing unless you are there as too brief to properly portray what is going on.   

I then gave hootsuite a try as you can access that anywhere via a browser but I didn't like it as much as tweetdeck.  It was slow to refresh and I couldn't seem to link in other social sites, such as Facebook, unless I wanted all my twitter posts to go to my facebook profile - which I didn't.  Now 23thinging again and accessing twitter.  I now have new pc and have installed tweetdeck (now part of twitter) and really liking it. I get a little box popup when there is a new tweet which is useful to keep up-to-date with something I am following or amazingly distracting when trying to work on other things! They are also working on a web interface so I would be able to access it elsewhere (which would be good now as not on my own PC).

I suppose I ought to start tweeting again about #cam23 or at least checking out the other tweets.

Extra Thing 1 : Metamorphoses

Before

Here we are again cam23 blogging - has it really been a year?  This time I am just doing the extra things although I am also trying out wordpress to blog for the cpd23 things. Currently preferring blogger.

The extra thing this week is beautifying our blogs.  So I took the blog I had before and changed the template to what I have now.  But I also went a bit more adventurous and actually chose my own background image from my holiday snaps.  But I didn't stop there, I went on to add some more gadgets to the toolbar.  A twitter feed (must start going on that again for the 23 things) and fish.  No particular reason for the latter but I went into the most popular widgets and there it was.  So I suppose if you are bored reading the blog you can play with the fish - they respond to the mouse although I couldn't get the green one to move!
 

Cambridge Network lunch discussion - is the physical library redundant?

Well I didn't think I would be blogging again after the cam23things programme ended but now realised it is one of the easiest ways to get a whole list of links up where anyone can access them. 

Once a month at Cambridge University some of us get together at lunchtime to discuss a current journal article or blog post of relevance to the library and information profession. But for the event on 1 December, I decided to put forward a discussion of the Times Higher Education debate on "is the physical library redundant in the 21st Century?".  This involved more than just a reference to one article so I am putting up the links for discussion here for easier access.  If anyone spots anymore then please feel free to add them in the comments.

The debate involved Mary Beard (Professor of Classics at Cambridge), Clive Bloom (Emeritus Professor of English at Middlesex), Sarah Porter (Head of Innovation at Jisc)and Martin Lewis (director of library services at Sheffield university).

If you are attending the lunch please look at and read some of the following:

The podcast of the debate which is about 90 minutes and background to the debate.

There have been a number of blog posts following the event by the debaters and audience members:

Mary Beard's blog entry "Bedding down in the library" on her Don's life blog.

Sarah Porter has blogged about it and James,  and Tom Roper.   Also an article on the BBC about a "bookless" i.e. digital only library. 

That should hopefully be enough to get the discussion going.