July 2009 Blog Posts (11)

How Important is Patron Privacy at Your Library? 5 Tips for Increased Security

I've never ever had a librarian tell me "we do not care about patron privacy or security at our library." And come to think of it, I haven't had them even say it's not that big of a deal. Security breaches stink and they can be harmful as the news of Twitter's secret information exposed shows. But they're also embarrassing and ultimately very time consuming for those involved. What's more, there are simple things that can be done to avoid them, keep things secure and keep… Continue

Added by Text a Librarian on July 31, 2009 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Library Marketing Tips, Part 1: Avoiding the Noise (Templates Inside)

There are quite a few books on the topic of library marketing, and OCLC's Geek The Library Campaign is definitely getting people talking, but this post is the first in a weekly series talking about marketing text messaging reference services in your library. We think they work well… Continue

Added by Text a Librarian on July 31, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

Adding ezproxy to the url - 5 different methods

Many libraries in the world provide remote access to electronic resources via EZproxy .

As Andrew Perry explains here

"Essentially, Ezproxy uses some URL mangling, rewriting all hyperlinks, to pass traffic via the proxy (rather than using a conventional browser proxy setting). If the user is not logged in to the proxy (ie has… Continue

Added by Aaron Tay on July 30, 2009 at 4:40pm — 1 Comment

Rss feeds, Library databases and yahoopipes

This post will discuss how to use RSS feeds from library databases. It's surprisingly tricky to do it compared to subscribing to normal RSS feeds from most blogs. This is due to the fact libraries generally provide access via a proxy - ezproxy to provide remote access to databases off campus.

As most readers of this blog are probably reading this off a RSS feed, I won't explain what a RSS feed is. If you have no idea what it is, please…

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Added by Aaron Tay on July 30, 2009 at 4:38pm — No Comments

Microsoft Google dilemma for paranoid internet users

It looks like it will be a happy day for those paranoid antiGooglers who have been worried about Google taking over the world by having such a large market share of search engine traffic and then buying up everything else that interests them as well. There is now a new force to be reckoned with, that's planning to leave Google far behind. Oh! Hang on a minute! Unfortunately the Google destroyer (we'll see) is Microsoft... and they just happen to be the other company that the paranoid user is… Continue

Added by Gary Green on July 30, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Excessive web API and widget overkill

I think the web is a great tool, but my bug-bear at the moment is that if someone comes up with a latest hyped application on the web that we're expected to follow, in its wake will be a million spin off sites that allow you to use the original app in a variety of ways and provide the data in a different way ie with yellow borders smelling of roses round the edge of the screen (nb: you can play with the settings to make it smell like Cadbury's Chocolate Roses or the floral variety). Then you… Continue

Added by Gary Green on July 28, 2009 at 5:55am — No Comments

Aggregating sources for academic research in a web 2.0 world

Introduction

In this rather long post, I will talk about the different sources one could add to stay on top of one's research area. These include RSS feeds from traditional databases (citation alerts, table of contents of favourite journals), library opac feeds of searches and new additions, book vendor sites (e.g Amazon) book sharing sites (e.g LibraryThing), social bookmarking sites both generic…

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Added by Aaron Tay on July 24, 2009 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Beyond 160 Characters in the Library - Text Messaging Reference Doesn't Need to Be Limiting

There seem to be varying stories about the history of SMS (Text Messaging) and why Friedhelm Hillebrand, the creator of SMS, decided on 160 as THE number. Some say it's the amount of characters on a typical postcard, many other stories not that he just determined it while sitting at his type-writer in Germany, noting that most sentences do not require more than 160 letters. In… Continue

Added by Text a Librarian on July 20, 2009 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Looks so familiar

As I am looking around this site, I can't help but notice that the setup mirrors that of Facebook. Hmmmm was that an accident or purposeful?!?!?

Added by Samantha on July 18, 2009 at 12:31pm — No Comments

What do you do?

I find technology to be an amazing teaching tool. I find it especially powerful when it comes to getting my at-risk or special needs students interested in their learning. Ever since I started using SMARTboard, mind maps and other programs in my classroom, I can clearly see my student’s engagement increase. I find that my students are more excited about what they are learning and as a teacher this makes me happy. I love hearing them talk about their SMARTboard math lesson over lunch with their… Continue

Added by Samantha on July 18, 2009 at 12:27pm — No Comments

Does your library have a Firefox add-on collection?

Libraries that are big on Library 2.0 tend to offer a bunch of browser plugins/addons in the effort to reach out to the users who don't feel the need to visit the Library Portal.

They offer custom toolbars, some prefer Libx, others are big on Conduit toolbars. Many… Continue

Added by Aaron Tay on July 13, 2009 at 12:32pm — No Comments