Comments

I commented on Natalie's blog:
http://introtoinfo.blogspot.com/2009/12/jane-austen-exhibit.html?showComment=1260643291830_AIe9_BHJTzUzzVa7xGzoAr5CEiX2iMWHQH6nG5BNkhOIpswpSRvCDm8B9UJhZzYHgXS9WJxQEiYvd3jjgpNlOsqf1pIUSMNpbFxIUy-bVblHP7sZ6fIBGox8mGQAdCAokib2HEiytDXPD-InqSg7HoTvG_pdaJvlc19PF-iUsyWIXAp1p-68nT-HjXqe7YjmoSWZYeqqmqncUbv87h65CQwm0Xr3htEyeZeRraDB8sYSA2koUUAKqj4#c9026218734131195501

and Dj's blog:
http://djd2600it.blogspot.com/2009/12/128-comments.html?showComment=1260643471119_AIe9_BHzHM2vuwfpzoUQLXO5omSzcj1LZKTixEABdpOu2oK7QCEl7nN2LdnrcZ9poToFm-ASFYGlONcbcLNhcadezQz-B3GJD9jd85Zr9CenW14HtRChWiT9_6KHE_7BmEgo2ZaMh-tHezlNJ8F17qEf84NlWK5CGWLzJO6FkaJhIeF3Y2L2SoeeB3e_ivIDhHt4d6IbgYi8LaWbBxkCFzqDTP11VbfFVA#c7587177596999921163

Muddiest Point: Week 15 (12/8)

Does the Sibboleth system work only within a certain network (like across websites for a university) or does it work across the whole internet?

Week 14 (12/1) Comments

I commented on Ashley's blog
http://laine05.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-14-reading-notes.html?showComment=1259543876378_AIe9_BGuZoWPimFqaR9yIuUOaBayW7bWYJxVInVAuHW5fXx9b27EyIxhVfJpfs4FSluuNn2DaWhiWN-_zOFz1jaakv9f1dUn25OQIDBLqpOgfVchTe4ZPII9EcmQ9RW4NV1X_s_jyd_FW0BUkd6fTzmt0iBws_brAPZ3UzJP_PAq74wQ0vUerEU1g4qao75H6Gim4y7r16tTE34eQKovYsIdxTli0PVcggLnMin2GHHSid5ipTuCf-E#c1523718001058858728
and Rafeef's blog
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3120806507352967540&postID=4536138016908497129&page=1&token=1259544205818_AIe9_BERiqUVIjUgV1dgK6RZ8A_lcuWCa9B1Fflc0FEXJqgz_pwrsYECNWkjaVuIqOVlu1momQPS4NSqB6SXqPh6H1ZQesFzy7kwKHy1hIo1WDC3sGzuqDdYYkG1-Tby-1XbyEFV6ZEiSAum3Wq3f9zVStP3JKq2-o3RVviE6koVJWWGiYnSZfn9-yqj8_8s--wqsqQahHlfBb8vNemUHRMZZl3CsDFSKI6rss3-kUedfp4TJz6E_wg

Muddiest Point: Week 13 (11/24)

In PageRank modeled sites, to the results for a particular topic change with every search? Another words if I searched for "topic" and clicked on site B even though A was ranked first, would site B likely move up to be ranked first?

Readings: Week 14 (12/1)

Using a wiki to manage a library instruction program- This was a very interesting article with a good description of what wikis are and how they can work in a library setting. However, I thought the section the Description of the library instruction program at ETSU was a bit out of place. While the rest of the article discussed wikis specifically, that section started talking more about digital services in general and how to educate users about them. Also they never made clear who the 'users' where when discussing who could make changes to the wiki. Are these people librarians, library patrons or both?

Creating the academic library folksonomy- This article presents a very interesting idea. However, it seems to neglect certain important points. For example it discusses the idea of allowing students access to articles unavailable at their own institutions. But how would that be possible? Wouldn't the student still have to pay to see that information? Also I think the true folksonomy can cause more difficultly in finding resources, as the same item or idea can be known by several different names, which causes trouble.

Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia- I thought that this was a very interesting lecture. I especially was interested in the way that he referred to Wikipedia more as a community than anything else. I had never thought of Wikipedia in that way. I was also very interested to hear about how they deal with the issue of accuracy and quality control. I am glad to hear that they do not simply rely on the idea of the neutral point of view policy, as many people may not adhere to that policy. I was also surprised by many of the statistics, while these may no longer be completely accurate as the film is several years old, I was surprised at how many people outside of the English speaking countries use the site. I had always assumed it was a more English-centric website.

Weblogs- The first part of this article is a very good introduction to what a blog is and to the history of the medium. The second part provided some interesting ideas about the application of blogs to the library field. The author seemed to put more emphasis on the use in more academic and research libraries. I thought that most of these suggestions were very interesting and worth looking into in many libraries.

Week 13 (11/24) Comments

I commented on Natalie's blog
http://introtoinfo.blogspot.com/2009/11/readings.html?showComment=1259013913545_AIe9_BFA0IpUo0CL6vqtFp0Vv3v4g1qQ1k9cL9conZxrS7ojFw_9LJVriYKdfgG8S6Nr3_2ZXe2QUsg24JDhvsC91daGh5O-3q3NosPWDY7GmqipaNNF-HV0RJ9UUhfoXLmjkUfxo0M8s4XCwqwsScsxcpMu1LWxq1wEYwdbpVOcl4e8_AvUOfv1iytnEJSa6xfLQmt9_WcOe7JTBz1cMEfFEaV09KbjvA#c3022914535706575477
and Jaime's blog
http://jfilipek2600.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-ten-notes.html?showComment=1259014365765_AIe9_BEB2njaxnsEJe4zkoI0fW1BIfw27_Li5inLBH9p5JRW_AHLjW1E7pxkhd5wB0PPMpfyxM3b5Z9TYwkztrL3CFR2uCG3t5dYbPcXrjC2_zw_i-IEFihKiR3cq9ACybLNz2hHZmLTspZOAkj3ZNhsCM__KB5Nfdr6PMTYxrQg8VeszG9r2QDTsNN7mfJvl8HTxSXKrE7fIDP3ZfoBs_sO2J1Gqg4HuWHji61sYX_Vm7E5JJvr2Qs#c1684946590871980793

Assignment #6

http://www.pitt.edu/~saj52/index.htm

Readings: Week 13 (11/24)

I'm not sure which readings were supposed to be for this week, so I did the ones that I have not yet done for November...

Challenges and Influential Work- It was interesting to see where a lot of the early digital libraries came from and why they were developed. However, this article got a bit technical for me with a lot of terms and concepts with which I am unfamiliar. It was interesting that they mentioned Google Scholar as a goal to live up to for institutions. I admit that I frequently use the site, but like someone brought up in the digital libraries class, you cannot access much of the content you find through Google with out either paying or being part of an institution who already subscribes to the databases.

Dewey meets Turing- It was interesting to look at some of the tensions that emerged between librarians and computer scientists when digital libraries were first on the scene. Though I really agree with the statement that "the core function of librarianship remains. I think it would be very difficult to completely replace a librarian with only a computer. There is often too much to reference questions to leave it fully up to a computer, which does not understand the context of what the person is looking for.

Institutional Repositories- This seemed to be a good intro to some of the issues surrounding digital repositories. I thought it was especially interesting that the author argued that digital repositories should not be treated as journals. He seemed to argue that peer review was an unnecessary process in that environment. However, I disagree, if just anyone could publish whatever they wanted, not only would the prestige of publishing disappear, but the value of information in digital repositories would likely decrease.

Muddiest Point: Week 12 (11/17)

Is a DTD a set list of terms, or can anyone create their own DTD?

Week 12 (11/17) Comments

I commented on Natalie's blog:
http://introtoinfo.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-10-readings.html?showComment=1258409241572_AIe9_BHMN9Gwe9sDkDUkDBSJGI6l0GG7Bl4Zb_zrQOXBCIBnGUDyjjnHgMZ5feBWJ1GSlgXssRqfnJIx93Kc3v19317cNn6Z6OlebjEEb3soV5bnBTwvlfyca4ihQCQXdRNSjzznKUalZmyJDuaStB7o0IJ12JSsLdtSa86b7nR3t1G7REteLkEkq3kNcLxFLy5DRvmEcwFpBnbp5Dm7t4jRQ_m6rx8VvHyGx5BVBrWm1SgjQs8SWgk#c9081835345223342103

and on Ashley's blog
http://laine05.blogspot.com/2009/11/reading-notes-for-1117-class.html?showComment=1258409551876_AIe9_BFiQ7T_emvnfFOeHbIuqwKpjCH5AGim-ARfvVHsJ5A4llayZLPwsKkw5BV2GCqIxOphx6lAS9tDzHUITQccG_ZbmBtivsNaG8JnSBN2b9-JPtVIrrDQLoKgOOumBt0RLpxFCDj70A1XdSdUjSXfjmhAHj-jMiQ_rP0tkSyM4ngTD75e0vo0apwtEqxuvo7HCmr_zi6-_gYty3yqzVrZG5SLCpdbmVJUTPO16DbgMBKRDqpalBE#c3821974572687733550

Muddiest Point: Week 11 (11/10)

I have no muddiest point for this week.

Readings: Week 12 (11/17)

Web search engines Parts 1 & 2- I agree with the first part of this article,that there is no need to be able to access every single web page in existence. There are many that have no real significance except to the creator of the page, such as a personal blog, or online calendar. It was interesting to hear how web search engines work, especially in terms of the algorithms that rank results. The second article, however, was a bit dense.

Metadata Harvesting- Maybe I missed something, but I never got a good sense as to what The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting actually is. Overall, the article had some interesting ideas and suggestions for ways in which to create comprehensive listings for various online databases.

Deep Web- This was an interesting article. I knew that there was both a surface web and a deep web, but I had not idea that the deep web was so large! I was also surprised to see that some of the sites on the deep web were actually fairly large sites. I had always assumed that the deep web consisted mostly on small sites that would not have a lot of interest.

Week 11 (11/10) Comments

I commented on Ashley's blog:

http://laine05.blogspot.com/2009/11/reading-notes-for-1110-class.html?showComment=1257791122426#c2994159073111129510

and Katie's blog:

http://katiezimmerman2600.blogspot.com/2009/11/week-9-reading-notes.html?showComment=1257791421776#c3914085369933233865

Readings: Week 11 (11/10)

Intro to XML- I found this article to a bit confusing. It seems that XTML coding requires a bit more knowledge of computers and how to program them than HTML does. Also I’m not sure I understand how it is not a standardized language as the article notes, to me it seems like it would be.

Survey of XTML standards- This seems like a great reference for looking deeper into learning how to use XTML codes. It offers many good comments in regard to the different places to look for information on this particular topic.

Extending your mark up- I actually was unable to open this document, I tried over several days in a few different ways, but it wouldn’t work :(

XML W3 schools- While I still don’t understand XTML as well as I do HTML, this website helped. I like that these tutorials provide the codes in the separate box as it helps them to stand out more from the text, so I can get a clearer view of how the correct code should look. This site also helped me to see how many cool things you can do with XTML, I really like the idea that you can limit the values entered into a system.

Assignment #5

http://upitt04-staff.kwc.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/virtualshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=42

Muddiest Point: Week 9 (10/27)

I have been attempting to create a webpage, just to experiment with some of the HTML codes. I have been unsuccessful at putting an image that is saved on my computer on to the page. I have been using the code . However, this is not working, is there another way to add images or am I just using the wrong code?

Week 9 (10/27) Comments

I commented on Ashley's blog:

http://laine05.blogspot.com/2009/10/reading-notes-for-unit-8.html?showComment=1256502377896#c5369359767960863715

and Rachel's blog:

http://rachelnashintroit.blogspot.com/2009/10/unit-8-reading-notes.html?showComment=1256502732434#c4796139529299597555

Readings: Week 9 (10/27)

HTML Tutorial- I liked this site it was very easy to understand. I really liked the “try it yourself” links they really helped me to see how the different codes worked. I was amazed at how many different things you can do with HTML, I assumed that it was just the very basic bold, italic, etc. This is definitely a website I will use if I need to create any kind of webpage, but I don’t think I could remember all of the different tricks and codes!
There were a few things, however, that I did not really understand. For instance the attributes description was very vague; I am also not sure why you would need a comment that is not going to be displayed. The section I had the most trouble with was the images, where do you get the images to use? Do they have to be on another website?

HTML Cheatsheet- This is another site that will be very helpful for creating a webpage. Though I am glad I read the other article first as it offers more explanation. This site just lists the codes and what they do, so alone it is a bit confusing.

CSS Tutorial- I’m not sure that I understand how this is any easier than HTML, they seem to be pretty much the same thing. All of the extra detail you can do with CSS are very cool, but is it possible to do some of them in HTML format, such as changing the font?

Beyond HTML- This was an interesting idea. I think they had some interesting ways of rebuilding a website so that it was easy to understand and helpful for doing research.

Muddiest Point: Week 8 (unit 7)

I'm not sure that I understand why PURL is any better than regular URLs. It seems that if the creators do not keep up with updating a URL, the site will be lost just as URLs are when they move. Also, with this systems it seems unlikely that the more unusual and lesser used pages will be issued a PURL, and they often seem to be the ones lost as they move more often.

Week 8 (unit 7) comments

I commented on Natalie's blog:

http://introtoinfo.blogspot.com/2009/10/week-7-readings.html?showComment=1255796988601#c2811159543457324241

and Christa's blog:

http://christaruthcoleman2600.blogspot.com/2009/10/readings-for-week-seven-or-is-it-eight.html?showComment=1255897110529#c5575533014474820805

Readings: Week 8 (unit 7)

Internet infrastructure- This article was very interesting, I never really knew the specifics of how webpages worked. I also liked the fact that it was easy to understand the article. All of the examples were very helpful in order to understand the topics that were presented in the article.

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems-I’m not sure if I fully understand this article. It almost felt like I cam into the middle of something instead of starting from the beginning. I think it may have been the fact that they used a lot of jargon and expected the reader to be very familiar with these systems, but I was rather confused.

Video- A lot of people use Google! I didn’t realize how many until they showed it visually with the globe. The whole video showed me how little I actually knew about Google overall. For instance I didn’t realize that they were involved in charitable works, though I would be interested in what the Google Foundation does, they never really said. I have also never heard of Orkut, but the time this was filmed was around when Facebook was coming out so I wonder if it just couldn’t compete. I had also never heard of Google news, however, I’m not a big follower of the news. In general Google seems to have a lot of different projects going and it seems like it would be a cool company to work for.

Muddiest Point: Week 6

I do not have a muddiest point for this week

Assignment #4

Video:
http://www.screencast.com/users/saj52/folders/Jing/media/598f40be-bd43-4165-9acd-3ee36211fad8

Screen capture demo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42356896@N02/3999002303/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42356896@N02/3999781596/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42356896@N02/3999790488/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42356896@N02/3999053371/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42356896@N02/3999077231/

Assignment #3

Here is my CiteULike library!

http://www.citeulike.org/user/saj5000

Week 5 Comments

I posted on Rachel's blog:
http://rachelnashintroit.blogspot.com/2009/09/week-5-reading-notes.html?showComment=1254239835829#c6088941898296275160

and Sarah's blog:
http://2600infototechnology.blogspot.com/2009/09/5th-reading.html?showComment=1254240283733#c2336991257546069380

Muddiest Point: Week 4

I was a little confused about the MARC system. I was unsure what the second number stood for. I was also wondering if the numbers where in any particular order, for example in the Dewey decimal system the numbers refer to a specific subject. Is it the same idea with the MARC code or are the numbers assigned to different bibliographic information (e.g. author, title, etc) arbitrary?

Readings: Week 5

Data Compression Wiki- I like the way that this article described the difference between lossless versus lossy compression. The examples such as the string of 8’s were very clear which enabled me to understand more clearly how they work.

Data Compression basics-While I appreciate the author’s attempt to simplify these types of compression into plain language, I still found myself very confused. I was able to follow pretty well until the idea of picture compression. I’m not quite sure how a lot of those methods work, I think I get the main idea, but beyond a basic “sort of” grasp, I didn’t really understand it. Also a lot of these methods seem to only shorten data by a little bit which seems useless to me. I suppose in vast quantities it might help, but the examples they gave made it not seem worthwhile. This was especially true in the discussion of the entropy method specifically the arithmetic coding section.

“Imaging Pittsburgh”- This is a very interesting idea. I like that they are collaborating to provide a more comprehensive website for photographs of the region. It would be much easier to search one site if you are looking for photographs from a specific time period or of a specific neighborhood, instead of trying to figure out which institutions have the photographs you are looking for. The metadata challenge section was interesting as well. The problem they experienced with differing ideas of vocabulary seems to be a common one when collections from different institutions are brought together. Overall, this article brings to light interesting issues dealing with composite online collections. Information like this will undoubtedly become more useful as more websites like these are an inevitable part of the demand for easily accessible material on the web.

YouTube and Libraries- I really like this idea. Especially the suggestion about posting videos about how to use some of the library services such as the website and online journals and databases. This would provide useful information, especially in an academic setting. As an undergrad I often didn’t was to bother library staff with simple questions like this, even though I often had them. With a system like this those who felt the same way I did would have access to a simple solution.

Week 4 Comments

I commented on Ashley's blog:
http://laine05.blogspot.com/2009/09/reading-notes-for-week-four.html?showComment=1253588290331#c8412859563504682700
and Natalie's blog:
http://introtoinfo.blogspot.com/2009/09/week-4-readings.html?showComment=1253588870429#c1781939510401074816

Readings: Week 4

The Database wikipedia page made me realize how many different kinds of databases there actually are. The whole thing got a bit technical for me.

The text of the Metadata article was rather confusing, it seemed that the definition of what metadata is changed several times within the reading. Table 2 (the one that breaks down types of metadata) was very helpful in discerning that different types of data a bit more clearly then the text.

The Dublin Core article was a bit hard to follow at times as well, it seemed to get extremely technical with the programing codes written out in the last part of the essay. Though it seem like a good idea in general, standardizing a lot of the information retrieval methods would definitely help in many situations.

Muddiest Point: Week 3

I was just wondering, once an open source program has been altered, does it go back to the distributor or does it simply go out from the person who changed it? I was also wondering if there is a safe guard against malicious code or is it just trust that people will be honest?

Week 3 comments

http://lid25lis2600.blogspot.com/2009/09/reading-notes-3.html?showComment=1253029779441#c6584920217457485034

http://mdelielis2600response.blogspot.com/2009/09/week-3-response-microsoft-vista.html?showComment=1253030239303#c1994319235177531223

Assignment #2

Here is the Url to my flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sajlis2600/

Readings: Week 3

While I was reading the document about Linux and UNIX systems I noticed a few things that seemed a bit confusing. For one despite the claims that Linux is now easy to use (though they admit not as easy as Windows or Macs) it all seemed very complicated. They discuss things like customizing the basic system to fit your computer and made it sound like a necessity. So while it may be a fantastic operating system that is superior to Windows and Mac in stability and security, for me (I’m bit technologically challenged) I’ll stay with the more user friendly systems.

I ran across a few things that peaked my curiosity and if any one happens to know the answers please let me know. Thanks!
They mention the programming language C. Is that the forerunner to C+ and C++?
I was surprised to see mozilla as a link to view Linux desktop examples. Is Firefox a Linux based system?
Can Linux users read MS Office documents if Linux runs clone systems? What about vise versa?
What is GNU?

I read the Windows article second and what struck me most was the vast difference in the tone from the Linux article. While the Linux article seemed to have the feel of passionate users trying to help those who are interested in becoming new users, the windows article had a stale corporate feel. It seemed to do nothing but assure and sooth consumers with completely positive phrases. In short, it made me feel that they were only after my money and trying to distract attention from the problems with their newest system.

The document dealing with Mac OS X was a bit too technical for me. As I mentioned before, I’m not exactly a technology wiz and I had a hard time reading the Mac document, just because they used terms that I am unfamiliar with and made little or no attempt to explain them. Though I admit it would be interesting to look at this in comparison to how systems like Windows or Linux worked… that is if I actually knew how those other systems worked in any detail.

Muddiest Point: Week #2

I was a bit confused about the speed of a CPU. I understood that the CPU regularly generates electronic pulses, but what I did not understand was how often those pulses occur and if it matters. Is the speed calculated by the amount of data it can process between each of those pulses or is it the amount it can process per second?

Assignment #1

In article by Clifford Lynch, he argues that current information 'literacy' of nonprofessionals is not good enough. He argues that we must rather be education in information technology, that in gaining a broader understanding of the history an underlying systems the knowledge will have a longer life span. I'm not completely convinced of his argument, for the most part it seems that people who are not computer or information professionals will not need a more detailed understanding of underlying systems, but rather how to simply operate any given program and adapt to any upgrades.

The article pertaining to the Lied Library discusses in detail the difficulties faced by a university library in an ever evolving technical environment. It offers some very helpful tips and advice for anyone who is in charge of a library such as this. Some of these include ways to deal with a community of both students and community members. They discuss ideas such as restricting the use of computers to community members at peak times, such as during midterms and finals, and restricting the programs that community members can access.
The article also discusses important issues such as dealing with computer safety and functionality. They discuss the use of Deepfreeze, a program that erases anything installed by a user when they log out, thereby preventing most viruses. They also mention that they have several backups on hand to quickly replace any malfunctioning hardware.

While reading the OCLC report from 2004, it struck me how quickly technology changes. While the report is only five years old we can already see how many of thier predictions have come true and how many have not, and most of them appear to have been correct. The article mentions the use of cell phones and smart phones several times. In this case, they seem to have been correct. The use of smart phones has become extremely popular, owing largely to the wide spread availbility of 3G networks which allow users to access the internet anywhere.
The article also mentions the idea of micropayments. It discusses the widespread use of charging small amounts for smaller pieces of something. They use the example of paying 99 cents for one song instead of $15.00 for a whole CD. It also discusses that we may be able to access small pieces of articles, but must pay for the whole thing. While this practice is still in widespread use, one thing which has been happening with more and more frequency is the use of advertising to offset costs. It seems that more content is being offered to the consumer for free, but when we access it, we are inundated with advertisements.