Week Five - Thing 11 - Library Thing

Cool site. I can see myself really using this. I liked how libraries used it for randomly displaying new material. Take a look at

Funny Requests from Patrons

from the group Librarians who LibraryThing. Among the usual items are some real gems. You can search my library from my blog homepage.

Week Five - Thing 10 Online Image Generator

This was such a pain. This image transfered fine, but the first one was a bust. It would only copy part of the image of a chocolate bar with av king on it (www.kessel.com). Three people worked on it and no one could figure it out.
I also added an avatar to my blog page. In the spirit of truth in advertising, it is missing a significant amount of hair.

Week 4 - Thing 9 - Explore Merlin

I found Blogline's search tool to be the best for me. Lean mean and to the point. To much glitz on Feedster, and Topix and Syndic8 seemed too slow and did not give me the quality results I wanted.I guess I don't need a lot of blog garbage for what I want.
It was good to be steered back to Merlin, another resource I needed to be reminded of.

Week 4 - Thing 8 - RSS

I already subscribe to Bloglines due to taking a class on it here at FCPL. Like all good tools though, it pays to actually use it. I added some of the suggested links and will follow what is on them to see if they are worthwhile. Many of the links I try to find have to do with media, which is what I deal with every day.
If anyone wants to see the boring stuff I look at , I did create a public bloglines.
www.bloglines.com/public/avking

Week 3 - Thing 6 - Flickr Mash-ups

I have to admit that this was more interesting than I thought. I really like the one called Flickr Color Picker. Some of the colors and textures were really intense. I followed a link to an intriquing mosaic call Stick Figures in Peril, http://www.coverpop.com/pop/flickr_stickfigures/ Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor.

Week 3 - Thing 5 - Explore Flickr

This has been interesting to look at. I liked the links to what other libraries and librarians are doing. The one on artwork was especially interesting. There was one piece that would probably not appear here without comment. This was the site I picked my picture from. I am sure that those who know my sense of humor will appreciate my choice. The title of the picture is "Books are meant to be red".

Week 3 Thing 7 - Technology - HD DVD vs. Blu-ray and implications for libraries

I'm back!! Must find the time to finish. On to the topic at hand.
There are two competing formats for the next generation of DVD. A manufacturers forum that was supposed to prevent this from happening fell apart as Toshiba and Sony decided to go their different ways. This blog is not about which may be better, but the implications of each as to there ability to be included in the media that a library provides. Currently, all earlier CD and DVD formats can be repaired by a resurfacing process that basically sands, buffs and polishes the surface ( a 0.6 mm surface layer) that protects the data layer. This surface layer is the same on the new HD-DVD format allowing the current repair technology to be applied. This means that the product can be repaired again and again and again and play like new. Blu-ray DVD's however have a thinner (0.1 mm) layer to allow the laser to focus better on the data because the track pitch of the laser is set differently so that more data can be stored on the disc. Now comes the fun part.Because the layer is so thin, Blu-ray DVDs have a special hard coating added to protect the surface. It is somewhat scratch resistant and is supposed to make it easier to clean off fingerprints. Notice that it is only scratch resistant. I f you do manage to scratch the surface, and we know how a number of our customers (not all) treat our media, you can not repair the surface. This raises the issue of whether to invest in the newest DVD technology or stick with the current format which newer DVD players with up-conversion can boost the signal so that they look acceptable on HD-TVs. Food for thought.