Another day ...

I came across THIS article, and it goes right along with the this weeks lecture: "Creating a Library Database Search using Drupal".

I keep hearing that we are over the half-way mark of the semester. That's a bit overwhelming, because there is still so much to do! I'm thinking I am going to take a few days vacation to try to catch up on everything. I don't think I am really behind, but I know that the next few deadlines will be upon us in no time! Next week is my close week at work, too. **sigh** So maybe the week of the 4th ...

I have yet to begin on my Koha assignment - I'm stumped about a topic for my collection. I am also working on the collection for my humanities project, and may try to tie the two together. I did get the grade for my 2600 quiz, and was pleasantly surprised! I'm still waiting to hear back on some of the assignments, though. Hopefully they were able to access my one for Omeka.

The Answers ....

There was a common theme between the lectures in both of my classes last week: as information professionals, we must decide the level of assistance we want to provide to our patrons. The question becomes, do we give them the answers? Or give them the tools for them to find the answer themselves?

The discussion boards for our classes are a prime example. Some students ask questions without trying to figure them out themselves - they just expect the answers to be given to them; whereas others will try anything and everything they can think of, and ask a question out of desperation and fatigue.

My humanities professor gave an example during her lecture of a student at the reference desk, and asked us how we would handle the situation. I do not have any professional experience in libraries, but I would like to think that I would help them use the tools to locate the answer themselves. This is probably a fanciful daydream, though. There will always be the impatient student, scrambling at the last minute to finish their paper ... they may not want to take the time to find the answer - they just want it so they can finish up and move on. It's a dilemma that I don't think I'll figure out until I am in the situation firsthand. But it's nice to dream ...

It's a REVOLUTION

I received this video in an email and thought it was really neat! Enjoy!

Omeka? Oh my!

Last night I spent hours on my Omeka assignment. I finally finished and made it to bed around 1 am. I felt like I was just making it way too difficult - but I could not figure out a faster way of adding all of the meta data in lieu of copy/paste. At least it's finished now. Tonight is dedicated to my humanities assignment. After Wednesday, I should be back on schedule - the quiz really confused my life!

This morning (at work), I attended the White Belt training for Lean Six Sigma. I had heard varying reviews of the course, but actually found it very interesting - and applicable! Continuous process improvement should be present in every work environment, and providing associates with the tools and training to better accomplish their goals is a fantastic way of encouraging pro-activity and resourcefulness. I do work in a retail corporate office, but the Lean Six Sigma process could be very beneficial to libraries. I am interested in participating in the Yellow Belt training, but am not sure if my supervisor would be willing to allow me to attend. I guess it never hurts to ask ...

I'm Quizzed Out!

Oh my. So I just finished the quiz - I don't feel very good about it. I didn't even have time to get to the extra credit! There were a couple of questions towards the end that I was not really prepared for, either. My answers felt rather vague - it was frustrating because I have all of these examples that I could give from work (especially since we're going through a major conversion), but I had absolutely no time to get it all out! I totally blanked on one question, too. At least it's over, right? Deep breath. I still have so much left to do this weekend - ONWARD!

Day of Preparation

Quizzes, tests ... they all make me incredibly nervous. Today is solely dedicated to preparing -- and hopefully taking it (if I feel comfortable enough). I've listened to all of the lectures, done all of the reading, yet don't really feel comfortable enough with the material. I am so thankful that they are keeping it open all weekend! I'll let you know how it goes.


I bought my tickets for FastTrack weekend Thursday. I am honestly disappointed that 2600 is not meeting. I have to take a day of vacation time at work, fly out there, and then spend two nights in a hotel just to go to one three hour lecture to make a presentation. That's an expensive three hours!!!

Zotero Installation Screencast

I just completed my screencast for the installation and configuration of Zotero. This was actually a good experience! I get a kick out of trying all of these new systems. Jing was a lot easier than I expected, too! It was a bit intimidating, at first, but after you get going, it's not that bad. I noticed in my Google Reader that people were having difficulty getting the aspect ratio correct - I probably should have looked it up or something, but I just played with the HTML code until it was smaller. I also saw on the discussion board that some of the recordings are disappearing off of their blogs ... so I'm going to put the link HERE and then embed my screencast below. Hopefully it will stick one way or another!

Lab One - CHECK!

I just finished my lab in Dabble DB. I'm happy to say that it went pretty well. I use Excel daily at work, so I was pretty familiar with all of the tasks. It was a little awkward following the instruction sheet, though. I'm used to running free - but this was good experience. I work in the Treasury department at a retail corporate office, and one thing that I do is manage the check receivables. I create numerous spreadsheets each month documenting every check that we receive (all of the basic info - payer, amount, check number, date, etc ... as well as coding for our internal accounting structure). I then load the spreadsheet into our ledger. I'm really thankful that I have the experience to work with Excel ... I only wish I was able to attend training to learn more of the functionality. It is really interesting to watch some of the expert users automate systems with Macros. It's a wonderful tool - I wish I had more experience!

I honestly forgot about the lab, so I have been working on that instead of the Zotero project. The goal is to get Zotero done tomorrow, as well as watch a lecture and the research assignment for my other course. I know it's a lot to squeeze in one day, but husband gets back from his race on Sunday afternoon, and I want to spend at least a little time with him. I also need to start getting ready for this quiz! I'm hoping that there are not too many technical questions on the hardware - that has been the most difficult part for me!

Anticipation and Contemplation

I turned my first assignment in Sunday night. It felt good to get it off of my plate. I have seen some posts by others regarding the Zotero assignment, and plan to start that on Thursday. It doesn't sound like it is going very well for some, which makes me a bit nervous. I've never used Zotero. We'll see - hopefully it will come together well.

I subscribe to a local listserv, and one of the messages today contained a link to an article on a new method of checking out books in Manchester, England. Here is the LINK. In one sense, I think that it is great the way that Microsoft and schools are experimenting with innovative technology. Fingerprint technology is popping up everywhere. Even some of the computers where I work are equipped with fingerprint identification security. I recognize the concerns about security of personal information, but when you think about it, we really leave fingerprints everywhere. I guess that matching the identity with the fingerprint is where it becomes sketchy ... so I can see that. All things considered, if someone is uncomfortable, then they can just opt out. It is a voluntary system, after all.