Hello and Welcome back!
If you are looking for the Information Genie short film, scroll down to the post below.
I had some trouble getting the video onto Youtube. Although I've seen media up there that was longer than ten minutes, I guess the free account doesn't allow that option.
Today the video went out as an email link to my co-workers on Lotus Notes. Hopefully that will put the short in view of information professionals, who will then show it to other professionals. I sent out the link that goes to my blog rather than Youtube. Much of library and web 2.0 envolves interlinking technologies. Maybe I can attract some more readers by hosting this at the blog :)
Part one is up on Myspace as well, offering another portal for the project to travel from. I'm very possessive of my privacy usually, but in the interest of this project I'm temporarily removing the privacy block. You can see the video at
http://www.myspace.com/theadambpage
EDIT: The myspace page should be open now.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Information Genie Comes out of His Lamp...Soon
And....
The project is done! Currently the video is being processed on youtube. It has already been uploaded, but apparently it takes some time to get up there on the web page. Once it is, I'll be embedding it here in this blog as part of the "viral" project for people to view, as well as post a link to where the video hails from, email the link, etc etc.
The project is done! Currently the video is being processed on youtube. It has already been uploaded, but apparently it takes some time to get up there on the web page. Once it is, I'll be embedding it here in this blog as part of the "viral" project for people to view, as well as post a link to where the video hails from, email the link, etc etc.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Viral video project update
Well, filming is finally done! Hooray!
Scenes I and IV got shot over the weekend. It only took about 5 hours. In the end, I got some good footage for the project, "The information Genie." We celebrated the "wrap party" at Arnies.
For those who may not be familiar with the project, the short film is about an irresponsible young worker whose poor researching costs him his job. He finds a lamp with a genie that allows him to go back in time and correct his mistake.
I anticipate about 5-10 hours of editing work and sound work before the video will be available, which brings me to the viral stage of the project.
Video is becoming a more prominent medium on the web, as are the ways to distribute it. I intend to accomplish this in a few ways. The first problem to overcome is finding a place to host the video. One such place is certainly going to be Youtube. Once the video is up there, i can send the link out to people via email, and don't have to worry about using up a ridiculous amount of bandwidth. Also, once on youtube you can embed the video in social networks.
The target audience for this video is young business people. Social networks allow one option to reach this demo graph. The light-hearted nature of the project is enticing to watch in leisure time (which is when the target audience would be watching it) and then, hopefully, take the message of the video back to work with them, or spread it around to co-workers.
Email forwards from young workers can reach a slightly older demo graph. For the purpose of this project, I'll email the link to the video to the other members of this class. I hope you enjoy it!
Scenes I and IV got shot over the weekend. It only took about 5 hours. In the end, I got some good footage for the project, "The information Genie." We celebrated the "wrap party" at Arnies.
For those who may not be familiar with the project, the short film is about an irresponsible young worker whose poor researching costs him his job. He finds a lamp with a genie that allows him to go back in time and correct his mistake.
I anticipate about 5-10 hours of editing work and sound work before the video will be available, which brings me to the viral stage of the project.
Video is becoming a more prominent medium on the web, as are the ways to distribute it. I intend to accomplish this in a few ways. The first problem to overcome is finding a place to host the video. One such place is certainly going to be Youtube. Once the video is up there, i can send the link out to people via email, and don't have to worry about using up a ridiculous amount of bandwidth. Also, once on youtube you can embed the video in social networks.
The target audience for this video is young business people. Social networks allow one option to reach this demo graph. The light-hearted nature of the project is enticing to watch in leisure time (which is when the target audience would be watching it) and then, hopefully, take the message of the video back to work with them, or spread it around to co-workers.
Email forwards from young workers can reach a slightly older demo graph. For the purpose of this project, I'll email the link to the video to the other members of this class. I hope you enjoy it!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Three things that undergrad students should know about EBSCO
Three short but sweet things that students would find useful about EBSCOhost:
1. EBSCO is a vendor and a portal to other databases. It is not in itself a database. I see a lot of students coming in refering to EBSCO as a database onto itself, and then get frustrated when they can't find what they want. Letting students know what is in the EBSCO suite seems to eliminate a lot of confusion.
2. You can change the preferences in EBSCO (under the preference link) to show a details from a search, rather than just brief bibliographic data. This eliminated the need to individually click on a resource to view the abstract, and speeds the searching process up greatly.
3. Citing .pdfs, for all practical purposes, are no different than having the physical journal in front of you. They do not count as "internet" sources.
1. EBSCO is a vendor and a portal to other databases. It is not in itself a database. I see a lot of students coming in refering to EBSCO as a database onto itself, and then get frustrated when they can't find what they want. Letting students know what is in the EBSCO suite seems to eliminate a lot of confusion.
2. You can change the preferences in EBSCO (under the preference link) to show a details from a search, rather than just brief bibliographic data. This eliminated the need to individually click on a resource to view the abstract, and speeds the searching process up greatly.
3. Citing .pdfs, for all practical purposes, are no different than having the physical journal in front of you. They do not count as "internet" sources.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Irony...
Ironic how I lambast Google's email service but my blog only allows those with Google email accounts to post. I have changed this setting. Thanks to Ken for calling this to my attention!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Work Homework
I've got some homework from work to take care of before Dec 1st, and that is to read a very specific book. The book is entitled Library 2.0: A guide to participatory Library Service by Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk. This books might be of interest to those who wish to find a way to implement more library 2.0 concepts into their environment. I'm three pages in, mind you, but it offers some of the reasons change is moving forward and why it is being resisted as well as specific 2.0 concepts and how to implement them well. Honestly, it would make a pretty good "text-book" for 5433.
This is all in preparation of a meeting sometime soon. It should be a learning experience.
Update on the FINAL PROJECT!
I got scenes 2 and 3 digitized. I feel like I'm being vague in these public descriptions, but honestly, I'm just trying to create an aire of mystery and anticipation! When the project is done, it will be sent out across the web for everyone to enjoy and bask in my ametuer camera work. Digitization took about 30 minutes, but it was worth previewing what I have in the can already. Scenes 1 and 4 will get shot next week, and i the meantime i get to tinker with Movie Maker's audio functions and see what can be done about cutting out some of the background noise. Maybe there is a module I can download and plug in.
Scenes 2 and 3 digitized into about 125 takes. I think i can squeeze out a few good takes from all that. Ideally, there is going to be a "PG" version and a directors cut version, but that may end up being a "light R" version and a directors cut. My actors have foul mouths that are difficult to control!
This is all in preparation of a meeting sometime soon. It should be a learning experience.
Update on the FINAL PROJECT!
I got scenes 2 and 3 digitized. I feel like I'm being vague in these public descriptions, but honestly, I'm just trying to create an aire of mystery and anticipation! When the project is done, it will be sent out across the web for everyone to enjoy and bask in my ametuer camera work. Digitization took about 30 minutes, but it was worth previewing what I have in the can already. Scenes 1 and 4 will get shot next week, and i the meantime i get to tinker with Movie Maker's audio functions and see what can be done about cutting out some of the background noise. Maybe there is a module I can download and plug in.
Scenes 2 and 3 digitized into about 125 takes. I think i can squeeze out a few good takes from all that. Ideally, there is going to be a "PG" version and a directors cut version, but that may end up being a "light R" version and a directors cut. My actors have foul mouths that are difficult to control!
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Viral video filming
The making of the viral video film continues. Real progress has been made, but the process is still unbearably slow. The biggest challenge has been getting my cast and equipment in order. My original way to obtain a camera fell through, so i obtained a different camera through the media department at school. Its another film/digital hybrid camera that just about fits in the palm of my hand.
My crew and I shot footage on location for about 5 hours today. Poor guys, I ran em pretty raw, taking repeat footage of the same sequences over and over again. We shot footage for scene 2 and 3 in my 4 scene viral project, "The Information Genie," including alternate footage for a more "G" rated version. This is the first video project I've ever done from a production side, and the first video project ever for my main lead, so it was a learning experience.
We had problems from the get go. The audio wasn't very good on the camera, so I pretty much had the actors shouting for a lot of the shots. The film location that I scouted out earlier actually ended being a poor location to film, but by the time we realized that we had committed to location. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic and screaming children running up to us that bogged the process down greatly and forced about 25 retakes.
In the end though, I got some pretty good shots for the project. Tomorrow they will be loaded onto a digital format (a process which requires a fire cable. The cable i have, but my laptop doesn't have a port for it! Work computers once again to the rescue!) and the process of editing these scenes can begin!
With half the physical work done, a date just has to be set up to film scenes 1 and 4: both office scenes. I got permission to film on an office location, so shooting should begin sometime the week after next for the last of the filming. The digital props for the scenes are crafted, including a fake "search engine" web page called "Mergle" and a fully crafted information broker web form (hand written HTML, never though i coulda done that!) This is turning out to be an awful lot of work, but i think it will be worth it in the end.
My crew and I shot footage on location for about 5 hours today. Poor guys, I ran em pretty raw, taking repeat footage of the same sequences over and over again. We shot footage for scene 2 and 3 in my 4 scene viral project, "The Information Genie," including alternate footage for a more "G" rated version. This is the first video project I've ever done from a production side, and the first video project ever for my main lead, so it was a learning experience.
We had problems from the get go. The audio wasn't very good on the camera, so I pretty much had the actors shouting for a lot of the shots. The film location that I scouted out earlier actually ended being a poor location to film, but by the time we realized that we had committed to location. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic and screaming children running up to us that bogged the process down greatly and forced about 25 retakes.
In the end though, I got some pretty good shots for the project. Tomorrow they will be loaded onto a digital format (a process which requires a fire cable. The cable i have, but my laptop doesn't have a port for it! Work computers once again to the rescue!) and the process of editing these scenes can begin!
With half the physical work done, a date just has to be set up to film scenes 1 and 4: both office scenes. I got permission to film on an office location, so shooting should begin sometime the week after next for the last of the filming. The digital props for the scenes are crafted, including a fake "search engine" web page called "Mergle" and a fully crafted information broker web form (hand written HTML, never though i coulda done that!) This is turning out to be an awful lot of work, but i think it will be worth it in the end.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Puss in Books
Very interesting documentary on library cats. I watched this a few days ago and thought it was pretty good. The interviewees range from the stereotypical "shhhsh!" librarians to the "crazy cat loving" librarians to more. The company that produced this documentary can be found here at http://www.ironfrog.com/
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Scary Janes echoes
It seems this week is reference centric. For those that may have not read this, i offer an interesting article on the reference interview-do's and common mistakes:
Fox, Theodora. 2005. The lost art of the reference interview. One-Person Library 22(5): 3-5. Accessed LISA 25 October 2007.
LISA just has the abstract, and I recieved my copy of this article through a coworker, but it's definately worth checking out.
On to Jones, and his The Future of Reference Services Papers. Specifically, i wanted to talk about his "prediction" of ready reference. For years now I've seen the ready reference section at our library shrink from a shelf all on-its-own into a few small books. No doubt that popular search engines are cutting into the questions that ready reference had answers. Despite this, I found Jone's opinions on this matter quite comforting.
As technology improves, answers to quick questions become more available. I'm sure every student in this program whose focus is reference has been asked how they are going to compete with Google and others. The truth is, as Jones puts out, is that they don't compete.
While ready-reference may fade away, reference will continue to live on. At least, that's how I see it. Especially in an academic environment where convenience and speed must take a backseat to quality to insure good marks. Academia is a controlled enviroment that allows this, and will support the reference structure for years to come.
Fox, Theodora. 2005. The lost art of the reference interview. One-Person Library 22(5): 3-5. Accessed LISA 25 October 2007.
LISA just has the abstract, and I recieved my copy of this article through a coworker, but it's definately worth checking out.
On to Jones, and his The Future of Reference Services Papers. Specifically, i wanted to talk about his "prediction" of ready reference. For years now I've seen the ready reference section at our library shrink from a shelf all on-its-own into a few small books. No doubt that popular search engines are cutting into the questions that ready reference had answers. Despite this, I found Jone's opinions on this matter quite comforting.
As technology improves, answers to quick questions become more available. I'm sure every student in this program whose focus is reference has been asked how they are going to compete with Google and others. The truth is, as Jones puts out, is that they don't compete.
While ready-reference may fade away, reference will continue to live on. At least, that's how I see it. Especially in an academic environment where convenience and speed must take a backseat to quality to insure good marks. Academia is a controlled enviroment that allows this, and will support the reference structure for years to come.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Incidently......
Staying Google free is Really, really hard when the OU website is powered by the damn thing, and so, aparently, is this blog. I'll be looking for a new home for this blog in the future. I guess i can just stay off the ou website and link up straight to D2L...
What a Day!
Sometimes it's fun to let my readers into some personal nuggets before jumping right in to Library orientated materials. I hope it keeps people coming back to read here!
Turns out today I have plenty of free time to blog. My car got busted into last night. The S.O.B. punched my lock in and stole my CD player. I hope he (or she) electrocutes himself with it. And with the heating unit on the fritz, i have plenty of time to set around and blog while i wait for the repair guy.
I've been on a Google free diet for almost 6 days on my computer. Believe me, its hard to do. Google has its fingers in sooo much stuff. Google is a great engine, but I disagree with their privacy policies, or lack thereof, really. And the more I read about em the more I grow wary of the "Don't be evil" giant. For those who wish to rid themselves of Google's gathering tendrils, I have four suggestions:
1. Use search engines that protect your privacy. Ixquick.com wipes their database of search results every 48 hours. Ixquick is a meta-search engine, actually. It crawls other search engines. Clusty.com is nice too. They don't track the IPs of who uses their engine, and they have a feature that organizes similiar results into "clusters," which is pretty swanky. No crawling through one big list to find the pages you want.
2. Beware the Firefox. Firefox is heavily in bed with Google, as is evident by the Google search engine appearing on the firefox homepage by default. However, Mozilla-firefox is still independent... for now. There is some literature suggesting that Firefox eventually plans to stream an adbanner in the actual browser, all supplied with specially tailored ads from Google. The sources I've seen so far aren't terribly credible, so i wouldn't freak over this one yet, but its something to keep an eye on. My advice, get comfortable with a new browser now.
3. Delete the Google Cookie. Blocking it doesn't do much good from my experience, so just delete it when it pops on your computer and try to stay off Google. This damn cookie takes two years to expire, and if you use Google services that require log in, the cookie associates your new location with the old one and continues to compile information on you.
4. Speaking of Google services, avoid Gmail. Google saves every email you send or receive. Even if you delete the email, Google keeps it. And, with email no longer being a protected form of correspondence, they can pretty much do what they want with it.
Since I went Google-free and decided to protect my privacy I've gotten a lotta crap to the tune of "Only someone who has something to hide protects their privacy." Seems most people don't understand the importance of privacy in their lives- to information searching, democratic processes, etc. I don't want someone reading my mind- which is essentially what happens when someone reads a list of search results.
Turns out today I have plenty of free time to blog. My car got busted into last night. The S.O.B. punched my lock in and stole my CD player. I hope he (or she) electrocutes himself with it. And with the heating unit on the fritz, i have plenty of time to set around and blog while i wait for the repair guy.
I've been on a Google free diet for almost 6 days on my computer. Believe me, its hard to do. Google has its fingers in sooo much stuff. Google is a great engine, but I disagree with their privacy policies, or lack thereof, really. And the more I read about em the more I grow wary of the "Don't be evil" giant. For those who wish to rid themselves of Google's gathering tendrils, I have four suggestions:
1. Use search engines that protect your privacy. Ixquick.com wipes their database of search results every 48 hours. Ixquick is a meta-search engine, actually. It crawls other search engines. Clusty.com is nice too. They don't track the IPs of who uses their engine, and they have a feature that organizes similiar results into "clusters," which is pretty swanky. No crawling through one big list to find the pages you want.
2. Beware the Firefox. Firefox is heavily in bed with Google, as is evident by the Google search engine appearing on the firefox homepage by default. However, Mozilla-firefox is still independent... for now. There is some literature suggesting that Firefox eventually plans to stream an adbanner in the actual browser, all supplied with specially tailored ads from Google. The sources I've seen so far aren't terribly credible, so i wouldn't freak over this one yet, but its something to keep an eye on. My advice, get comfortable with a new browser now.
3. Delete the Google Cookie. Blocking it doesn't do much good from my experience, so just delete it when it pops on your computer and try to stay off Google. This damn cookie takes two years to expire, and if you use Google services that require log in, the cookie associates your new location with the old one and continues to compile information on you.
4. Speaking of Google services, avoid Gmail. Google saves every email you send or receive. Even if you delete the email, Google keeps it. And, with email no longer being a protected form of correspondence, they can pretty much do what they want with it.
Since I went Google-free and decided to protect my privacy I've gotten a lotta crap to the tune of "Only someone who has something to hide protects their privacy." Seems most people don't understand the importance of privacy in their lives- to information searching, democratic processes, etc. I don't want someone reading my mind- which is essentially what happens when someone reads a list of search results.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
a blast from last week.
I'll try to keep this blog short. I was browsing some other blogs in the LM/LIS 5433 class and someone had blogged about the phenomenon that if a blog is too long no one will finish it.
This blog is a blast from the past because it highlights some feelings on last week's readings, specifically the Greenberg article. I thought his idea on how to go about building a structure for metadata schemes was interesting, but did anyone else feel that he was being intentionally vague and apologetic?
Its just a pet peeve with me. I like it when people take a hard position on academic issues. His entire closing statement in that article felt wishy-washy, and left me feeling like i had wasted my time with the read. I wanted hard guidance on how to deal with the burgeoning number of meta-data schemes, and he didn't deliver.
Next posting: Feelings on this week's reads! I'll try to be more positive!
This blog is a blast from the past because it highlights some feelings on last week's readings, specifically the Greenberg article. I thought his idea on how to go about building a structure for metadata schemes was interesting, but did anyone else feel that he was being intentionally vague and apologetic?
Its just a pet peeve with me. I like it when people take a hard position on academic issues. His entire closing statement in that article felt wishy-washy, and left me feeling like i had wasted my time with the read. I wanted hard guidance on how to deal with the burgeoning number of meta-data schemes, and he didn't deliver.
Next posting: Feelings on this week's reads! I'll try to be more positive!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Wiki Time!
Its that time. Its time to wiki. I love wikis. They are such a double-sided sword. On one hand, you have a mass contributing knowledge effort that allows everyone a democratic chance to share their knowledge or post what they have found. For people who like odd-ball topics like me, wikis offer a source to learn where encyclopedias drop the ball. On the other hand, there are a lot of mischievous trolls out there who would like nothing more than to misinform the general public. But i digress.
Soon i will begin editing at this URL:
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Staff_Training
That wiki page is pretty darn bare. I intend to edit in tips for libraries based off my 4 years experience, knowledge from class, and professional people i interview. Specifically, I'd like to focus in on tips for the concept of the "floating librarian," because there doesn't seem to be much information at all out there on this particular position. Believe me, i looked.
Soon i will begin editing at this URL:
http://libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Staff_Training
That wiki page is pretty darn bare. I intend to edit in tips for libraries based off my 4 years experience, knowledge from class, and professional people i interview. Specifically, I'd like to focus in on tips for the concept of the "floating librarian," because there doesn't seem to be much information at all out there on this particular position. Believe me, i looked.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Pay Good Attention to What You Learn in KM/LIS 5433
I've been silent on this blog for quite some time. Can't be helped I suppose. I got my promotion to full-time status at the college I work at. I am now that college's first ever floater for thier library system. I'm not really sure why I haven't mentioned the college's name yet. For the locals, its a pretty easy guess where I work :)
At any rate, the new position has kept me pretty busy. As I'm the lucky first floater, no one, including me, is really sure exactly what my job entails other than filling in for people around the library and media departments and generally being a jack-of-all-trades and a master-of-none. Perhaps because of this, the position has another aspect as a director of special projects around the library.
The current special project that I'm working on is integrating the library's page on Blackboard (this university's D2L) into Blackboard in some kind of useful, meaningful resource for students. The page has to have a total overhaul because, honestly, nothing has been done to it since its creation. Yowzah.
Not to preach, but pay attention KM/LIS 5433 students! One day you might find yourself thrown into a situation where you find yourself scrambling to use the resources taught in that class! And, with as many people in the program working in the library field in general, I'd bet cash money that some already have.
Blackboard only supports HTML edits in its current form. It can do others, but JAVA is real hit and miss. That linked HTML tutorial from the syllabus, www.yourhtmlsource.com, is a real life-saver.
At any rate, the new position has kept me pretty busy. As I'm the lucky first floater, no one, including me, is really sure exactly what my job entails other than filling in for people around the library and media departments and generally being a jack-of-all-trades and a master-of-none. Perhaps because of this, the position has another aspect as a director of special projects around the library.
The current special project that I'm working on is integrating the library's page on Blackboard (this university's D2L) into Blackboard in some kind of useful, meaningful resource for students. The page has to have a total overhaul because, honestly, nothing has been done to it since its creation. Yowzah.
Not to preach, but pay attention KM/LIS 5433 students! One day you might find yourself thrown into a situation where you find yourself scrambling to use the resources taught in that class! And, with as many people in the program working in the library field in general, I'd bet cash money that some already have.
Blackboard only supports HTML edits in its current form. It can do others, but JAVA is real hit and miss. That linked HTML tutorial from the syllabus, www.yourhtmlsource.com, is a real life-saver.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
The Online Educational Experience
The title isn't too terribly creative I'm afraid. Quite simply, the topic for today is online education, and some of its pitfalls and advantages.
It appears to be common knowledge in the circles I run in that online education is expanding. No surprise there. Online content is expanding everywhere. Business, recreation... remember when having a business webpage was special? Now it’s practically mandatory. We know its expanding. However, what are the reasons why?
An easy answer is supply and demand. There is a demand for online education. Why is there a demand? Lots of reasons I suppose. Pursuing education has widened across to a great many age demo graphs in a great many fields.
What are the advantages of online education? The advantage I hear most often is that people can continue pursuing their educational needs without too much disruption to their daily lives. A guy can take online courses and still work that 8-5 job. This advantage is the reason for many entering the online educational community. The flexibility. In fact, this flexibility is often advertised by various educational institutions.
As of late, however, I have come to ask myself if the flexibility really exists, or if it is a false promise. A lure, if you will.
People that need the flexibility of an online class are often busy people. Working people. People with families that take a large portion of their time. For some reason or another, these people don't have time for the standard classroom educational environment, so they go online. The truth of the matter is that online classes really aren't well suited for the people that they attract and advertise to. If anything, online classes are more work-intensive than a "standard" class.
Since there is no standard meeting to bring conclusion to the end of a school week, online classes essentially run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is no standard class meeting times; any time is a potential meeting time. The result of this is that there is a large influx and dispersement of information from students participating in the class diffused across a never-ending cycle of time. The influx of feedback from instructors follows the same pattern. The end result is that instead of taking off time to visit a physical class a few hours a week, you're always in class. Every day. Every hour.
The way to offset the never ending class is time management. But does time management in an online class really exist? If the class never stops, than isn't time management a different way of saying controlled procrastination? And if its procrastination, than how do you shake the perception of a never ending class?
So where then do online courses fit in? Not so much for the busy people, if the flexibility is in fact a myth. Or if the flexibility does exist, is it currently being overshadowed by other factors inherent to online education?
It appears to be common knowledge in the circles I run in that online education is expanding. No surprise there. Online content is expanding everywhere. Business, recreation... remember when having a business webpage was special? Now it’s practically mandatory. We know its expanding. However, what are the reasons why?
An easy answer is supply and demand. There is a demand for online education. Why is there a demand? Lots of reasons I suppose. Pursuing education has widened across to a great many age demo graphs in a great many fields.
What are the advantages of online education? The advantage I hear most often is that people can continue pursuing their educational needs without too much disruption to their daily lives. A guy can take online courses and still work that 8-5 job. This advantage is the reason for many entering the online educational community. The flexibility. In fact, this flexibility is often advertised by various educational institutions.
As of late, however, I have come to ask myself if the flexibility really exists, or if it is a false promise. A lure, if you will.
People that need the flexibility of an online class are often busy people. Working people. People with families that take a large portion of their time. For some reason or another, these people don't have time for the standard classroom educational environment, so they go online. The truth of the matter is that online classes really aren't well suited for the people that they attract and advertise to. If anything, online classes are more work-intensive than a "standard" class.
Since there is no standard meeting to bring conclusion to the end of a school week, online classes essentially run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is no standard class meeting times; any time is a potential meeting time. The result of this is that there is a large influx and dispersement of information from students participating in the class diffused across a never-ending cycle of time. The influx of feedback from instructors follows the same pattern. The end result is that instead of taking off time to visit a physical class a few hours a week, you're always in class. Every day. Every hour.
The way to offset the never ending class is time management. But does time management in an online class really exist? If the class never stops, than isn't time management a different way of saying controlled procrastination? And if its procrastination, than how do you shake the perception of a never ending class?
So where then do online courses fit in? Not so much for the busy people, if the flexibility is in fact a myth. Or if the flexibility does exist, is it currently being overshadowed by other factors inherent to online education?
Monday, September 3, 2007
Old Tools for New Frontiers
Old Tools for New Frontiers
By Adam Brennan
Some tools stay useful. Regardless of how complicated a building blueprint becomes, the engineer can still find a good use for his measuring stick. In the world of the culinary, all the melon balers and oyster mallets in the world can’t replace the usefulness of a good sharp knife. These are examples of older tools that continue to benefit the user. I wish I could say the same thing about tools used to measure libraries.
Take, for example, the academic library I work in, whose true identity shall remain nameless. As part of a larger university, much of the funding that this library receives is based on how much the students take advantage of its resources. Sounds pretty simple and straightforward right? I’m afraid it isn’t.
If an industry changes too much, some of the tools used to evaluate said industry no longer effectively evaluate at effective evaluation equations. The tools continue to measure whatever it was they measure, but the industry moves on.
This is of great concern to those in the field of library science. Actually, I am under the distinct impression that librarians across the country are freaking out about how their tools no longer measure how much the library is used by patrons. Its old news to anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the field, but this old problem still holds relevance. After all, if the library measuring tools are no longer reliable, how do you appropriate funding?
The one tool I am thinking of is the gate counter at my academic library. The counter records the number of people who enter and exit the facility. Unfortunately this tool isn’t very reliable nor is it valid. The counter merely records movement. A student who enters the library, then later leaves to answer a phone call and comes back, only to exit again to use the restroom is counted three times by our gate counter. Then there are non-patrons who enter the library; faculty, janitors. Their presence is recorded by the counter. Then, there are the passer-byers; people cutting through the library to reach their classes. All recorded.
But libraries no longer exist to simply check out books to students or have them review reference material. Surely, those information containers are still there, but my academic library has moved to digital interests as well. Online periodicals, database searches, e-books. The counter doesn’t record all the people using these resources remotely.
The relevance of the counter, as you can see, is pretty darn close to zero. Yet every day I record the numbers to be presented as part of a collective evidence for more funding. People are presented with the statistical data I give them as fact about a very concrete way in which our library is used.
So, what is the library to do now that it has outgrown its tools? There is anecdotal evidence to support funding I suppose. Ask the librarians how often the library gets used. I don’t particular like that idea, as anecdotal evidence is the same stuff people use to prove smoking isn’t harmful and Nessie is still at large, patrolling the Loch of Ness. There is online statistical evidence. Record the number of page hits a day. I think we do that.
Personally, I like the notion of a counter that requires manual activation. A librarian aid presses a button every time a patron enters. That carries with it its own problems, like user discretion. It’s a hard problem, and there isn’t a very easy answer.
It’s a hard problem.
By Adam Brennan
Some tools stay useful. Regardless of how complicated a building blueprint becomes, the engineer can still find a good use for his measuring stick. In the world of the culinary, all the melon balers and oyster mallets in the world can’t replace the usefulness of a good sharp knife. These are examples of older tools that continue to benefit the user. I wish I could say the same thing about tools used to measure libraries.
Take, for example, the academic library I work in, whose true identity shall remain nameless. As part of a larger university, much of the funding that this library receives is based on how much the students take advantage of its resources. Sounds pretty simple and straightforward right? I’m afraid it isn’t.
If an industry changes too much, some of the tools used to evaluate said industry no longer effectively evaluate at effective evaluation equations. The tools continue to measure whatever it was they measure, but the industry moves on.
This is of great concern to those in the field of library science. Actually, I am under the distinct impression that librarians across the country are freaking out about how their tools no longer measure how much the library is used by patrons. Its old news to anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the field, but this old problem still holds relevance. After all, if the library measuring tools are no longer reliable, how do you appropriate funding?
The one tool I am thinking of is the gate counter at my academic library. The counter records the number of people who enter and exit the facility. Unfortunately this tool isn’t very reliable nor is it valid. The counter merely records movement. A student who enters the library, then later leaves to answer a phone call and comes back, only to exit again to use the restroom is counted three times by our gate counter. Then there are non-patrons who enter the library; faculty, janitors. Their presence is recorded by the counter. Then, there are the passer-byers; people cutting through the library to reach their classes. All recorded.
But libraries no longer exist to simply check out books to students or have them review reference material. Surely, those information containers are still there, but my academic library has moved to digital interests as well. Online periodicals, database searches, e-books. The counter doesn’t record all the people using these resources remotely.
The relevance of the counter, as you can see, is pretty darn close to zero. Yet every day I record the numbers to be presented as part of a collective evidence for more funding. People are presented with the statistical data I give them as fact about a very concrete way in which our library is used.
So, what is the library to do now that it has outgrown its tools? There is anecdotal evidence to support funding I suppose. Ask the librarians how often the library gets used. I don’t particular like that idea, as anecdotal evidence is the same stuff people use to prove smoking isn’t harmful and Nessie is still at large, patrolling the Loch of Ness. There is online statistical evidence. Record the number of page hits a day. I think we do that.
Personally, I like the notion of a counter that requires manual activation. A librarian aid presses a button every time a patron enters. That carries with it its own problems, like user discretion. It’s a hard problem, and there isn’t a very easy answer.
It’s a hard problem.
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