Keeping up

Good Lord the discussion boards for SLIS are insane!  I thought I might have trouble keeping up with the reading, but right now it’s the boards that are giving me problems.  There are so many postings to read, and and most of the people give links to articles, blogs, YouTube videos, etc that it’s overwhelming!  And you can tell that each person is thinking and reasoning before they post, running it through a grammar filter…  sheesh.  It’s all so serious too! 

I’ll just do what I have to do to learn the subjects and get a decent grade.  I can only read these postings if I have time, otherwise I’ll go crazy.

Dewey vs. Bookstore

In one of my classes we were discussing whether a library should approach its shelves and its website as a bookstore might.  Some students say that it’s more user-friendly and less intimidating than the Dewey Decimal System, and that it might increase the chances of customers browsing instead of looking for one particular book.  Others say that while it might be user-friendly, it forces customers to browse when they might not have the time to do so.  Books are harder to find in places like Borders because the store is so big and isn’t kept in very good order.  Both arguments are valid, and I’d be interested to see how this idea works in real life.

The professor offered a couple of links:
Article about Gilbert Library dropping Dewey.
Phoenix Public Library’s webpage, designed to look like a bookstore’s site.

Second Life… again

Well, it turns out that Second Life doesn’t support my laptop’s graphics card.  grrrrr…  I figured that out after it crashed for the third time, and then I got the Blue Screen of Death.  So, I tried to download it onto the downstairs computer that we used to use as a TV, but it was super choppy due to low memory.  Then, I went upstairs to try it on my hunny’s super special computer only to find that the computer wouldn’t turn on.  *sigh* There are some major problems with the plugs in this apartment.  But once I got that problem taken care of, Second Life seemed to work fine. 

I got some free clothes for my avatar, looked around some of the lands, and talked to a couple of people.  I just wish that it worked on my laptop.

Strange Dream

I slept in today, but was awakened by a strange dream.  In this dream I was at work and Mick Jagger called me on my cell phone “just to chat.”  It seemed that I had written him a letter asking for a photo of his wife’s engagement ring for a piece I was doing on celebrity engagement rings.  He was impressed by it and called to talk about it.  Then he offered me family pictures in case I ever chose to write an article or something about celebrity families.  We talked about his daughter Natalie and I said that I was proud of him for not playing up to the media’s insatiable need to stalk celebrities.  As we were talking I walked around the library and watched my coworkers work.  Then they got noisy so I went outside and was creeped out by the spiders that were everywhere.  It was just the strangest dream.  As I woke up, I wondered if Mick Jagger has a daughter named Natalie (according to Wikipedia he doesn’t).  Then I rolled over and went back to sleep.

SecondLife

I decided that I should play with SecondLife since I’ll probably have to use it sometime in my college career.  I downloaded the program, made my avatar, and decided to make her look like me.  My hunny looked at the avatar and said “Huh… you lost weight in SecondLife.”  Should I have made myself into a furry animal instead?

The controls are a little strange, but I’m not sure how much of that is because I’m doing all this on my laptop, and how much of it is because of the way the program’s designed.  For instance, sometimes I want to see something other than my avatar’s backside… but I can’t figure out how to toggle the camera view yet.  I did figure out how to add myself to the SJSU SLIS group though.  Now it says “Spartan” above my name.

Either way, I’ll explore a bit more and play with it a bit more before I make any major decisions about it.  I did learn that I can’t have any other windows open or my lap top will crash.  I think it has something to do with the graphics memory or something. 

In other news… I have a partner for my Information Retrieval class.  We paired up based on a mutual love of zombie movies, books by Laurell K. Hamilton, and quilting.  My partner lives in Sacramento, though, so it might be a little difficult for us to get together in person if we ever needed to.

I know I should be counting my blessings about this, but school isn’t going as fast as I need it to go.  It’s the first week, and I know things will pick up considerably.  My only problem with this week’s pace is a matter of scheduling.  I’d like to get a better feel for how fast I need to go in these classes, and how much work I’ll need to do so that I can figure out how to budget my time.  Also, each teacher has modified BlackBoard to suit their needs, so the buttons are all in different places, and sometimes have different names.  It’s not a big deal, but it can be confusing.  I also wonder if any of the teachers will be posting lectures for us to listen to, if so how often and how long will they be?  Or will they just post their thoughts about the topics covered in the chapters?  Will they get involved in the Bulletin Board discussions, or just monitor them?  It’s definitely difficult to get a feel for the class and the teacher if it’s all online.  I thought I’d be very well prepared because the PACE program had some online classes, but to have ALL of them be in the distance ed format is very different.  *sigh*  I know I’ll get the hang of it, and I know this is just me worrying for nothing… but still, I worry.

Alright it’s way past my bedtime, so I should head to bed.  I have to be up sometime tomorrow to take care of the laundry and head to Chabot for a ballroom dancing class my hunny wants to take with me. 

Thing #12: Rollyo

For Thing #12 I had to create my own Rollyo account and search roll. 

One of the first things I noticed was that Rollyo’s site was pretty plain.  Just red and white with black writing.  Although it was nice to have a no-frills site to look at, in a way it was disconcerting.  I’ve become used to sites that are rather busy with lots of options on where to go and what to do.  I guess it’s something that I’d get used to after a while.

I created a search roll called “Shopping!” which consists of all the sites I visit when I’m shopping for something.

I can’t see myself using this tool in the near future.  It might’ve been very useful when I was doing research for my historical writing class, and it might become useful sometime during my MLIS studies.  But I doubt it would be my first stop. 

Before LibraryThing

A couple days ago my hunny sent me a link to an article on Linux.com.  He knows that we’ve been learning about new library technologies and thought it would be right up our alley.  The article is about a computer program called Alexandria.

Alexandria came out before LibraryThing.  It’s a program you download onto your computer to catalog your personal library, wishlist, books you’ve loaned out… you get the idea.  You can create a heading for each type and they’re put in alphabetical order.

Linux’s article states that some portions are a little glitchy, but they have every confidence that by its 1.0 release those problems will be resolved.

I haven’t used the program myself, but I thought the article was interesting anyway.  I wonder if Alexandria will catch on or even overtake LibraryThing once its glitches are fixed.

Futurama

For those of you that don’t know it: Futurama ROCKS!  Tonight just reminded me why.

Awesome quotes from tonight’s show:

Niblonian: They travel from world to world making everyone stupid in order to wipe out all thought in the universe.
Leela: Wipe out all thought? My God, they’re like flying televisions.

[in the library, absorbing all of Earth's knowledge]
Chief Giant Brain: Pathetic human race. Arranging their knowledge by category just made it easier to absorb. Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands! Ha ha ha ha!

Fry: [writing] “Leela cried as Fry lay crushed under the book case. The giant brain laughed ‘Ha ha ha!’ Then, for no reason, he left Earth, never to return. The end.” There. Now he’s trapped in a book I wrote. A crummy world of plot holes and spelling errors.
Chief Giant Brain: The big brain am winning! I am the greetest! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! I must now leave Earth for no raisin!

Thing #11 – LibraryThing

For Thing #11, we had to explore LibraryThing and add at least 5 items from our personal library.  Since I’m doing this at work, I had to think hard to remember which books I have at home.  Here’s my list.

If I had a lot of books at home, I could see using this tool to keep track.  Really, though, I don’t.  I recently moved into a new apartment and discarded a lot of my personal collection.  I simply couldn’t justify moving books I no longer read or refer to. 

I don’t really see what the purpose of this tool is, but I suppose if I explored it a bit more I’d figure it out.  Either way, it seems easy enough.

Thing #10

Multitasking posterOriginally uploaded by danieBOB

For Thing #10 we were to play around with an image generator. I made a motivational poster. I found it on FD’s Toys.

It seemed easy enough to use, but I would have liked this tool better if I could see the changes as I made them, rather than guess how they’d turn out.

That’s all for now!