Libraryman

If you’ll be in Vancouver, Washington at the OLA/WLA Joint Conference feel free to swing by the presentation I’m doing with my good buddy, Chris Peters (from TechSoup). We’re talking about trends in computing, deepening/impending ubiquity of said computing and what it all means, and might mean, for libraries. Cool stuff!

Truncated version of the presentation with notes is up on Slideshare here (What’s up with the pics not showing up on the first slide, Slideshare?):

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I try hard to keep work separate from this blog. Very rarely though, there is some spill over beyond me saying “I did this at work”. And now is one of those happy times. Actually, it’s more of a “I know these great folks from OCLC who shared a sneak peak and now I am allowed to share a bit of the juicy stuff as well”. At this point it is mostly informative and less participatory. And it is very beta. A test. What is it?

It is the WorldCat application for facebook! It is NOT listed in the application directory on Facebook so you have to receive an invite to get it. It may change, it may stick, it may not. Regradless, as a dutiful beta tester, I’ve included a couple of screen shots here for the curious. Click any image to got to it’s flickr page and be able to see it much larger:

Logged in view of the facebook WorldCat app:

If you get an invitation to beta test it will show up looking like this once you are logged in to facebook (I circled it in red so it would stand out):

When you click the invite, you get something like this explaining the app:

This bug has gone bye bye (I was an early beta tester, lol). You really likely won’t ever see this, but it was funny:

And again, a view logged in to the app. I know, I know, it gets cut off, but this time its bigger (Go away giant MONK ad!:):

I am very grateful to be looped into the testing and am also happy to share that I generously told:

“If you want to, you could blog it. But your readers will need an invite to get the app so that could create some overhead for you.”

Ok. I can handle that. I think. How about this, if you have a facebook account and want to give this a beta run, drop me a line. Email or on facebook is fine. Feel free to friend me on facebook while your at it. If possible, you will get an invite to test based on speed of response. I’ll pass the info along as quickly as possible given the holiday weekend. Assume though at this point that you’ll be put on a list of potential beta folks and that if you get an invite then you get to test. This is a very informal get the word out a little bit of community sharing, not an official work initiative by any means. I am doing this ’cause I like it and it is pretty darn neat in theory. Not really for work (though from work I know) Ahhh.. overhead reduced (and level of my tertiary involvement revealed).

Does the title of this post make anyone wonder about our information creation and consumption environment? Wouldn’t it be good to be able to have a WorldCat that would allow us to flip it and say “You got your facebook in my WorldCat?”

PS-If you look at the pics and ask yourself “Who is Bob Robertson Boyd?”, I would guess you might expect to ask yourself that question a bit more in the future. Bob works with a team of folks on “social stuff” at OCLC in Dublin, Ohio and does some fine work. And just to clarify, I work on the team at WebJunction in Seattle that works on “social stuff” and, as most of you know, WebJunction has some nifty connections to OCLC.

*link*

These are the fabled “$100 laptops” we’ve been hearing about for some time now. While they do cost more than $100 (twice that in fact) the concept is no less fascinating. Now, for two weeks only, you can buy one and give one in a sort of “donation bundle”. Not saying to plop down your $$$ here, but at the very least it’s an interesting initiative. Lots of potential for library reach here. At the very least a nifty gadget, right?
One Laptop Per Child: Give One Get One

Mmmm hmmmm….

Do a SWOT, y’all!

Tim?

I’ll be there (along with my colleagues Chrystie Hill and Rachel Van Noord). You can come too, as they still apparently have a few open slots. Some big/interesting names will be there AND it is at the Computer History Museum (!!!) so if online community is your bag, you love them ‘puters and can swing the $$$, you might seriously consider it!

“The Online Community Unconference is a gathering of online community practitioners - managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors - to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities.

Those involved in online community development (and social software in general) share many common challenges: community management, tools, marketing, business models, legal issues. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners.

The Online Community Unconference is inspired by the emerging “open space” conference format. (For an excellent description, see this News.com article on a past MashUp Camp.) There will also be plenty of time for networking.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is a unique venue with plenty of parking and WiFi. Lunch and snacks will be provided, and the Museum exhibits will be open to the group during the breaks.

Price: $195 ($175 before May 12). Space is limited. Fee is fully refundable prior to May 24, not refundable after (but admission is transferable).”

Just in the chatty fun!

This image in this post is just slightly freaky when you read what it includes and how the image came to be posted to the blog tonight. It’s deep, shallow and goes ’round and ’round.
So yesterday I blogged about Pandora and libraries (again, sorry), tonight I was working a bit at home and listening away to my good friend Pandora when a “frame ad” came up around the player. The ad? It was from the folks at Palm, for the Treo. In this series of ads, they mention the different ways you can integrate a Treo into your life. Interestingly, the ad I saw highlighted flickr. So, I whip out my Treo, while listening to Pandora, take a picture of the flickr/Treo/Palm/Pandora screen and upload it to flickr. Then I go into my blog editing software and write this post. Which will now include some code that will make a picture showing you an amazingly deep example of convergence show up for you. Enjoy!

So much convergence in so many guises. All of this API business, Google Maps and Flickr stuff is making for Mash-ups that provide more than just a promise of something useful. We get real tools! Web 2.0!! Library 2.0!!!

As mentioned in previous posts, there is of course the Libraries and Librarians Geotagging project page with push pin markers linking Flickr photos with library shots from all around the globe. Cool! We just got our first picture from an African library mapped with this very nifty tool.

Here is another really fun one called the Blogging Librarians Frapper page. Check this out:
“This is a map of librarians with blogs, or “blogging librarians.” If you’re a librarian and you have a blog, please put your “pushpin” on the map, so we can see where all the blogging librarians are and build up our online community.”

Thanks to Scott Pfitzinger (go Hoosiers!)for starting this group! Thanks also my main man, Mr. Cohen and his Flickr stream where you can find a screen shot of this Frapper page.