MLA Week 7

A little late, but I'm finally completing the last set of assignments. Under podcasting, I found that podcast.net had lots of selections under exercise, yoga, working out, self-help, weight loss, diseases. This would be a good place to browse for podcasts on these timely topics. I found the topics at the Univ of Tennessee Health Science Center more interesting than at the Claude Moore library. I really liked their short segments on using the library such as How to find full-text using pubmed & Get Connected --simple instructions on how to use the library on campus & off. I am not interested in the history of medicine which is what I saw at the Claude Moore library. I created an account in Odeo, but I already have one with iTunes which I prefer. On Odeo, I found an interesting podcast called the University and its Library that discusses many technological issues such as web 2.0 and how it can work in the academic environment. It is linked to the Berkman wiki on working groups that expands the ideas of mentioned in the podcast.

I really liked browsing YouTube, especially discovering Mark Funk's profile as the president of MLA and Weil Cornell Library's post on the Faculty of 1000 guide mirroring Lost. Very creative and cutting edge.

MLA week 8

For the mash-ups, I ssearched first for books and found a neat site call bookwormzonline.com that helps you locate independent bookstores by zip code, address, etc. and displays a map to them. I was happy to see that the two bookstores near my house were listed. I also searched for libraries and found libraries411 site. I'm not sure how the site "knew" what city/state I was located in because it displayed a very dense map of libraries in the greater Cleveland area. I could drill down to specific libraries & link to their web sites, or view maps, print directions, and get all sorts of information. I was very happy to see the great number of libraries in Cleveland, thanks to our great public library systems: Cleveland Public Libraries and Cuyahoga County Public Libraries.

Rollyo --I was alarmed to read in Librarian.net that color laser printers encode the printer's serial # and manufacturer # on documents printed from that printer. Xerox codes this information in little yellow dots on every printout. We don't have color printers in the library yet, but new printers that we purchase will probably be color. I think this is a real invasion of privacy!

I need to explore Rollyo further to see if there's a way to limit the search of privacy to current postings. The Shifted Librarian had old postings from 2003 & Libraryman had posting from 2005 which were too old for me.

I wasn't as surprised to read in Librarianinblack that Google is harvesting personal information and giving it away to the government and others. I think Google has to study usage of its resources in order to improve them and build on them. I was happy to read that people replying to this posting disagreed with the assessment that Google was giving away the data.

MLA Week 6

Happy Spring everyone! I've enjoyed sharing photos on flickr but I've already been using Snapfish to share & print my digital photos. I think we should start taking digital photos of various events at the Clinic and how library staff have participated in them --such as United Way or Harvest for Hunger campaigns. Posting them on flickr adds a humanizing touch to our library staff.

MLA week 5

I hope that some of these products will be the future so that anyone can access a computer and create documents, presentations, or spreadsheets without investing in significant software costs. I'm not sure that I'd want to rely on internet-based software for office productivity since the internet is not always available. It is rare for a pc to be down, so even without the internet, you can access files & continue to work.

I especially liked the Zoho product since it seemed to have more features than Google Docs. The collaboration aspect with these suites is much easier than emailing documents back & forth.

Here's my test to see if my presentation could be posted to my blog.

MLA week 4 -tagging

I really like delicious and the possibilities to save time & my brain! I have different sets of bookmarks on various pcs and it is finally practical to get them all set up on one site. Life is good. I saw the possibility of being able to tag items in our library catalog & I've been looking at ways for people to provide comments about books that are especially helpful/good, etc. similar to the reviews you can see at Amazon. I really want to explore that further.
This was a great week, since Facebook didn't give me lots of ideas on how to use it.

MLA Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

Facebook was an interesting experience, as was MySpace, but I don't see their applications in a professional medical library setting. I searched for people at our hospital and saw that there were more than 100 registered. When I looked through the list, I expected to see many medical students but was surprised to see very few.

I enjoyed the Circulation Desk video at the Brooklyn College Library myspace site. Both the Denver and the Brooklyn Myspace pages were hard to navigate, in my opinion. I am such a librarian at heart that it was uncomfortable seeing the disorganized chaos on these sites. In a hospital setting, we need to get to information fast and using either Facebook or Myspace is not efficient.

I can see potential applications with LinkedIN, however I prefer not having my identity so exposed on the net. Ditto for Facebook and Myspace.

MLA week 2 blog or wiki?

I think of a blog as a diary or a current awareness list so you can easily keep current with the lastest items of interest. A wiki is more like a collection of articles on a single topic, whether it is broad or narrow. I think both have potential use in the library. I know that our library has been talking about starting a wiki as a place for staff notes. Right now, these are scattered across our front reference desk or in drawers.

Updated MLA CE week 1

Now that I actually read all the requirements for posting this information, I'll finish the rest of my assignment. I have already been using Google Reader for at least 6 months to track some medical library/library blogs. I find this much easier than having items clutter my email. I've set up journal TOC for patrons using RSS and have helped patrons create their own. It is really simple and straightforward. Now that I've embraced this relatively 'new' technology, I find it frustrating that not all journals offer this capability. Cheers and on to week 2.

MLA CE Week 1

I found this exercise instructive. We've been discussing creating a blog as a way to disseminate library staff information for a long time, but have always found reasons not to proceed. So, no time like the present! With blogs & RSS feeds, even the least techno-savvy of our staff can easily keep up to date with what's happening in the our library.

Journals in the hospital library

Journals in the hospital library are most likely your largest budget expenditure not counting personnel. So what techniques are you using to track how these resources are being used? Do you download usage statistics for e-journals and compare them to the cost? At our institution, I've found that it is easy to work with e-journals and usage statistics to justify purchases, but haven't found an equivalent tool for measuring print journal usage.



Yes, we still have print but the numbers dwindle each year as it becomes a matter of balancing convenience with cost. In the rush to provide instant access to articles, we may be losing focus of an important part of collection development --access to the material down the road. In the safe world of print, once we paid for our journal subscription, the issues arrived, were bound and then shelved in the library for use many years, or decades down the road. Can we say that we've been as careful in selecting e-journals? Even with licenses saying that we have access to the content during the time we subscribed to it, if the publisher changes, I've found that this is phrase becomes meaningless. Now what do you do? You had paid for access, assumed it was archival, and now the access has been removed. Do you even have the time to pursue this? My guess is no and we move on by adjusting our holdings statements to reflect the new reality.

I'd love to hear what others think about these topics! Stay tuned.