Assignment #6 Website

Here is the link to my website.

Links to my comments on other postings.... for Week of 11/22

Gemma & Megan
guybrarian

Reading Notes for Week of 11/22/10 M. Farina

Web Search Engines: Parts 1 and 2
     I find it so interesting how search engines can scan websites for specific words and phrases to find query results.  What's more amazing to me is how quickly they can do so, while filtering out unwanted material all the while considering spam tactics.  It's important to consider the search side together with the indexing side of web content.  The need for a concise, logical indexing system becomes even more apparent.  This is an incredible complex task, taking into consideration acronyms, misspellings, multiple languages, etc.

Current Developments and Future Trends for the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
     The Open Archives Initiative has grown from the need for interoperability and efficient content sharing.  The article's mention of the Deep Web helped me to understand that not all relevant information may be found by search engines.  We can all benefit from learning how to initiate better search queries, in order to retrieve some of this "buried" information.

Muddiest Point- Week of 11/15/10

I don't have a muddiest point from this week's class.

Muddiest Point- Week of 11/8/10

No muddiest point this week

Readings for Unit 10 AND COMMENT LINKS- M. Farina

My Comments on other notes

comment1
comment 2

MY NOTES
Digital Libraries- Challenges & Influential Work
     This article points out the complicated processes involved in a search for information, as complicated by the sheer quantity of digital resources available.  The background information on DLI-1 especially interesting, as well as the accountability of federal funding into such initiatives.

Dewey Meets Turing
     This presents an interesting angle into looking at DLI- the relationships between librarians and computer scientists, and the 'wrench' of the world wide web being thrown into their otherwise-perfect coupling.  Yet again we see reference to access, algorithms, Google, copyright restrictions, etc.  To make a long story short, change usually isn't easy to deal with, and the DLI's history provides plenty of obstacles met and overcome.

Institutional Repositories
     It's hard to imagine that institutional repositories were only born 8 years ago; so much has gone on in such a short time. MIT's DSpace played a crucial role in ...

Koha Booklist- M. Farina

Koha user name:  MLF52
Koha List Name:  LIS2600 Italia, Farina
Koha link to list

Links to my comments on other postings.... for Week 9

Guybrarian
Ryan

Muddiest Point- Week 8's Class 11/1/10

Muddiest Point
How likely am I, as a public or school librarian, to need to compose using html or xml? Isn't it more realistic that I'd create web pages in other ways?

Reading Notes for Week 9- M. Farina

11/2/10 Reading Notes for Week 9

XML Articles

                  The pages defining various terms and acronyms used to qualify SML standards are especially helpful.  Additionally, the tutorials and other resources offer excellent hands-on opportunities and references.  However, since the articles are more than 6 years old, I wonder how much of it is still relevant.  For example, RELAX NG has probably evolved a lot since this article was written.  Or perhaps one of the other schema languages (Schemation, DTD, WXS) has become the industry standard.? 

                  I enjoyed the Bergholz Tutorial article, especially because of its format and clarity.  Its clear presentation of facts was easy to understand.  Similar to last week’s tutorial, the XML Schema Tutorial pulled together the information in the three articles.

Muddiest Point - Week 7's class

My muddiest point isn't exactly about the lecture, but rather just a question about something mentioned there...BING.
I do not get very helpful results when I use Bing as a search engine, and I really prefer Google.
How do the underlying structures of these two different search engines vary?

Links to my comments on other postings.... for Week 8

Mr. Gatton
Ryan

Week 8 Reading/Viewing Notes - M. Farina

10/25 Reading Notes for Week 8 Readings/Viewings

“Beyond HTML…”

                  CMS means Content Management System; collecting, managing and publishing content.  It’s more than a database or repository.  This article details one school’s movements to switch to a CMS.

Content- disconnected from layout and design elements.  Librarians / others were then able to create guides in a forms-based environment, rather than needing to know HTML.  This saved a lot of time and evened the playing field.  Their pages contained resource links, web pages, images and files.  It’s reusable.

                  Control- “gatekeeper” reduced. Created standards in guides - common style navigational consistency.

                  Customization and Context- Taggin content is crucial; it provides meaningful organization for the user.  Customizing the metadata gives objects meaning for the user.

                  Complexity- CMS is a scalable system that can accommodate a growing body of work.  Security and backups are in place.  Author of each resource must be noted.

                  Moving toward a CMS environment requires: realizing there is a problem, search for solutions (commercial programs such as Dreamweaver, Vignette, Front Page), open source or in-house options.  The rest of the article gives very specific details of the university’s development process.  Decisions were made as to webpage/template design, for example what to include in the main section and in the side bar menu topics, resources, drop-down menus, etc.  Template then was put to use, evaluated and rewritten as necessary.  New CMS alone is not enough; training is a critical part of the system.  After the system was in use for a while, users were surveyed to identify successes and areas for improvement.

                  This article spells out the many steps involved in deciding to change to a CMS.  It will be useful for any library (or university) system considering or already implementing a similar change.  A recurring theme is the need for training during the change phases as well as throughout maintenance and regular use of the CMS.

HTML Cheatsheet

                  The members of our class are all at varying levels of technology experience and knowledge.  Therefore, those of us with little HTML experience have a nice, little cheatsheet as a reference.  Those who don’t need it get to save a tree!

W3schools HTML Tutorial

                This site taught me more than I’ve ever known about HTML.  It is beginning to make sense to me.  I liked the “Try it yourself” and editing exercises.  Although it was fun, in a puzzle sort of way, I definitely do not want a job in which I will have to create HTML!

W3schools CSS Tutorial

                As I hadn’t before even heard of Cascading Style Sheets, this tutorial was very informative.  CSS was a logical solution to problems that arose with HTML limits.  New to me are its syntax, comments, id and class selectors, etc.  As with the previous tutorial, I liked using the “Try it yourself” sections and the quizzes.

Links to my comments on other postings.... for Week 7

guybrarian
Gemma

No Muddiest Point for Week 7

10/23 Notes for readings/viewings Week 7 Michele Farina

10/23 Notes for readings/viewings Week 7

“How Internet Infrastructure Works”

                  Finally, an article lets me understand how my home computer actually connects to the internet.  Every time I moved to a new apartment (and I’ve had over 15 in the last 15 years) I’ve had to go through the challenge of connecting my computer to the internet.  I have a Mac and had to choose between Ethernet, Pop, Tcp/ip and such options that made absolutely no sense to me!  Sometimes I would need to enter my IP address, which of course I didn’t know.  I’d try all the options until I could find one combination that worked.  As the years have gone by, it has become increasingly easier to set up my computer- thank goodness.  So, perhaps this article is a little too late to help me actually connect to the internet, but I’m glad to have read it and finally know what all that ‘gobbledygook’ means!

“Dismantling Integrated Library Systems”

                  Understanding exactly what an ILS is, prior to reading this article, would have been very helpful.  It seems to me that this is a case of fixing something that wasn’t broken in the first place.  In fact, fixing something that had 25 years of experience and improvement put into it, making it a logical and usable product. 

                  I understand the need to continuously upgrade and improve ILS in light of new technology and increased patron dependence on the internet.  It must be really difficult and costly to keep up, however, as technology changes so quickly.  It sounds like there are many vendors competing to get their products chosen and purchased.  It was interesting to read that the MARC record is holding back library automation.

                  Even on our own university library site, we have a choice between Pitt Cat Classic and Pitt Cat +.  One could assume that the + option is better, more modern, yet I often get better search results using the Classic version.  We are soon going to another system, I’m told, which shows that our library, too, is in a constant state of change.  I’m curious to use the new system, as it will then give me hands-on experience with three systems.

“Inside the Google Machine”

                  I love the world map of Google usage.  It really drives home the enormous scale and scope involved in the entire world using Google- in terms of the traffic load of queries.  Really impressive!  The graph showing queries into the group Las Ketchup is a great way to show trends.  I learned about the Google Foundation. 

                  Some interesting facts I’ve learned about Google as a company include: Brin and Page both attended Montessori school, Google employees are permitted to spend 20% of their time on self-selected projects, Google isn’t afraid to put effort into many new ideas, etc.  I’d like to work for Google in some capacity- what an exciting company.

                  It was also interesting to hear about innovations that were new and exciting at the time of the recording (2004) and have since become obsolete.  Their idea of making advertising useful, not simply annoying is great.  How interesting that Google is able to serve the entire world, even poorer countries, based on the revenue generated from advertising.  Finally, I was glad to hear that it is important to Google to present true information.

Assignment #4 Zotero/Citeulike M. Farina

Michele Farina's CiteULike assignment

Jing Assignment

Links to the 5 captures on Flicker are below. 
If you want them all at the same time, click here.
Title Page
Pitt Arts
Opera
Google Transit
Bus Info

Jing Project
Going Out in Pittsburgh- Michele

Links to my comments on other postings.... for Fast Track Wknd Readings

Tim

Gemma, Tim, and Caitlin

Week 5's Muddiest Point- Jing

I've been experimenting with Jing, and I think it's pretty cool. I would like to know if there's a way to compile several separate recordings (both still and video) into one larger file.
I'd like to use parts of a Word document, internet pages, and other material in one single presentation.
I'd appreciate any help or suggestions. Thanks