"Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain"

A SUMMARY OF SORTS  

Well this is officially my last post! And as I write this, I can't help but feel a little sad. I will miss my regular blogging adventures as I have found the experience to be both insightful and enjoyable. I shall also miss investigating all the different technologies, tools and resources on Web 2.0. I have learnt a lot in the meantime, and can now impress my friends and family with endless one-sided conversations about RSS Feeds, cloud storage, mashups, social bookmarking tools, microblogging sites and collective resources.  

• Firstly, the issue of my learning goals is of crucial importance: I am satisfied that I have fulfilled all of the learning goals that I originally set myself in my first blog post. From memory they included learning about and creating blog posts, communicating with my "buddy group" and learning more about Web 2.0 tools such as RSS Feed Readers, microblogging tools like Twitter and Yammer and social bookmarking sites such as Delicious. I didn't stray from my original learning goals as I thought that they provided me with enough content to investigate and explore. However, I did look at some sites more in-depth than others, and I tried to balance this by giving examples of several similar sites, for example in my post on social bookmarking sites, I examine several different social bookmarking tools. New goals that I would set myself would extend to persevering with cloud storage options and utilising this tool on a regular basis to backup my important files. Also, I would strive to continue using these Web 2.0 technologies frequently, as I believe they are important to the role of information professionals. I will even try to tweet and yammer more often. After my blogging experience, I may even be tempted to start my own blog outside of the student environment - time will tell...

• Secondly, I believe that the blog activities have helped me enormously in understanding the processes of utilising the various Web 2.0 technologies. The set tasks have enabled me to understand their function and application, as well as to step out of my comfort zone and contribute to certain social spaces  such as Twitter. I have also increased my skill level when it comes to using these technologies, as I am now a regular user of social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, so my learning has transformed from a slightly passive state to being more of an active participant. I now have the ability to create accounts and use the tools fairly successfully - though I just have to keep practicing. 

• Thirdly, I am pleased to say that the experience of keeping and maintaining a blog has been very enjoyable. I think that it was a very good way to record my thoughts and feelings about interacting and engaging with certain Web 2.0 technologies. The process of blogging has enabled me to go back over my posts and to reflect on what I have learnt over the weeks, and to identify where I went wrong and what I can do to rectify the problems I encountered. Some of the set tasks I struggled with, for example exploring how to collaborate with Wikipedia was too difficult, so I opted to try my luck with Trove instead. And I also had difficulty with trying to embed my Google Map into my blog post, but after much trial and error, I finally managed to succeed. Upon further reflection, I thought that there were maybe too many areas to cover in such a short period of time. I found myself running out of time to examine a wide variety of tools, especially if I was struggling with trying to use certain functions etc. Perhaps if there was more time to complete the blog (maybe if it went for the duration of the semester?), it would have allowed me more time for further exploration and skill building. 

• And on a final note, I believe that the blogging experience has been of huge benefit to my potential career as an information professional. I feel that I have learnt a great deal, and that I am much more confident with using certain Web 2.0 technologies before I started. And now that I am well acquainted with the likes of Twitter, Delicious, Dropbox, Feedly, Endnote and mashups there is no stopping me! These are tools that will be of critical importance and relevance, whether working in a library, archive or other information provision environment, so I am glad to have the necessary skills to be able to meet these workplace requirements.  

** Pay attention to the man behind the curtain **  
image taken from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ3DyfU_jHOVI0d8Oe2pGNE75SBexrb7vpnEYhBX7V-jd8K4Ov48ygl5clavV3rbnk29Riu_UVZRIXqhXa1jN91hUWcNLaCeaT36CEHiSCHW8O6ecW1xq-vdCuPU02t5YDR4di_yM_kvY/s320/Wizard_of_oz.jpg

                      

OF MASHUPS AND MAPS

My final topic blog post relates to Mashups: what are mashups? How do I create a mashup? And finally, how do I embed them into a blog post?

In order to understand what a mashup is, I headed to Wikipedia and sought some answers. I learnt that a mashup is a web application that takes information from one or more sources to create a new interface, layout, webpage etc. An example of this may be where a restaurant embeds a map from Google Maps to its website to provide location details to potential customers. Mashups can also include source items from a variety of web applications such as existing videos, music, podcasts, images etc. and by applying them to a new document source, a different meaning and context is produced.

The mashup task that I set myself was to create my own map through Google Maps, and then to embed the item into this blog post. As I discovered, this was a lot harder than I thought and was quite a challenge. I have only ever accessed Google Maps as more of a casual user, usually if I wanted to look up a specific address, but I had never created my own map, so I was a little apprehensive about undertaking this task. After clicking on the "Create Map" button, I then followed the onscreen instructions, where I managed to search and locate the area I was interested in: RMIT's Swanston Academic Building, the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne Museum and the University of Melbourne. The route as detailed below in my map is a round trip of the various cultural and academic institutions around inner-city Melbourne, which I frequent on a regular basis, so it has some personal significance attached to it. To highlight these institutions I used many of the different tools that Google Maps has to offer: placemarks and descriptions were used to indicate important landmarks, shapes and lines were used to mark areas of importance and show a specific route and distances between them. Once the map had been designed to my specifications, I then used the "link" function to cut and paste the map's HTML code into this blog post. At first I wasn't able to copy the HTML code as there was a problem with the embedding function - I'm not exactly sure what this was, but after a while of messing about with various other menu features and logging off and on again, I had success with copying the code, but then when I went to paste it into my blog this is what happened:         

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=202176608712310290576.0004d9e575575ee757538&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;ll=-37.803358,144.965837&amp;spn=0.014343,0.015964&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=202176608712310290576.0004d9e575575ee757538&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;ll=-37.803358,144.965837&amp;spn=0.014343,0.015964&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Stuart's Round Trip Map</a> in a larger map</small>

For some reason the code didn't translate into the Google Map that I thought it would, but instead remained in HTML code. This was frustrating to say the least! I tried several attempts to correct this, but each time I got the same result. So, after yelling at my computer for a while, I decided to cut the HTML code from Google Maps and then click on the "HTML" button in Blogger, paste the code and then click back on the "Compose" button, and hey presto, it worked. And here is my Google Map the way it was intended to be seen: 



View Stuart's Round Trip Map in a larger map

Some other interesting examples of mashups that I tracked down: 

(1) Book Depository where it is possible to watch other people shop live via a Google Map

(2) LivePlasma a discovery engine that enables the user to search for music, movies and books with related results being displayed in a virtual map that contains links, videos, reviews etc. 

(3) Gumtree a site that allows users to post free ads to sell household goods, collectibles, cars etc. and images and Google Maps can be added to a listing to enhance the selling potential. 

This topic has been very useful by not only giving me insight into what constitutes a mashup, but it has also challenged me to create my own, which was a valuable learning experience. Mashups can be important tools to librarians and information professionals as they allow for a combination of multiple information sources to be aggregated into one document. For example, a library website could use a Google Map to pinpoint their location, as well as providing links to images, video tours, and podcasts.       

** What happens when Mashups go wrong **
image taken from: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/231/3/9/Mashed_Potato_Head_by_ColtonBalske.jpg

A DELICIOUS ENDNOTE

This blog looks at the recent phenomena of social bookmarking and how it compares to the desktop reference tool Endnote. I admittedly have never used either of these resources before, so in my defense, there will be a lot of trial and error moments and fumbling around taking place. Firstly, I will navigate my way to Delicious; probably one of the more popular social bookmarking sites on the Web.   


Maybe I'm a little naive when I say that I'm not really sure that I fully understand what all the fuss is about with social bookmarking tools. Admittedly, I have found out that sites like Delicious are fairly useful when it comes to storing all of your bookmarks in the one place, and also having the added convenience of being able to access them from any location. And you can also share your bookmarked sites with other users as well. Sure these are positive aspects of these tools, but how many sites can one person keep track of? And how often will one person access these numerous bookmarked sites on a regular basis? I'm sure that some people are meticulous when it comes to keeping track of their bookmarks and like the ability to be able to organise, tag and share them, but I am not one of those people. If I come across a specific site that I am interested in, I will simply add it to my regular bookmark menu in my browser toolbar, and then probably forget about it for a while. Perhaps this is considered the primitive method and I should be changing my bookmarking habits? Anyway in order to change my ways I signed up for a Delicious account...

After spending much time on the Delicious site investigating the various mechanisms that allow one to add links and create tags, I had a slight change of opinion: I was becoming addicted to Delicious and its features! The Delicious experience reminded me of using Twitter, where the user has the ability to search and to follow other users in the virtual community. Delicious has a similar interface where the user can search for websites by url, title, keyword etc. and once located, it is possible to then add the link, which bookmarks the site to the account. There is also the option to follow other users and to view their bookmarked content. 

** My Delicious account **
image taken from: https://delicious.com/theshadow

I am ashamed that I have never used the Endnote program before and feel that I have been missing out on some sort of enlightening experience! At first, I found Endnote to be rather tricky to come to grips with, but the more time that I spent exploring its labyrinthine possibilities, the more I have come to understand the invaluable nature of this amazing reference tool. Endnote links with your word processing software, and allows the user to create bibliographies in a range of different styles, insert citations into documents, add references to a personal library database and also import references from other library databases. There is also Endnote Web, which I have yet to explore, but I believe it enables references to be gathered and shared from any location.  

Comparatively speaking, Endnote and social bookmarking sites have several features in common. For example, the bookmarking sites Connotea and CiteULike have the ability to import files from and sync to citation management programs such as Endnote. Although when I went to the Connotea website the service has been discontinued since March 2013, so I didn't get the opportunity to explore these options, So instead, I ventured to CiteULike to see what was on offer. CiteULike is very similar to Endnote as it allows the user to store and organise the citation details of academic papers into a personal library. There is also the option to become part of a wider virtual community by joining a group. Once a user has joined a group they can blog about specific articles, assign tags to articles and take part in forum discussions. I believe it is also possible to synchronise the CiteULike bookmarks and transfer them to Delicious, although I have yet to try this feature. I have only touched on a few of the functions of CiteULike and have to spend more time in using this social bookmarking tool, however, it has already proved useful for storing articles that I intend to read. 

The advantages that both reference and social bookmarking tools offer information professionals are many:

• They allow for storage and organisation of important articles, bibliographic styles, citations, and websites
• They have the ability to create a personal library database
• They enable users to access their account from any location
• They offer membership to user groups, where it is possible to share, follow, blog, tag and take part in discussion forums with others in a virtual community   
• They allow users to link and connect with different accounts 

As an aspiring information professional, I will definitely be utilising both of these resource and reference tools from now on, as they will be invaluable in the organisation and retrieval of important documents in the field.          

THE LEARNING MAZE  

As I continue my blogging journey, I thought I'd take the time out to look back at the original learning goals I'd set myself in the first post, and see whether or not I have achieved any more of them. 

In my last learning goals post I discussed how I had become more comfortable with learning about and creating posts, well I can say for sure that I have definitely become much more proficient and confident with using Blogger's interface. Everytime I create a new post, I spend way too much time fiddling around with templates, layouts, fonts, colours and embedding gadgets and resources. I now have the ability to embed links, images and videos into a blog post - although I did have a fair amount of trouble with the formatting procedure of adding a caption to an image. After lots of swearing at Blogger, I finally figured it out and can now position, re-size and add captions like a pro! So, I think I can safely say that this particular learning goal has been well and truly accomplished.

Another learning goal that I was meaning to attempt was to communicate with my "buddy group". This I have done several times since my last post, however, I think I could still make more of an effort to engage with their blogs and start a dialogue about their current blogging activities. This will be a work in progress.

Most importantly though, I have managed to explore a lot of different tools and resources on Web 2.0 such as RSS Feeds and feed readers and how to subscribe to different news groups and access the latest news headlines and updates. I have also had the chance to learn about microblogging tools such as Twitter and Yammer by creating an account and becoming active in their respective communities. However, I need to tweet and yammer on a more regular basis as I have been a little apprehensive so far. I have also made a contribution to a collective resource by creating an account with Trove and have become involved in their digitised newspapers project by editing corrected text. One of the more frustrating experiences in my blogging journey so far has been my investigation of cloud storage providers. After doing a little research on cloud storage, I was ready to take the plunge, and after creating a "free" account with JustCloud, I was notified that I would have to pay for the service if I wanted to continue storing files. This was rather annoying as I felt I had been duped by their false advertising of "free infinite storage". Anyway, it was a lesson learned and I moved on and made the switch to Dropbox, which I found to be a much better provider.  

That's about as far as I have come in my blogging adventures. At times it has felt like a bit of a maze with so much information to absorb and learn, but I have had fun in creating and recording my insights into discovering various new technologies. I would like to think that I have made progress in terms of achieving most of my original learning goals. There are certainly a few improvements to be made, and other tools and resources to explore such as Endnote, social bookmarking sites and creating a mashup, but I'll save that for another time.

** My blog experience so far **
image taken from: http://designingquests.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/escher-relativity.jpg

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

Cloud Storage means little to me, so I thought I'd take the time out to do a bit of investigating. I went to How Stuff Works to find out more information, and once there, I discovered that cloud storage is basically a way for computer users to store and backup their files onto a remote database. So instead of running out of space on their hard drive, the user can backup their files and data onto a cloud storage system. Once the files are stored, the user can then access the data from any location that has access to the Internet. There are many different providers of cloud storage, some of the more popular providers include: Dropbox, JustCloud, Zip Cloud and Google Docs to name a few. I have already been collaborating with my fellow students for some time by using Google Docs on a semi-regular basis, so I will bypass this particular provider and look at exploring other providers I have never used before.

JustCloud seemed to be one of the better providers, and was free, so I decided to have a look at this particular storage system and see what all the fuss was about. I was lured by the claims of "unlimited storage space", "encrypted security", and "24/7 customer service" - well, I was rather disappointed! After I registered and created an account, I then started to backup my files and was notified that I only had a maximum of 15 MB of space. And If I wanted to continue backing up my files, I would need to upgrade and pay only $4.95 a month to use the service. Well that put an abrupt stop to my experience of JustCloud! 

** My short-lived JustCloud homepage** 
 image taken from: https://my.justcloud.com/

Undeterred by my bad experience of using JustCloud, I thought I might as well look at Dropbox, as this provider seems to offer a free service (hopefully with no strings attached). In order to learn more about how to use Dropbox and its features, I downloaded this interesting YouTube video tutorial.

Well, I am pleased to say that I persevered and ventured cautiously onto the Dropbox website and after reading a little about the provider, I decided to install the program onto my computer. I then created an account and followed the basic onscreen instructions for setup, and hey presto, it worked and I was rearded with 2 GB of free storage space, as opposed to the measly 15 MB that JustCloud provided. I must say, in comparison to JustCloud, I was much more impressed with the useability and functionality of Dropbox's interface: the drag and drop function was a breeze to use, as was the share file function and the photo album creator and viewer was a nice touch. Dropbox is definitely an indispensable storage tool for the information manager as it not only allows the user to store important documents when space is an issue, but also enables the user to simply drag and drop files, share files and create links to documents for other users to access. 

** My Dropbox account **  
image taken from: https://www.dropbox.com/home

So, I have since become a bit of a Dropbox convert. I was curious to find out whether it was possible to obtain more Dropbox storage space for free - I did locate several YouTube videos, but I wasn't sure about the legal implications of this, so I decided not to pursue this avenue of inquiry.    

     

RSS "FEEDING" FRENZY

Today's topic is: RSS Feeds. What are RSS Feeds? And why does the name sound like a brand of pet food? Well it does to me anyway. In order to learn more about RSS Feeds, I went to the search engine, Ask.com and typed the question: "What is an RSS Feed?". The response I received (here I am paraphrasing) was that an RSS (Really Simple Syndication Feed is a way in which a publisher can syndicate and post its latest updates through things like news headlines, blogs, events or general announcements. I noticed that there were a few different variations on the RSS acronym, for example, Rich Site Summary, or another one, which I think was a typographical error, Really Symbol Syndication. Anyway, back to the main topic, and I now understand what RSS Feeds are. The next question is: "How do I access these RSS Feeds?". 

I found out that there are tools called "Feed Readers" and that they can be accessed by signing up and creating an account. It just so happens that Google offer such a service (but not for long as their reader is soon to be decommissioned in July 2013 - an interesting blog looks at this as well as other possible side effects of this decision: http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/03/the-demise-of-google-reader-stability-as-a-service.html), so as I already have a Google account, I thought I may as well explore Google Reader. After accessing my account, I found that I could search for an organisation, company, government agency etc. much like a typical Google search and once I located a specific entity I was interested in, I could then subsribe to their RSS Feed. This was all fairly straightforward and easy enough to get my head around, and the concept of keeping up to date with the latest news of say, ALIA sounded quite appealing for a prospective information professional. As it turned out, the RSS Feed Reader is quite an important tool and resource, particularly for information management purposes: the user has the ability to search and locate useful sites and then to subscribe and receive free, the latest news and event updates on a single page with the added convenience of scanning the headlines and selecting only the stories of interest.

** The soon-to-be defunct Google Reader **
image taken from: http://www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en

  

If Google Reader is on the way out, what other options are there? Well, there are quite a few: NewzCrawler, FeedDemon, Omea Reader and NewsGator are just a small selection of different RSS Feed Readers that also enable the user to email, tag, download podcasts and access blogs. I realised that some of these readers are free such as, FeedDemon, and some you have to pay for if you want the "Pro" version such as NewzCrawler. I decided to investigate by looking at Feedly as this reader was free to download and was comparable to Google Reader in terms of useability.  

** My Feedly homepage **  
image taken from: http://www.feedly.com/home#latest

After I downloaded Feedly it connected to my Google Reader account to access my saved feeds, which was rather convenient. It was then fairly easy to search and subscribe to other feeds by url, title or category, and the user-friendly look and feel of the reader made locating icons and menus a pleasurable task. It was also possible to change the feed view to either title, magazine, card or article view depending on user taste. I think I actually prefer the overall functionality of the Feedly reader to the Google Reader, so I think I have made a serendipitous discovery, which I shall keep using for all my RSS "feeding frenzy" needs!

ALL HAIL...TROVE

Before I start my post, I thought that it is important to point out that I initially set out to look at how I could collaborate with Wikipedia. However, after I created an account, I came to the realisation that I had no idea what to contribute to. I decided to find out about the collaborative process through Wikipedia's step-by-step process, but even this seemed too complicated. I didn't understand the process of correcting the citations, and I didn't know how to use the HTML-type code that the corrections had to be formatted to. Anyway, after spending a while deciding what to do, I headed to Trove. 

This week I set myself the task of finally exploring the wonders of Trove. What exactly is Trove? I found out through the Trove website in the "About" menu that first and foremost, Trove is a search engine that allows users to access information specifically related to Australia in many forms such as print, audio, maps, newspaper articles etc. It is a free service that is  affiliated with the National Library of Australia in conjunction with other libraries Australia wide.

 

** Trove Home Page **
image taken from: http://trove.nla.gov.au/

 As I had never used Trove to access any material before, I have to admit, I was very impressed with the layout: the clear and concise menu design, the attractive graphic links to its various resources, and its large Google-like search box positioned in the centre of the page. Overall, the aesthetic of Trove is visually enticing: I wanted to linger and experiment by searching the different categories provided. What I was particularly impressed with was the ease of use: I simply typed in a key search term, and behold! I was instantly directed to a wealth of bibliographic information relating to my chosen subject - my surname. The results page was a pleasure to witness: the search term was categorised into its own separate field boxes by format, such as: books, pictures/photos, journals/articles, digitised newspapers, maps, music/sound and video, diaries/letters, people and lists. I also had the option of being alerted to new results for the search via an RSS Feed (more about RSS Feeds in my next post).  

After getting sidetracked by the general search function of Trove, I decided it was time to create an account and make a contribution to their collective resource by correcting the text of digitised newspapers. To do this, I first of all had to create an account by selecting a username and creating a password. Once this was achieved, I could then login and get started. I selected the "Digitised Newspapers" menu and was directed to a results page, which displayed a variety of different articles, where to the left side of the page, I could refine the results by specific newspaper. I chose an uncorrected article in the Sunday Mail paper from Brisbane, dated 1930. I selected the "How to correct this text" link and followed the on-screen instructions, which I found to be rather easy to follow and not too complicated. From here, I then selected the "Fix this text" button and was directed to the editing screen: on the left side of the screen is the corrections box and in the middle of the page is the scanned copy of the original article. I found the process to be fairly straightforward, as the correction of the text is done line-by-line and each word is highlighted in the original so that it makes point of reference easy when navigating one's way around the page. For me, it was an exciting project to be contributing to, as an historical text (in the form of an article) is now searchable and on record for the public to access. 

Trove is a wonderful resource tool that just makes life a lot easier, especially when searching for anything related to Australiana. I found it very user-friendly and easy to search and navigate my way around the site. As far as value is concerned, it's a tool that is not only relevant to the information professional and librarian, but it should be taught at schools and immediately integrated into the curriculum at a national level - indispensable for both the general and professional information seeker.