IU Librarians’ Day - 05/15/09

Emerging Technologies & Libraries:What’s new & useful to libraries

Chanitra Bishop, Instruction & Emerging Technologies Librarian, Herman B Wells Library, IU-Bloomington Jian Liu, Head, HPER Library, IU-Bloomington

Organizational Tools

Read it Later Firefox extension that allows you to save

pages of interest and read it later. If you come across a website you want to

read but don’t have time to read it, you can use read it later and it was save the web site. Save amazon.com or other web pages with

material you want to review later Once you have read the site you can

bookmark it if you would like to keep a permanent bookmark or you can deselect it.

No need to clutter your bookmarks with sites you only want to read once. Instead of emailing URLs to yourself.

Read it Later Temporarily bookmark a web page Keeps “bookmarks” from becoming cluttered Works on a variety of browsers Ability to easily permanently bookmark a page

Awesome Highlighter Allows you to highlight text on web pages and

add post-it notes It provides a link for you to share the

highlighted page Allows you to show people the important part

of a web page Makes it easy for you to send a web page to a

patron without the need to write a detailed email Help you remember why you saved a web page

Awesome Highlighter Feature No need to create an account, can go to web

site - http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/ Available as a Firefox extension &

bookmarklets are also available for Internet Explorer

Creating an account allows you to: See all your highlighted pages See what you highlighted on individual pages Go directly to highlighted pages

Note: Post-it note feature does not work in Internet Explorer

I-lighter & Wiki-lights I-lighter is similar to Awesome Highlighter You have to sign up for an account, but no need to long in

when extension installed Works with social software tools

Twitter Delicious

Wiki-lights is part of I-lighter forum that allows groups to collaborate, post & share

information, ideas Post directly into blog

Group members can upload documents, PDFs and PowerPoints

Can add messages to message board Note: Saves home page of the web page instead of exact

web pages

Awesome Highlighter or I-lighter Which one to use? Choose Awesome Highlighter if:

You only need to highlight and email a web page Don’t want to sign up for an account

Choose wiki-lights if: You need collaboration features You tweet or use delicious or maintain a blog

Tools for File Sharing

Dropbox Allows you to sync your files across computers If you work at several computers you can

access your files from all of the computers Provides a public folder that includes a “public

link” Public link can be used to add PDFs, Word files to

a blog post Send files to patrons and other librarians Works on both Mac and PCs Access you files online at

http://www.getdropbox.com Share files with everyone on your team

Drop.io Share documents, images, videos, audio

without creating an account Allows you set a specify length of time person

can view the files Can set specific permissions and allow viewers

to edit, comment, delete items Others can add additional files, voicemail,

email, links, email, notes to the drop Can share via twitter, SMS, Facebook, RSS Can message anyone currently viewing the

drop

Dropbox or Drop.ioWhich one to use? Use Dropbox if

You want to be able to access your files across multiple computers

You want to the ability to provide an online link to your files, share files with patrons and other librarians

Use Drop.io You need more tools for collaborating on a team Don’t want to set up an account

Widgets & Other Online Tools

Feed Informer Allows you to combine feeds from multiple sites

into one feed Feed is available in a variety of formats:

JavaScript, Flash, PHP, RSS feed Can create a “Current News” feed that provides

news from several sites news sites CNN, MSNBC, NY Times (

http://bl-libg-weblab.ads.iu.edu/wordpress/libugls )

Can be used to create a journal RSS feed for faculty that can be posted on library’s web site Feed can display popular journals within a discipline

PollDaddy Insert a poll or your website/blog without

creating an account Send a poll to your Twitter followers without

creating an account - http://twitter.polldaddy.com/ Start a conversation via Twitter, Are you working

on a research paper? Close surveys after a certain date or quota

has been reached, and create custom start and finish pages for your survey

Allows you to set paths for your respondents based on their responses

PostRank Find top ranked blogs and other websites

covering a variety of topics Browse blogs/web sites to learn more about a subject

area you are the liaison for and find interesting blogs PostRank rankings are based on social

engagement Examples

writing a blog post in response to someone else bookmarking an article Commenting on a blog clicking a link to read a news item

No need to create an account to browse top ranked blogs

PostRank Create a top posts widgets (based on

PostRank rankings) Submit your blog’s RSS feed, a top posts list will

be created You can choose the time period that you want the

top posts to be created from Year, month, week, day

the number of top posts you would like to show

Allows you to highlight older articles Highlight articles readers found most useful

Poll Everywhere Allows you to poll your audience and get

instant feedback Audience answers via SMS text message or

the web Can be used to make library instruction

session more interactive Students can respond via text messages to

questions and view the results Evaluate the instruction session

Ask questions to find out what students learned/understand

Flickr Search Tools

Compfight Allows you to limit search to Flickr tags or text Also allows you to search for creative

commons pictures

FlickrStorm Advanced search allows you to search

creative commons photos Can search for a specific type of creative

commons license Suggest additional search terms to find more

pictures Saves your current search history use the tray to add photos and link to them Can’t limit search to “text” or “tags”

Tag Galaxy Great for visual learners Represents Flickr tags as the solar system

The keyword you use is the sun related keywords are planets

• Click on a planet to see pictures

Questions

Resources Computers in Libraries Conference 2009 http://mashable.com/2009/05/02/flickr-search-

tools/

Some web sites to learn about new technologies Mashable – Social Media Guide Tech Crunch Idea Shower ALA TechSource Blog