July 10, 2008 – Blogs and Vlogs

July 17, 2008 – Digital Libraries, RSS Feeds, and Podcasts

July 24, 2008 – Social Cataloguing and Bookmarking

• YUL News
• The Bib Blog
• YUL Emerging Tech Group
• York University Libraries – Staff Blog
• Ereport
• New Electronic Resources at York University Libraries
• Bronfman Business Library Blog

I may be missing a few but if you know of any YUL Blogs that have RSS feeds, let me know and I will add them to this list.

First, you need to go to http://wordpress.com and click the “Sign Up Now!” button. You will then be asked to fill out a username, password, confirm (this confirms your password), and email address. Remember to use an email address that is not your business address. You can create an email address at Gmail or Yahoo.

Once you have filled out this information, click the “Next” button. You will then be asked to fill in a blog domain, blog title, language, and privacy. Your blog domain is the address you will use to access your blog. If you use the domain name “yorkelearn”, then your blog address will be http://yorkelearn.wordpress.com. Your blog title is the name of your blog. For this blog, the name is “York University – Web 2.0 Workshops.” The language you should is English (unless you are lucky enough to be bilingual).

Once you have filled in this information, you can click “Sign Up” and you now have a blog. If there are error messages that appear, make sure your domain name isn’t already taken. It will indicate if your domain name is already taken.

WordPress will send you an email confirming your blog. Check your email. You will be given a link to activate your account. Once you have clicked on this link you will then have the ability to sign into WordPress to write a post, change the design of your blog, and add widgets.

This is just the basic information about setting up your account. To learn about how to post, manage your account, and add widgets, there is an excellent free book that you can download on WordPress blogs. To find this book click here.

Also, look at the WordPress FAQ. This has some useful tips on how to manage your account.

Digital libraries are like regular libraries. They support the access of information to users by making resources available; however, digital libraries are based in the electronic realm while libraries, although moving more and more toward electronic materials, have physical repositories and resources. Digital libraries are often created to extend collections of materials to a broader user group. They can contain textual, audio, and visual material. Some focus their collections on public domain material, material that is freely accessible due to the expiration of copyright protection, but some digital libraries catalogue material that is copyright protected and only allow access to a small portion of the whole.

Examples of Digital Library Initiatives

Google Books began in 2002 as a research project supported by the Stanford Digital Libraries Technologies Project. With Google Books you can browse or search the catalogue. Once you find a book, depending on copyright, you will be able to access some or all of the work. If you want full access you will be given the option to “Buy this book” or “Borrow this book.” You can also create an account with Google Books and add books to your “library.”

Project Gutenberg scans and distributes ebooks, and now musical scores, that are within public domain. It is the largest collection of free ebooks available and is completely maintained by volunteers. Project Gutenberg provides ebooks in all languages and now has a collection of over 100,000 titles.

LibriVox is like Project Gutenberg. LibriVox uses books in the public domain but instead of having textual ebooks, LibriVox offers a catalogue of audio books. LibriVox is maintained by volunteers. The volunteers can choose a book and either individually or jointly record themselves reading the chapters. Once the book is complete it is made freely available via the LibriVox catalogue.

Digital Archives

Digital archives contain collections of primary sources which are materials that have survived from the past (e.g. letters, diaries, photographs, etc.). Unlike digital libraries, digital archives contain unique materials that are usually collected based on the organizations mission.

Academic Repositories

Academic repositories are initiatives supported individually and collaboratively by academic institutions to preserve the intellectual output of a scholarly community. An academic repository maintains a digital collection of such academic materials as articles, conference papers, theses, and teaching material, from a given institution. The goal of these repositories is to support scholarly communication and to make the material more widely available within a more cost effective system.

York University has its own institutional repository called YorkSpace

Readings

• Self-Archiving and Institutional Repositories
• “Opening” A Digital Library by Matt Villano
  

When books come to a library they aren’t just put on the shelf for people to use. Resources in a library must first be described and input into a database so users can retrieve the item by performing a search. Social cataloguing is the exact same process except on a smaller more personal scale.

Social cataloguing applications, such as Library Thing, Discogs, and Flixster, allow the user to catalogue their own personal “library” of books, videos, and music. However, the “social” part of the social cataloguing process allows for users to share their catalogues and interact with people who have like catalogues or like interests. Social cataloguing requires user participation and collaboration to function.

Tagging

When librarians catalogue items they catalogue them according to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). LCSH are a set of terms, or subject headings, and rules on when to use those terms.

The rules for LCSH make sure that the terms used to describe items stay consistent. This makes it easier to retrieve the items out of a catalogue. This kind of system is called a taxonomy. Taxonomies are systems that use “controlled vocabulary” to describe material.

Social cataloguing is a folksonomy. Folksonomies, a term coined by Thomas Vander Wal, do not use controlled vocabulary but keywords, or tags, which are chosen and generated by users. Folksonomies rely on the collaborative creation of tags to categorize content.

Have you heard of the term “metadata?” Metadata is simply data about data and tagging is a form of metadata. Tagging is the process of assigning a keyword or term to information such as a picture, webpage, piece of music, or file. The tags are assigned by the user according to what they believe the information is about and how they will be able to retrieve it through searching. For example, take a look at this comic.

How could this be tagged? This comic can be tagged using these words: humor, comic, blogging, web 2.0, social software, and netgen.

However, the interesting thing about tagging is that everyone can tag however they want. Each item can be tagged in a variety of ways. How would you tag this comic? Your keywords may be very different from the ones listed but just as valid.

Tag Clouds

In social cataloguing applications, once something is tagged it can be retrieved in a search or can be displayed in a tag cloud. A tag cloud looks something like this:

One kind of tag cloud is one that represents by size the number of times a tag has been used for a particular item. Another kind of tag cloud represents by size the number of times the tag has been used on any item. This is a Library Thing tag cloud and represents the second style mentioned. The tags in a tag cloud are usually linked and will bring you to a list of the item(s) that are connected with that tag.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking uses the same principals and structure as social cataloguing. Social bookmarking is also a folksonomy and requires participation, collaboration, and tagging but, unlike social cataloguing, the user does not catalogue collections. Social bookmarking is the organization, describing, and storing of webpages.

Unlike simply bookmarking your favourite sites on your web browser, social bookmarking searches tags that people have used to describe a webpage. Once the user has searched and found websites of interest, they can bookmark them on a hosted site and share their favourite sites with others. Users can also tag the websites to add to the collaborative nature of the application.

Lee Lefever – The Common Craft Show: RSS in Plain English

That sums up RSS feeds and aggregators but for those of us who learn best by reading, here is a brief definition.

RSS feeds are XML file formats that deliver content from a website. We all have favourite websites that we visit weekly, sometimes daily. Instead of visiting your favourite sites to check for updates, RSS brings the new content directly to you.

An RSS aggregator, also know as readers, takes the XML format of the RSS feed and converts it to a readable format. The aggregator will also “pull in” updates of the website for you so you don’t waste time looking at all your favourite websites for new content.

There are several kinds of readers. Desktop readers require the downloading of software onto your computer. Browser-based readers are readers that are directly attached to your web browser (e.g. Mozilla, Internet Explorer, etc.). Web-based browsers, such as Google Reader and Bloglines, are maintained on remote servers and are accessible anywhere there is an internet connection. In addition to basic web-based readers, there are customizable portals with readers embedded, such as My Yahoo, that are designed by the user for their specific tastes and interests.

RSS Search Engines

To find RSS feeds that interest you, you can go to your favourite websites and look for a link that says “RSS,” or “XML,” or “Subscribe.” An additional way to find RSS feeds is through an RSS search engine such as Search4RSS. RSS search engines are like regular search engines but the search engine searches only for RSS feeds.

Podcasts

Podcasts are like RSS feeds. You subscribe to them as you would an RSS feed but instead of receiving textual updates of a websites content, you will receive a digital audio file that can be downloaded into your computer or MP3 player. The term “podcast” stems from the first podcast scripts created for Apple Ipod. Podcast scripts are a programming language that allowed for the download of feeds. While many large media corporations have created their own podcasts, such as CBC Radio, HBO Podcasts, and CNN Podcasts, podcasts have also become popular among everyday users. Additionally, libraries have begun using podcasts as a form of instruction. For example, Arizona State University has created podcasts that supports scholarly research and Washington State University offers podcasts on tips for successful research.

A blog is a website that is updated regularly and displays the content in reverse chronological order. Blogs can contain textual, graphic, audio, and visual information. There are numerous blogging softwares that can either be hosted or installed on a server. Installed blog software includes Moveable Type, Word Press.org, and Nucelus CMS. Blog host servers, such as Blogger, Live Journal, or Word Press.com, are often used as the technological knowledge needed to create one is small.

The purpose of blogs will vary and sometimes depends on the blog hosting server. For example, Live Journal is a blogging software that is widely popular for fan fiction, fiction written using characters and story lines from popular original works.

Some people have critiqued blogs as a forum for useless banter, but blogs are used in a variety of ways and by a variety of people. From teenagers to politicians, blogs have become popular among a wide group of people seeking to express themselves.

Blog Search Engines

A blog search engine is like any search engine. A search engine is a program that retrieves webpages using the keywords input by the user. The difference between a search engine and a blog search engine is that a blog search engine searches specifically for blogs. Three examples of blog search engines are: Blog Search Engine, Technorati, and Google Blog Search.

Vlogs

Vlogs are a special form of blog that focuses on video entries instead of the traditional text. Although, like blogs, some may wonder if anyone is viewing them, some Vlogs have become popular and have large fan followings.

There are several different sites that host Vlogs and the content varies depending on the users’ interests, thoughts, or ideas for that day. To learn more about Vlogs go to Freevlog.

Readings

• Why We Blog by Sophie Brookover
• Why Blog? by Frank Catalano