Now that I've learned what a "mashup" actually is, I can review one. When searching for Libraries with mashups containing Flickr, I had some difficulty because I wasn't quite sure how to search for them. Regardless, I tried and I found a few promising results and selected one to try and look at. I don't know if this particular mashup has already been done, as I still can't access the course on WebCT, but at this point I have to post something.
The State Library of New South Wales Flickr and Google Street view "Then and Now" Mashup.
Hagon, Paul (2008). Flickr and Google street view mashup: State Library of New South Wales. Viewed 27 Oct 2010. <>
Having never before reviewed a flickr mashup, I find myself at a loss to really say what is and isn't good about them. In the case of this particular mashup, it has great potential as a tool for historic learning and it is such a pity that this project seems to have been neglected. I am put in mind of a series of "then and now" pictures published by the Mercury of locations around Hobart some years ago and I remember being amazed at what had changed and what had stayed the same. This mashup does the same thing, but uses Street view for it's "now" shots so that as Street view is updated, the mashup remains recent.
An issue that I had with this mashup, which might also explain why it seems so neglected is that it doesn't appear to be managed by the State Library of NSW, but was created by Paul Hagon, who is a Web Designer for the National Library of Australia. This is not bad in itself, but it means that the mashup relies on other users to tag locations and that it doesn't have very much advertising. I looked on the State Library of NSW website and I couldn't find any link to this mashup.
Using the mashup is simple if you've ever used Google Maps or Street view before. On one side of your screen is a map of NSW, on the other side is the street view window; tags on the map can be clicked and show up the street view in one window and provide a small picture taken at the same location at some point in the distant past.
As I mentioned before, the number of pictures in this mashup appears to be quite small and I would have liked to have seen more photos of buildings and events being geotagged. The pictures themselves display with a brief explanation of the event or location, which I found to be interesting and better than simply displaying photos with no context.
- piff
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Flickr
Today I'm looking at Libraries using Flickr.
Flickr is a combination of picture-hosting and social networking, it allows individual users and organisations to create accounts (which is free), upload pictures and then share pictures with other accounts that they "friend", with groups that they join or just with everybody. Flickr is a part of Yahoo, so if you have a Yahoo account (or have signed up for yahoo-mail) then you can sign in to Flickr using your Yahoo id. I didn't even have to make an account, because I already had a yahoo account; I found this very convenient, as it's one less username/password combo I have to remember.
As well as simply hosting pictures, you can make a variety of different galleries (Flickr calls them a "photostream") and even make simple slideshows with your pictures.
For Flickr, I have chosen to look at the Metro Library group, which is actually a Flickr group, created by the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive, which is located in Los Angeles county in the USA.
Dorothy Peyton Gray Transport Library and Archive (created in 2009). Flickr: Metro Library. Viewed 3rd September 2010. < http://www.flickr.com/groups/metrolibrary/ >
I chose the Metro Library because, while it only has a few members, it is active, with a lot of items in its group pool and its photostream. The biggest downfall with Flickr, I think, is with the design; Flickr is not made for quick and easy browsing and as a result you can often use up a lot of time searching or browsing for pictures. Flickr's on-site and group searching helps this a bit, but then in order for it to be truly effective, you have to know what you are looking for, which some browsers don't. Another feature I don't particularly like, is that you have to continually go back to the group home page to get to different things. While this problem could be solved with a navigation bar, Flickr already has two separate navigation bars and to add another would be creating a lot of clutter on the top of the screen.
I enjoyed looking at the pictures in the pool and photostream, even though I'm not particularly interested in the topic. The photostream contains many scanned items from the Archive section of the Library, including photos of tracks, roads, vehicles and scans of company advertisements and logos. Some of the individual collections manage to provide a kind of overview from past to present, as they contain both Archive and current items. Without context from the industry or living in the area, I don't have the knowledge to say whether or not this is a good resource, but I can say that it has many pictures on the topic of public transportation in southern California and for anyone interested in such a thing, it would be good to look into.
- piff
Flickr is a combination of picture-hosting and social networking, it allows individual users and organisations to create accounts (which is free), upload pictures and then share pictures with other accounts that they "friend", with groups that they join or just with everybody. Flickr is a part of Yahoo, so if you have a Yahoo account (or have signed up for yahoo-mail) then you can sign in to Flickr using your Yahoo id. I didn't even have to make an account, because I already had a yahoo account; I found this very convenient, as it's one less username/password combo I have to remember.
As well as simply hosting pictures, you can make a variety of different galleries (Flickr calls them a "photostream") and even make simple slideshows with your pictures.
For Flickr, I have chosen to look at the Metro Library group, which is actually a Flickr group, created by the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive, which is located in Los Angeles county in the USA.
Dorothy Peyton Gray Transport Library and Archive (created in 2009). Flickr: Metro Library. Viewed 3rd September 2010. < http://www.flickr.com/groups/metrolibrary/ >
I chose the Metro Library because, while it only has a few members, it is active, with a lot of items in its group pool and its photostream. The biggest downfall with Flickr, I think, is with the design; Flickr is not made for quick and easy browsing and as a result you can often use up a lot of time searching or browsing for pictures. Flickr's on-site and group searching helps this a bit, but then in order for it to be truly effective, you have to know what you are looking for, which some browsers don't. Another feature I don't particularly like, is that you have to continually go back to the group home page to get to different things. While this problem could be solved with a navigation bar, Flickr already has two separate navigation bars and to add another would be creating a lot of clutter on the top of the screen.
I enjoyed looking at the pictures in the pool and photostream, even though I'm not particularly interested in the topic. The photostream contains many scanned items from the Archive section of the Library, including photos of tracks, roads, vehicles and scans of company advertisements and logos. Some of the individual collections manage to provide a kind of overview from past to present, as they contain both Archive and current items. Without context from the industry or living in the area, I don't have the knowledge to say whether or not this is a good resource, but I can say that it has many pictures on the topic of public transportation in southern California and for anyone interested in such a thing, it would be good to look into.
- piff
Email and WebCT
Leeane, if you are reading this, I can not access my Poly email. It keeps asking me to log in twice and it's not accepting my poly network login for the second one.
I also can't find the list of discussions in WebCT where we post our weblinks and items we're evaluating on our blogs.
I'm going to have to proceed blindly here, I only have flickr left to do, I hope I don't pick one someone else has already done.
- piff
I also can't find the list of discussions in WebCT where we post our weblinks and items we're evaluating on our blogs.
I'm going to have to proceed blindly here, I only have flickr left to do, I hope I don't pick one someone else has already done.
- piff
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Podcasts
Today I am looking at podcasts.
Podcasts are, basically, videos online. But what makes them different is that poscasts are often kept on the organisation's or individual's website and tend to be informative in nature. They are "streamed" from the server, instead of pre-loaded, so people with poor internet service may have trouble veiwing them. Some podcasts require specific software to view them (though this is usually provided to download for free).
I am looking at podcasts by the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress (last updated 2010), The Library of Congress - Webcasts. Viewed 2nd September 2010. < http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/index.php >
The initial page of webcasts in quite compact and small. The individual pages are all set out neatly, with the player in the rough centre of the screen. It is seperated into broad subjects for ease of browsing. The on-site search engine also contains the ability to uise the webcasts section as a limiter, allowing the user to search just webcasts. I looked at a few webcasts, and they all played smoothly, despite being streams.
As well as being able to browse webcasts, there is also provided on the webcasts home page a list of popular and featured webcasts. I browsed through a few of the categories and after doing so I concluded that, while containing a great wealth of webcasts, browsing, even by subject was impractical becuase of the quantity of casts available. The on-site search is most likely the best way to search for specific webcasts.
- piff
Podcasts are, basically, videos online. But what makes them different is that poscasts are often kept on the organisation's or individual's website and tend to be informative in nature. They are "streamed" from the server, instead of pre-loaded, so people with poor internet service may have trouble veiwing them. Some podcasts require specific software to view them (though this is usually provided to download for free).
I am looking at podcasts by the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress (last updated 2010), The Library of Congress - Webcasts. Viewed 2nd September 2010. < http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/index.php >
The initial page of webcasts in quite compact and small. The individual pages are all set out neatly, with the player in the rough centre of the screen. It is seperated into broad subjects for ease of browsing. The on-site search engine also contains the ability to uise the webcasts section as a limiter, allowing the user to search just webcasts. I looked at a few webcasts, and they all played smoothly, despite being streams.
As well as being able to browse webcasts, there is also provided on the webcasts home page a list of popular and featured webcasts. I browsed through a few of the categories and after doing so I concluded that, while containing a great wealth of webcasts, browsing, even by subject was impractical becuase of the quantity of casts available. The on-site search is most likely the best way to search for specific webcasts.
- piff
Library Wiki citation, take2
This is take-2 on my citation for a Library Wiki.
Fran Huges, (1998), 21cschoollibrary. Viewed 11th April 2010.
< http://21cschoollibrary.wikispaces.com/ >
This wiki seems to have been created by someone named Fran Huges, for whom I can find only a Flickr page. As I mentioned before, the wiki is quite small and seems to consist primarily of links to other places and sources of information, with a small number of videos scattered throughout. Just by looking I can see that most of the information linked to is either for, or from sources within Australian Schools, or topically relavant.
The photos section of the site was one of the more filled out sections and seemed to me to be the most interesting, as it contained links directing me to many different Flickr photostreams, most for individual Libraries and one to a series of pictures showing the before and after of a refurbished Library.
I discovered as I was searching, that this wiki is listed under the teacher resources on the EDNA site, which rather makes it more of a Teacher's resource, instead of a Library resource. Despite that, the wiki seems to have promise. It has compiled quite a few resource links on various topics associated with making a modern school Library.
Fran Huges, (1998), 21cschoollibrary. Viewed 11th April 2010.
< http://21cschoollibrary.wikispaces.com/ >
This wiki seems to have been created by someone named Fran Huges, for whom I can find only a Flickr page. As I mentioned before, the wiki is quite small and seems to consist primarily of links to other places and sources of information, with a small number of videos scattered throughout. Just by looking I can see that most of the information linked to is either for, or from sources within Australian Schools, or topically relavant.
The photos section of the site was one of the more filled out sections and seemed to me to be the most interesting, as it contained links directing me to many different Flickr photostreams, most for individual Libraries and one to a series of pictures showing the before and after of a refurbished Library.
I discovered as I was searching, that this wiki is listed under the teacher resources on the EDNA site, which rather makes it more of a Teacher's resource, instead of a Library resource. Despite that, the wiki seems to have promise. It has compiled quite a few resource links on various topics associated with making a modern school Library.
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