Closing Time

Every couple months I come here and agonize over whether or not to delete this blog. As little permanence can be found on the web these days, I am compelled to keep this up as long as possible. As an update to those who stumble upon, yet another ambitiously hopefully project abandoned by "real life", I am moving to Queens in three days, graduating at the end of this month, and getting married at the beginning of the next. "Library" school has been a wonderful experience. Like most educational experiences I learned outside the classroom than in it but they were valuable lessons nonetheless.

paper wedding "flowers" i ordered for the upcoming event

Soon I will be in a new apartment with new goals searching for a new life. In order to provide some diversion from the devastating anxiety that will follow after I receive my last paycheck, I think I will start a new blog. Hopefully any of the information I have left here will be helpful to other LIS/MSIS students besides myself and feel free to follow my new blog. 

~ L

28 days later...5 things left...1/2 way through my MSIS program

I haven't written in almost a month, 23 things wrapped up this week, and I have 2 midterms, 4 assignments, and a presentation coming. Needless to say I haven't had time to blog. 

Part of being a good student and a good employee is knowing how to manage your time. I have certainly learned upon returning to school...and even more the semester after landing a job as a graduate assistant. Next semester will be even more crazy as I will start my first internship and I CAN'T WAIT to start!

Well goodbye for now...my sweet blog. I'll try to return over Thanksgiving break when most of my work is done. When I return... I'll finish up the 23 things and blog about some fun new topics!

(click the pictures for fun surprises!)

Post It #2 ~ Holy ComicCon Batman! : Perks of being a Librarian & a shout out to Barbara Gordon

What perks you say?! Take a look see:

New York Comic Con has generously extended free passes for all library staff members on Professional Day (Oct. 13), with Programming Hours from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM and Show Floor hours of 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM open only to librarians, educators and other industry members. Please visit New York Comic Con's website ( http://www.NewYorkComicCon.com )  and click on the Professional Registration button. You'll be able to register for a completely free badge for Thursday. If you'd like to attend all weekend long, a badge for all four days is only $10.  (~from a mass email sent out by the American Libraries Association)

Sadly I’m in Albany and I have work and class..and I’m not even a “real “librarian yet (still in the little-wooden girl training phase). I can’t wait to get my degree so I can participate in all the wonderful activities! J

Click Here to buy a pack of Batgirl/Barbara Gordon Bookmarks from the ALA Store.
 They used to have the design as a poster but now its gone :(

Speaking of all this Comic-con Superhero business, I found some pretty interesting articles while looking for pictures of Barbara Gordon AKA BatGirl AKA Oracle for this post:

Blog Article on Batgirl's significance to Women and Librarians with her early TV appearances 

An article from ALA’s “I L<3ve Libraries” that looks at Librarians in Comic Books

2004 Article from Information Outlook that had a great quote about Barbara!

 “Barbara earns her paycheck as Gotham City's head librarian, but when crime strikes, she lets her hair down, trades her twinset and pearls for a skin-tight unitard and thigh-high stiletto boots, and kicks arch-villain butt. Even without her alterego Batgirl, Barbara Gordon is no shrinking violet. She's an independent career woman… Barbara Gordon is a superhero with or without the mask and cape and while she may not be the most realistic representation of librarians that the media has to offer, she’s certainly the most multifaceted” - Elyse Kroll Information Outlook, Feb. 2004 (Thanks to http://librarianstereotypes.wordpress.com/ who posted this quote and information about this article in their blog)

When it comes to Batman I’ve always been a bigger fan Harley Quinn but Barbara Gordon is my librarian muse. <3 

Thing 14: Mendeley, Ranting about Reference Software, & Ignoring CiteUlike

So I tried out Mendeley last week. If Evernote & Zotero were to combine, I feel that Mendeley would've been the outcome. Like Evernote, Mendeley allows you to save, organize, and take notes on articles. Like Zotero, Mendeley pulls the bibliographic information from your articles and allows you make citations. The nice thing about Mendeley is that it syncs with your other devices...so you can use it on other computers, laptops, and  tablets (provided you've downloaded the software and logged in).

With all that being said, a word to the wise about Zotero and other Bibliographic Citation programs; I know when you encounter it for the first time...it seems magical. Your eyes sparkle with all the possibilities of the things you can do with the extra time you'll save on your paper. You shake your fists thinking of all the precious moments you've wasted doing things the hard way. Be cautious my eager friends! The citations made be the programs are not always correct...make sure you double check your work.

It's not Zotero's fault that it could not pull all the information from your downloaded article and left out information it's yours! To be fair, most of the time it's the fault of the information contained in the PDF file. Some PDF files....especially older ones aren't able to be properly "read" by Biblio Cite Software.

It was in with this issue I found Mendeley to be more helpful. Mendeley asks you to VERIFY the bibliographic information and gives you the option of using Google Scholar to find and fill in any missing information. CLICK THE IMAGES BELOW TO ENLARGE

some of the info is missing? (vol? issue?)

yay! Mendeley found it using Google Scholar!

Another suggestion...often academic databases and journal archives will often have a spot that will provide the correct citation for you works cited...on their page. Yes, I know it doesn't help with in text citations but it's useful. For example here is a screen shot from EBSCO.
CLICK THE IMAGES BELOW TO ENLARGE

Post It #1 ~ Muppet Archivist

  With school starting and my new job I know that there will be times when I won't be able to post as often as i'd like. I've noticed that other blogs have reoccurring segments and I have always enjoyed and envied them. Thus my segment (that I just came up with in the past 5 minutes) the Post It!

Post It Terms & Conditions

 - 1 mini post every other week - NO EXCEPTIONS

                    - Twitter-like brevity (140 words MAX instead of 140 characters)

____________________________________________________________________________

Post It #1: Muppet Archivist

image may be subject to copyright

In Library school you tend to stick to thinking about the typical environments in the field; primarily Schools & Universities, Museums, and Public Libraries. But if you use your info science skills to dig deeper you can find a whole world of interesting places that need information professionals. Which brings me to the topic of this Post-It : The Jim Henson Company wants Library and Archive Interns! The company behind the Muppets, Labyrinth, Fraggle Rock, and the Creature Shop! A reminder to all that information professionals can go anywhere...so it wouldn't hurt to find out if there are positions waiting for you in organizations that harbor your other interests. 

Other Muppet related news: Two weeks ago a cover album of Classic Muppet Songs was released. Listen free on NPR's website.

Thing 12 &13

I know I am behind and when I have time I will try to add a few tidbits of my personal life to this thing. It's been a wonderfully busy month and another has just begun. Today was my first class of the fall semester, I am a month into my new job as a graduate assistant at the NYS Library, and I am still slowly planning my wedding. It's going to be an interesting few months...now let's start a game of ketchup!

Thing 12 Putting the Social into Social Media

 image by Fred Cavazza taken from Flickr

• are there any other advantages to social networking in the context of professional development than those already outlined above?

It's easier for students to attend. As I student I really appreciate being able to participate in something like cdp23. Besides the benefits mentioned in the cdp23 post there are other practical advantages:

1. It's cheap! Money is tight I can't currently afford to pay for more classes or travel to attend conferences.
2. It's flexible! I am a full time student and now have a part time job, I can participate on my own time.

• can you think of any disadvantages?

With over 700 participants the cdp23 has the advantage of bringing many types of viewpoints and professions. However, there is something to be said for a smaller community. It's an overwhelming task to read and comment on so many blogs. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to be part of such a large thing. I would like to try a program like this on a smaller scale...I am hoping that the Capital District Library Coucil (CLDC) will host another program so that I may compare the experiences. 

• has CPD23 helped you to make contact with others that you would not have had contact with normally?

Yes, I have made contact with two UAlbany alumni and an ex-journalist. I wish I had time to make contact with more.

• did you already use social media for your career development before starting CPD23? Will you keep using it after the programme has finished?

I never have but I intend to from now on. I have found blogging to be a great learning experience and I have learned a lot from reading the blogs of others. While I have yet to use my Linked In 

account and my Twitter for any "real" profession development purposes I hope to in the future.

• in your opinion does social networking really help to foster a sense of community?

Yes and No, like any professional development workshop you get what you put into it. If you want to learn and create connections and work to do so...you can help to create a sense of community. 

Thing 13: Google Docs, Wiki, Dropbox

I am all for cloud computing. While its a little frightening to know that people have the ability to hack and data mine your information, I like that I can access my school papers anywhere (and honestly if you want to hack into my account and read them have fun :) . However, I am not a fan of Google docs. I enjoy Google's email services, its blogging platform, its RSS reader, and its search engine but I find Google docs cumbersome. I think this is because I tend to use Microsoft office materials. Sometimes when I use Google docs and Microsoft office tools in conjunction the formatting gets screwed up. While I think this error is mostly due to Microsoft programming I can't afford my papers and presentations being marred or lost.

 Therefore I highly recommend Dropbox. I used a Dropbox account to write a few group papers for one of my classes last semester. Most of my classmates used Macs. I used a PC. Despite the different OS were still able to access and edit Word documents and PDFs with out conflict. 

I love wikis! They make something like a proposal or report interesting and interactive. In order to do something different and show off my wiki-skills I created a wiki page to show off my resume information. Let me know what you think? 

While you can pay for some fancy wiki programs and services. I highly recommend the free options that are available. So far I have used pbworks, wikispaces, and mediawiki. I have decided to create a little chart so you can easily compare the three...but if I had to pick on pbworks is my wiki of choice. ^.^ 

Super Scientific Star Scale * - BOO!! ** - not good *** - GOOD **** - i like **** - <3 !	WikiSpaces	PBworks	MediaWiki
Usability	***	****	**
	Can’t really complain. It’s pretty simple to use.	It’s very easy to format this page however…all functions may not be a readily apparent as with the other wiki services. However once you get the hang out it everything becomes self-explanatory. I find PBworks the easiest to use.	Adding and editing text is easy. But formatting is more cumbersome because you must remember a series of codes to format.  With the other services you have RTF with just a click of a button. It must simpler to make things bold vs. “’bold’”…and bullet listing is just obnoxious
Guidance	***	**	***
	A helpful blog	Not a much support on site the other two but there are helpful videos and blogs abound!	Great tutorials…but I don’t think it makes up for the cumbersome style
Attractiveness	***	****	*
	Not as smooth and attractive as PBworks but still neat and professional without being an eyesore.	Smooth, neat, attractive, but the side bars and top tabs can be a little overwhelming.	If you don’t have programming skills… UGLY!
Free Amenities	***	***	****
	·2 GB Storage ·Unlimited users and pages ·10mb per file limit ·Few privacy options	·  Limited number of color options ·  More security options than wikispaces but you must pay more to be able to limit security on an individual page level ·  Unlimited pages and users ·  Can add larger files (big pictures and pdfs)	Everything! MediWiki is opensource so it’s basically what you make it…if you’re a newb you may want to try one of the other services because they have more built in features
Total Stars:	12	13 WIN!	10
What I Like Most about it?	It’s simple! Not as overwhelming with the weird codes like MediaWiki and easier to understand on your own than PBworks.	The Organization and the Look! I like that it has a backend that you can organize and a front end that looks smooth and clean.	It’s allows Creativity! Because this is open source the creative possibilities are endless.

sorry it's so small

Infographics! information consolidation superheroes to the rescue!

   So remember when you were in grade school (British translation: primary school) and your teachers kept emphasizing how important it was to be able to read charts and graphs?... no? Well in my early education they certainly did. Over and over again we were asked relatively simple questions about graphs and charts. Rabid math and science teachers tried to convince me and my young gum-chewing, nose-picking peers of their value. "Look!" they said, drooling, "see how amazing it is that you can display lots of information in simple visual way?!". My fellow classmates and I would stare at them in unamused silence. Years later, I left school vowing never to be involved in a profession that relied heavily on math and promptly forgot my teachers well-intentioned words of wisdom. Until now!

   Whether or not you study information science, it's clear to see that information is what controls our current lifestyle. Never before have we had access to some much at our fingertips. As I and countless others have mentioned before, information overload is an inevitable result of this boon. People want well organized information and as much of it as possible. Consolidation and Organization are in! Behold a world of databases, social tagging, and twitter! As much information, as organized and as easy to understand as possible!..thus the INFOGRAPHIC!

The infographic allow us to tame the dissonant information chaos around us and make POINT without shouting! . . . (imagine that)

But don't take my word for it. Let's listen to an expert...








Let me interrupt all this excitement with one quick caveat...As David McCandless mentioned whoever can manipulate the most information controls everything. So be a good little journalist and be sure to check the credibility of your sources.
(Corn Refiners Association & America's Natural Gas Alliance...I mean you!) 

case & point

Anyway, on the more happy stuff! So what does all this hubbub about infographics mean to a Web 2.0, interactive, semantic web, techie-buzzword world!? As you saw in the first video, infographics can become interactive...check out the example below for something that takes this to another level:






So want to design some infographics of your own?

• Check out this article this article about 10 of the best free inforgraphic tools. 

•  Lucidchart. It is not as dynamic as some of the other tools, but it still allows you to easily create flowcharts quickly, easily, and socially. Plus I am a sucker for the "Hey Jude" flow chart video.

• Prezi - those in cdp23 know it well...yes i know its more of a presentation tool but you can create infographics within it

Infographics Just for fun:

click the pic for an enlarged view

Also check out

Cool Inforgraphics.com: an awesome blog that posts interesting inforgraphics from all over the web