What if the Library Catalog is itself a social network site???
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Proposal to block social sites from libraries, schools – LJ Tech Blog – Blog on LibraryJournal.com – 670000067: “A group of congressmen, including the Speaker of the House, wants to force libraries and schools to block MySpace and any ‘commercial social network sites and chat rooms’. The proposal defines a commercial social network site as any site which lets users create a profile and lets contact other users. “
Here is a good Resource from the Higher Education Blog about what academic Libraries can do to facilitate learning using blogs/rss
Using RSS to increase user awareness of e-resources in academic libraries » HigherEd BlogCon: “This presentation attempts to answer questions such as:
1. What is a blog? What is RSS? How does it work? What is a feedreader?
2. Why is it important for faculty and students in academic libraries to learn more about it?”
I’m trying to encourage interest in this for our library, but first we need to decide on a logo 
Yet Another Firefox Plug-in For Libraries – LJ Tech Blog – Blog on LibraryJournal.com – 670000067: “LibX is a new plugin for Firefox that can be configured to work with your library’s catalog (if you use III Millenium, Dynix Horizon, Ex Libris’s Aleph or the Voyager OPACs) to do all kinds of useful things. Some of the features of the plugin are:
* Direct access to your library’s catalog via a toolbar & right-click context menu
* Adaptive context menus that change depending on what (such as an ISBN) is selected
* OpenURL support
* Google Scholar support
* Support for off-campus access via EZProxy or WAM
* Support for embedded cues – graphics that link your users from books listed in other websites (Amazon, etc.) to your catalog
* Support for COinS
* Support for xISBN”
Something to look forward to in the next version of Aleph we purchase.
Library Technology Guides: Display Article: “Swets Information Services and the Ex Libris Group have announced today that the EDI serial claiming trials they have been conducting with University College London have been successfully completed. The result of this collaboration has vastly accelerated the processing of claims for University College London. Libraries using the ALEPH integrated library system are now able to automatically transmit claims to Swets using the EDIFACT standard.”
I am creating a list of active Dewey titles throughout the collection as part of a Reclassification project.
We use Aleph 15.5.2 as our ILS.
I am using the ret-adm-01 service in the Items module. I created a macro to create the reports because I can only request one call number string at a time (i.e. 01.) When I actually do get the list I transfer it to Excel and sort it by Call #. I have to do this because along with the right Dewey strong I also get extraneous LC numbers because they also include the search criteria (i.e. PR6001.E3 Z64 1969) At least I don’t have to run a print service on each one as well. ret-adm-01 prints directly to the Tasks Manager.
So far I have only gotten as far as .007
Thanks to Jenny Levine for pointing out this resource. So more about how to make del.icio.us work for you. I see how this relates to what I was talking about earlier. Find the users whose tastes most closely correspond to your own. Then come up with a set of criteria for examining worthiness. James Melzer’s approach is to find a couple of expert users and hang on to their coattails. I think that my approach is more interactive and will result in a continued supply of power users with a built in weeding device.
“I’ve been watching del.icio.us develop and flourish for while now. Ironically, the wisdom of crowds really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe all web apps experience this same effect: the dark side of the long-tail. Users test out the app and abandon their accounts. Spammers flit from one account to the next like bees pollinating flowers. Whatever the reason, there is a lot of junk in del.icio.us. The majority of users don’t tag their bookmarks at all, which begs the question why they are using it in the first place. I don’t have an answer to that question, so I will suggest what I think is a more important question: Given that a majority of users are not contributing anything (or are actively sabotaging) the usefulness of this collective tool, how do we use the tool effectively in spite of them?” -James Melzer
It might not be the most original idea, but I thought I would write it down in words just in case I should forget what I am doing.
I have been trying to maximize the good information that I subscribe to. The first step I took was to try and let my bloglines account aggregate my “Library” tags for awhile. After about a week I examined the posts that bloggers had made. If I wasn’t interested in any of the 37 posts that the user had made I put a star in the description for the feed. I figure that if I go to put a star in a blog that already has a star in it then I can feel comfortable about unsubscribing.
The next step has been to start actively searching for likeminded users in del.icio.us and then subscribe to their feeds. Since I assume that they add tags in a similar fashion then I believe that this is a way to filter out the best information from the blogosphere.
To find similar interested users I first look at my own entries and see who as also tagged them.
I then examine the del.icio.us page that shows users comments about the tag post and how the tagged the entry.
If on first glance it looks like the use a similar structure and put effort into what tags they use then I will examine them further. I tend not to choose users who tag with this convention “library libraries librarae” etc… Even though this is how I started out I think it represents someone who is still learning. At least that is my own opinion. I think it is better to consolidate tags whenever possible (my own are still a scary mass of ideas) That is when I proceeded onto the next step which is to evaluate the user’s page I was astounded by this users small number of tags http://del.icio.us/amanda
Now if that same user had only a few pages of posts then it would mean that they were just starting, but since this person had over 10 pages of posting material under her belt then it proved significant.
So at the user level I look to see if the user’s tags are at least 75% interesting to me if not 100%.
I take a look also at their 5 latest posts for interest as well. If everything comes together then I add the feed for their page to my bloglines account. Currently I add them to the category that most closely describes their interest, Library or Technology.
However, I feel it might be more useful if Bloglines offered subcategories, but I might be wrong about that.
This is what I have been working on this morning, and for the last couple of days. The Firefox Search extension opens up a 4 frame page that contains results from
Google Scholar
Open WorldCat
UF Aleph’s Key Word Search
UF Aleph’s Title Keyword search
Technical Support for Technology Services at Smathers Libraries: “*Install Firefox extension to search Google Scholar, Worldcat and the UF Catalog (using Keyword and Browse Title search)”
Library Stuff: “UPenn Catalog Tagging
While we’re not sure how they are doing it, the UPenn library is now allowing users to create their own personalized classification systems by enabling item tagging in the catalog.”
-Now we just have to figure out how they did it….
watch this short movie about Tagging
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Tagging 101 – At The Whiteboard – ZDNet: “Tagging 101
A tag is a descriptive keyword added to a piece of content enabling you to know more about it. Whether it’s a photo, an article, downloads or discussion threads, tags provide context and new ways to organize and aggregate.”
IT blog