Freedom

Pop the champagne! At long last, I have finished Assignment 4, Option 1. Ah, sweet freedom.

Here is the long-awaited paper on mobile technologies in libraries. (I've also saved a PDF, because why not?)

It looks like we all made it out alive. Later, gators – I'm sure I'll see some of you this fall in Capstone!

Virtual keyboard leads to actual thumb cramps

Since my paper is on mobile technology, I thought I'd try writing a blog entry from my smartphone. Let's just say that I'm already pretty sure I won't be doing this again; my thumbs are killing me.

Congratulations to all of you who have finished your final papers! I hope to join your ranks tomorrow. (I am taking advantage of the 24-hour grace period, and just for the record, I definitely will not be typing Assignment 4 on this virtual keyboard.)

Time travel

Greetings from the past, everyone.

I'm very lucky. Past Me had the foresight to realize that cranky, sleep-deprived Present Me would be busy struggling with Assignment 4 today, so she scheduled this blog post ahead of time. Thanks, Past Me, for being so smart and thoughtful!

Here's how to do this fun little trick:

Figure 1. Screen capture of the "Post settings" menu in Blogger.

1. After you've finished writing a new post, you'll see a "Post settings" menu to your right. Click on "Schedule."
2. Next, you'll see two options: "Automatic" and "Set date and time." Select "Set date and time."
3. Finally, use the calendar to choose the date and time you'd like your post to appear. Select "Done," then choose "Publish" from the top menu.

And now, Past Me is going to try to respond to some Module 4 discussion posts. She really looks out for me. <3

#catbearding

Figure 1. The Minneapolis Star
Tribune posted this collage of their
Instagram followers' takes on the
latest Internet meme, "cat bearding"
(Star Tribune, 2013).

I must be getting old.

I came to this conclusion when I checked my Instagram feed this afternoon and saw – well, it's hard to describe. Just look to the right. It's the latest Internet meme, "cat bearding."

According to Shifman (2013), the term "Internet meme" refers to "the propagation of content items such as jokes, rumors, videos, or websites from one person to others via the Internet" (p. 362). Users often make their own versions of memes, as well. (I've done it, too!)

But this time, instead of wanting to participate, I just sighed.

Now, don't get me wrong; Cat bearding is really cute. Maybe I'm just all memed out. After all, we've had a pretty busy meme season, with countless versions of the Harlem Shake and auto-tuned remixes of Charles Ramsey's interview about the rescue of three Cleveland women.

Have you participated in any Internet memes? What are some of your favorites?

References

Shifman, L. (2013). Memes in a digital world: Reconciling with a conceptual troublemaker. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 18(3), 362-377. doi: 10.1111/jcc4.12013

Startribune. (2013, May 26). "Well played, people. Well played. #startribune #catbearding #cats. Keep them coming. Tag yours #STcat" [Instagram post]. Retrieved from http://instagram.com/p/ZylW7YgHCm/

Assignment 3: Interview with a Web librarian

Figure 1. Screen capture of Gwinnett County Public
Library's website, retrieved from http://www.gwinnettpl.org.

After dealing with Joomla last week, I was ready to go Office Space on my computer. Fortunately, not all content-management systems are that counterintuitive. In a recent email interview, Michael Casey, division director of information technology for the Gwinnett County Public Library, talked about his experience with Drupal, lauding its efficiency, cost, and simplicity (M. Casey, personal communication, May 24, 2013). Check out the full text of our interview below:

Q: What is your name and title?
A: Michael Casey
Division Director, Information Technology
Gwinnett County Public Library

Q: What type of library do you work for?
A: Public

Q: How did you hear about content-management systems?
A: I've been following CMS applications for over 10 years.

Q: What prompted you to adopt a content-management system for its current use? What did you hope to accomplish?
A: Our library's CMS, Drupal, has been in use since 2010 and was adopted because of its efficiencies, both in staff time and cost. Multiple staff serve on the Web team and use Drupal to update and manage the library's website. We moved off of an expensive and proprietary CMS when we went to Drupal, and the ease-of-use and cost savings have been significant. 

Q: What criteria did you consider when deciding to use your CMS?
A: • ease of management, both at coding level and WYSIWYG editor for general staff
     • ability to tailor design via CSS
     • future development growth (steady application development and upgrade releases)
     • move to HTML5 and CSS3 (while this was not out when we migrated, it was in the pipeline and scheduled for release)
     • cost
     • preference for an open platform 

Q: Which CMS do you use now?
A: Drupal version 6. Moving [to] Drupal 7 this summer.

Q: On an average day, how do you use the CMS?
A: We use it daily to update website content and calendars.

Q: Did you find it easy or difficult to learn?
A: Drupal's learning curve is not steep when compared to some proprietary systems or hand-coding, but it can be a step up in complexity from WordPress or SquareSpace.

Q: Do other employees also use the CMS? If so, how was the learning curve for them?
A: Yes, approximately 10 staff use it almost daily. We held training classes, but for most staff it is relatively simple. Only two or three people delve into the CSS and coding sections for Drupal. Most staff use WYSIWYG page-editing tools.

Q: Who provides training and technical support for the CMS?
A: IT [Information Technology] does.

Q: How does this CMS compare to others you have used? What are some of the advantages to using this one?
A: Drupal offers a lot of customization options via either modules or code adjustment. It can be made as simply or as complicated as we want. When we migrated our website from the older proprietary CMS, we were tasked with keeping the website's look unchanged. Drupal allowed us to do this. Seeing so many other large sites going to Drupal (such as the White House and many Executive Branch departments, other major public libraries like NYPL) also made the decision rather simple. The fact that Drupal is open-source and has an active developer conference (DrupalCon) also helped.

Q: Have you encountered any limitations/frustrations when trying to use this CMS?
A: There are always issues with the basic WYSIWYG editor and getting the true look and feel staff expect. However, some basic HTML training usually fixes this.

Q: How could the CMS be improved?
A: [I] would like two-factor authentication for admin login. [I] would also like a better way of managing digital assets.

Q: Is there any other information about content-management systems that you'd like to share? If so, please do.
A: I'll just add that we are in the middle of a major redesign, which includes responsive design. It's very exciting to finally be able to move to a platform that does not rely upon silo'ed apps on multiple flavors of mobile OSes (iOS, Android, Windows, etc.) and instead relies upon one responsive site to flexibly mold itself to any delivery vehicle.

Q: Wow, thank you so much for your quick reply! I really appreciate the help. One more thing: Our professor would like us to share the transcripts of our interviews by posting them to our public blog. Is that OK with you? If you'd prefer, I can post the transcript without your name.
A: You're welcome to post to your blog. Thanks for asking!

Reflections: As I said before, I was excited to hear that a library had found a CMS that was inexpensive and – for the most part – easy to use. Additionally, it sounds like Drupal offers many of the same features as Joomla, including responsive design and a WYSIWYG interface. Thanks to the latter, staffers who don't  have coding experience can still contribute to the library's website and keep pages current. Suffice it to say, I'm much more optimistic about CMSes now; I'm even tempted to try out Drupal to see for myself how it compares to Joomla and the CMS I use at work, Medley. Thanks, Mr. Casey, for your time and all the great information!

A new kind of story

Let's be honest: Web 2.0 can be kind of scary. With just a few clicks on a keyboard or taps on a touch screen, misinformation can "go viral," as we saw during the aftermath of the Boston bombings.

Thankfully, new storytelling platforms have emerged that allow editors to find credible social-media posts and put them into context. One such service, Storify, allows members to "curate the most important voices and turn them into stories" using words, social media, multimedia and more (Storify, 2013, para. 1). check out this recent Storify project by the Minneapolis Star Tribune:


Figure 1. The Minneapolis Star Tribune created this interactive story about the Moore, Okla., tornado using Storify (Star Tribune, 2013).

What do you think: Is this the future of storytelling or just a fad? Can social media be a reliable source of information?

References

Storify. (2013). About us. Retrieved from https://storify.com/about

Tornado stories of survival. (2013, May 20-21). Star Tribune. Retrieved from http://storify.com/startribune/okhope

#PrayForOklahoma

One amazing thing about Web 2.0 is how it can bring people together in the wake of tragedy. Today, just minutes after a deadly tornado hit an Oklahoma City suburb, social-media sites were flooded with videos and images from the scene. Meanwhile, #PrayForOklahoma became the top trending topic on Twitter, and Google Crisis Response posted an interactive map with helpful information for residents of the area. Take a look:


Figure 1. This interactive map, retrieved from http://google.org/crisismap/2013-oklahoma-tornado, provides helpful information for survivors of today's tornado in Moore, Okla. (Google Crisis Response, 2013). Click the "Layers" tab at the top of the map for more information. 


Tweets about "#prayforoklahoma"
Figure 2. This Twitter widget shows top tweets with the hashtag #PrayForOklahoma (Twitter, 2013).

Powerful stuff. Let's keep the people of Oklahoma in our thoughts.

References

Google Crisis Response. (2013, May 20). Moore, Oklahoma tornado. Retrieved from http://google.org/crisismap/2013-oklahoma-tornado

Twitter. (2013, May 20). #PrayForOklahoma. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/search?q=%23prayforoklahoma

Sayonara, Joomla!

Joomla, we're breaking up. Sorry. It's not me; it's you.

Suffice it to say, my experience with Joomla didn't go so well. Only after very slowly watching the tutorial, then pausing it every minute or two when I needed to make a change to my own site, was I able to make sense of this content-management system. And I use a CMS (not Joomla, thank God) every day at work!

Anyway, I don't want to be obnoxiously negative about this, so I'll try to point out some of Joomla's strengths:

•  As a tablet/smartphone addict, I've become a big fan of responsive design. Joomla's Protostar template does a pretty good job of adapting to different display types. Check out these screen captures below:

Figure 1. This is what my Joomla site (http://mcewingvsu.cloudaccess.net) looks like on my laptop.

Figure 2. This is how the site appears

on my Nexus 7 tablet.

•   Not a designer? That's OK; several sites offer free Joomla templates. Although I ended up using a default template, I also found some great ones at GavickPro and SiteGround.

•  Extensions, extensions, extensions. If you're having a hard time with Joomla, you may want to try installing some add-ons. I used JCE Editor and eXtplorer.

If you'd like to see my finished site, you can check it out here. It includes a customized banner, colors and fonts; three articles; two menus; a "latest articles" list; a search function; and an archive.

But yeah – I won't be using this CMS again. Sayonara, Joomla! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Are you smarter than a cat?

It's official: There really is an app for everything and everyone – even our feline overlords. Check this out:

Figure 1. This video, retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZnLuF8Wgtw, shows that you, too, can use your fancy new tablet as a really expensive cat toy (Purina Friskies, 2012).

The scariest part is that the cats are winning. Next stop: world domination.

References

Purina Friskies. (2012, May 7). You vs. Cat game now available on Android from Friskies [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZnLuF8Wgtw

I promise I still love you, Google.

Move over, Spotify. Tech giant Google showed off its new subscription radio service, Google Play Music All Access, at its developers conference today. According to an Associated Press report, the service "blends songs users have already uploaded to their online libraries with millions of other tracks" and costs about $10 a month ($8 for early adopters) (Liedtke, 2013, para. 1).

Yay?

OK, confession time: While Google product announcements usually get my geeky little heart a-thumpin', this time, I'm just not feeling it. I've never been big on subscription-based music; I still prefer to buy one or two $5 MP3 albums from Amazon.com every now and then and sync them to my iPod. My husband says it's because he and I are digital packrats.

That's not to say that I don't ever stream any music or use cloud services. I love the free version of Google Music, and my entire digital audio collection is also stored in the cloud. Maybe I'm just a cheapskate?

At any rate, don't let my weird hangups about subscribing to ... well, anything ... stop you from checking out Google's latest offering. There's even a nifty little video for it, so it has to be cool, right?


Figure 1. This video, retrieved from http://youtu.be/ZnmxmtwbhE0, shows off some of the features of Google's new streaming radio service (Google Play, 2013).  

References

Google Play. (2013, May 15). Google Play: Tonight [video file]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/ZnmxmtwbhE0

Liedtke, M. (2013, May 15). Google's music plan part of fresh wave of upgrades. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved from http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/entertainment/google-unveils-10-a-month-all-access-music-plan/nXrxh/

Wiki-who?

Now that I've finished tinkering with the first and second parts of Assignment 1, it's time to dive into the hardest portion of our homework: choosing a wiki for a library.

Background
Smyrna Public Library, a suburban Atlanta public library, serves a diverse community of 52,000 people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). The library's annual budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year is $646,188, a slight increase from the previous year's figure (Howard & Klosterboer, 2012). The staff, which includes eight full-time and five part-time employees (Howard & Klosterboer, 2012), could use a free or low-cost public wiki. This site would allow staffers and patrons to share helpful resources, reading lists, subject guides, and details about library services.

Requirements
I considered the following criteria from WikiMatrix (2013):

• Page history: Library employees would want to see what changes have been made over time.
• WYSIWYG: The interface should be intuitive so patrons and staffers with little technical knowledge can easily update pages.
• Commercial support: While this isn't a necessity, I wanted to keep the option open.  
• Remote hosting: There's no need for the library to host the wiki on its own server. 
• Domain: A custom domain name isn't necessary, as long as the site is linked from the library's webpage. A subdomain on the wiki provider's domain would work just as well. 
• Branding: Branding is the key to maintaining a professional appearance. This is especially important if the wiki doesn't share the same domain name as the library's main site. With proper branding and design, users may not even notice that the wiki is off-site.

The verdict
The wizard returned 12 results, from which I chose Wikispaces. Although a basic wiki is free, the library probably would benefit from upgrading to the $5-a-month plan that allows unlimited members, up to 2 gigabytes of storage and custom themes (Wikispaces, 2013).

Have you used a Wikispaces wiki before? What did you think about the company's services?

References

Howard, T. J., & Klosterboer, K. A. (2012). City of Smyrna, Georgia: Annual financial plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.smyrnacity.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=2798

U.S. Census Bureau. (2011). Smyrna (city), Georgia [Data]. State & County QuickFacts. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/1371492.html

WikiMatrix. (2013). Wiki choice wizard. Retrieved from http://www.wikimatrix.org/wizard.php

Wikispaces. (2013). Pricing. Retrieved from http://www.wikispaces.com/content/pricing

Great expectations

I promise that my experience with Web 2.0 isn't limited to embarrassing old blogs with neon backgrounds and bad anime fanart. Really!

As some of you may have noticed from my BlazeView discussion posts, I'm a huge fan of social media – for both personal and professional use. These days, I have personal accounts on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and probably a bazillion other sites that I've forgotten about. I also use Web 2.0 tools on the job – specifically Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. (I even got to ban a troll from the company's Facebook fan page a couple of weeks ago. Hooray!)

But I still have a lot to learn. I'm hoping this class will shed some light on other aspects of Web 2.0, such as interactive features, multimedia, and mobile apps. I also want to find out more about how libraries are using social networks. How do libraries' social-media goals compare to other companies' goals? Do the same strategies work in both environments?

I gotta confess, though: My No. 1 goal for this class is to survive Maymester. Fingers crossed! :P

Something old and something new

Figure 1. My 15-year-old
self had questionable
taste in graphics.

Hello there! I'm Michelle, a snarky 31-year-old digital journalist with a long history of nerddom. I'm also getting this strange feeling of deja-vu. Haven't I written a blog for an MLIS class before?

Here's the good news: I've always secretly loved keeping blogs. My affinity for broadcasting every mundane thought and feeling on the Web started in 1996 or 1997, when I launched my first "online journal." Fifteen-year-old me wrote about boys, mean parents, boys, school, boys, Disney movies, boys, and ... well, you get the picture.

At any rate, this semester, I will try to do a better job of blogging than my past self did. That shouldn't be too hard, right?