Cookie cutter pages again...

I had a number of emails about the issue of library pages being forced to fit in standard templates, as discussed in my earlier posting. After posting about this to LM_NET, EDTECH and TLC, I received around twenty responses, in addition to the comments offered here. Many people reported that they had recently put up pages that were part of the school's framework, or that were offered by their library automation software. Several people said that they were specifically told NOT to use existing pages that they were designed and furthermore that they were not allowed to link to an original page posted elsewhere. I received quite a few messages from people who said things like: "Oh how in agreement I am about your discovery. I have sadly watched the demise of creativity and the development of template pages for several years now" and "I couldn't agree with you more! I designed and maintained my own web site at two different schools over a period of 9 years. Then, last year, my school decided to outsource our school website and everyone was put onto a standard template."

Several people did point out that, because they were at a independent or private schools, all web pages were considered marketing tools and thus were expected to have pages that were standardized to conform with all other school pages. Additionally, I did have one response from an individual who preferred the professional and clean look of template pages. She did not like very busy pages with large numbers of links, instead favoring pages that had a very clean, streamlined look. While I agree that pages should not be cluttered with extraneous images or distracting animations, I enjoy having pages that deliver a wealth of information all in one place. Here are some additional sites that were shared as a result of this posting:
http://www.irvingisd.net/maclibrary/
http://www.sasaustin.org/
http://library.sasaustin.org/sasaustin/library/uslib.php
http://www.gcisd.net/~michelle.henry/

Regardless of your choice/option for the pages you put up, there are several things everyone should remember:
1. Adhere to good basic design tenets. There are websites out there that can help you with this. In general, busy backgrounds, distracting images and sounds, flashing lights, etc. are not recommended.
2. Be mindful of safety when using student images and names. My opinion is that they should be avoided even if parents' permission is given.
3. Do not put up a page if you are not willing or able to keep it current, with working links.
4. If you MUST use a template, take it as far as you can with original ideas and features to make it unique.
5. For inspiration, visit outstanding library and educational websites.

Good News or Bad??? Cookie Cutter Library Pages

Alas, my blog has languished a bit. I was afraid of this happening. The truth is, my reasons for slacking are not so much difficulties I have encountered as good times I have had. The end of Spring Break week brought a visit from my daughter, who lives in Oregon. She was here for about 10 days and that is when I fell behind in, well, everything. Mea culpa, and here I am trying to catch up.

Today I have been visiting school libraries. Not physically, but from the comfort of my lounge chair on my screened-in porch. Ahhhh spring in Texas! It is a lovely mild day, and I am enjoying working from my backyard world. One of my class assignments asks students to visit two school libraries via their online pages. They are to critique the pages as well as the automated systems they encounter. When I grade their work, I visit the schools as well. One thing I have been noticing over the last year or two is the increasing trend toward cookie-cutter pages. Librarians are putting up their information using templates provided either by their automated systems or by school management systems such as FirstClass. I can certainly see the advantages:

1. Such sites are professional in appearance.

2. There is continuity from one school page to the next.

3. Posting there is easier than posting original pages.

4. There is a great deal of control over the appearance and likely the content of these pages on the parts of technology staff or administrators.

The above listed advantages can also be faults, though. What is lost with cookie cutter pages is creative spark. The businesslike appearance may look polished and professional, but I am not sure it captures the imaginations of the true target audience, students. I feel a bit sad to see fewer and fewer sites that are lively, colorful, and creative. I also see less, if any, student work presented on the look-alike pages. And I have to wonder as I do about so many things that educators do to be more “businesslike,” is this the direction we really want? Here are just a few pages where the cookie cutter police have not yet prevailed. At the tope of the list I have to mention Peter Milbury’s Chico High Library pages. He gets so much information in to his collection of pages, and does it HIS way. What a shame to see any of the pages below get molded into cookie cutter templates. Kudos to all those folks out there who are still willing and able to row their own cyber-boats!

Chico High Library Pages: http://melvil.chicousd.org/

Grandview Elementary Library: http://www.grandviewlibrary.org/

Springfield Township Virtual Library: http://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/

I could go on and may add a few sites, but right now the dog is in serious need of walking. I would love your suggestions of additional great pages, and also any comments you might have about how to withstand the forces of rampant templatism.

Come On...You Do It Too!

Do you have a name-doppelganger? There was an article in today’s Houston Chronicle about how people find others with the same name and then feel somehow connected to them. And come on...we all do the vanity search, right? A person might even feel a bit angry if the “other” had already grabbed a website with the .com URL for that name, thus sentencing him or her to a lowly .net. Or, you might feel a little put down if the other person was rich or successful, as if somehow YOU should be the best with that name. OK, I thought, and did a Google vanity search for “Mary Ann Bell.” I did find a counterpart, who likes to read and, like me, was less than impressed with the book The Mermaid Chair. The only thing that kept me going through that story was wondering if the old lady would lop off another finger any time soon. Still, I did not feel a particular kinship with Mary Anne beyond that. She is a student in Chicago with an interest in anime, which I do not share. We are generations apart. Next I went for my maiden name. I hit the jackpot! I found another professor who teaches technology classes in a library science program in Georgia. Her name, like my “real” name, is Mary Ann Fitzgerald, and her achievements are quite impressive. She is a very prolific writer and presenter, and I am proud to share her name. Next I checked my daughter’s name, Emily Herring. She is well represented in a Google search. I have done this before, but rediscovered competing postings for two young musicians of about the same age. The “other” Emily is extremely successful in her chosen areas of interest, Broadway musicals and plays. I wonder what she thinks of her name double, a feisty country singer whom she has doubtless encountered on the net. And also, what about you? Is there another “you” out there?

Email? E-mail? Killer app? Has been?

Is email still the killer app? And do you say email or e-mail? And what the heck IS a killer app? Well, first, I say email because it is easier, but I think stylebooks favor e-mail. Picky picky. Second, I don’t know whether email is still considered the killer app or not, and that is the purpose of this entry. Third, according to Wikipedia (yes I DO go there), “A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful or desirable that it proves the value of some underlying technology, such as a gaming console, operating system, or piece of computer hardware.” For a long time, I believed email was THE way to get a technophobe interested in using computers. For this reason it came to be called a killer app. People who were hanging back in the 80’s often came on board with technology when they realized that they could keep up with friends and family FOR FREE via the Internet and email. At the school where I was librarian for fifteen years, I saw a number of folks tentatively start out with email and then go on to use many other applications and incorporate technology into their teaching tools.

Then a while back I was hearing that email was soooo yesterday. Blogs were the new thing! And wikis! And vlogs and podcasts, etc.! And then there was the problem of spam. Blech, I hate spam myself, both the canned kind and the techhie kind. Lowly email was doomed to the long goodbye which might not be all that long in today’s speedy technology driven world of communication. But, email seems to me to still be going strong. I got to thinking about this because Dr. Carol Simpson pointed out that, while blogs are hard to search, mail programs make email increasingly easy to search. I know that is true for my new favorite, Google Mail. I can find stuff there with either the mail search or with Google Desktop. Further, Dr. Simpson warns that spam is now invading blogs. So will email have the last laugh, thumbing its nose at blogs as they slowly sink into the technological tarpits? Gee I wonder what everybody else thinks…

Am I a Dinosaur and the Blogosphere is a Big Tar Pit?

Did I show up for the party too late? I am hearing that country song in my head, “Turn out the lights, the party’s overrrrrr…” I just started my blog recently and since then I have seen some comments that the blogosphere may be imploding, exploding, or otherwise meeting its demise. I got worried when I heard this opinion being voiced by someone I admire, Dr. Carol Simpson. In a recent LM_NET posting, she stated (and I did get permission to quote): “Frankly, blogs are going to go the way of newsgroups, to which they are related. Newsgroups died because email software got better at filtering and organizing.” Her assessment is based on the facts that blogs are difficult to search. Tagging is supposed to be the solution to this, but so far it has not lived up to the promise, or so say blog critics. Further, a blog is something you have to GO TO, and many ask who has time for that, even with RSS?
I went looking for people who agree with Dr. Simpson and find them I did, as Yoda would say. Many are from the business world and, efficient types that such folks are, they also bemoan the difficulty of searching. Consulting the SHSU periodical databases turned up several articles promoting this view.
BUT THEN, I read a quote from someone else I admire, David Warlick! He is quoted in Steve Hargadon’s blog as saying, “He (Warlick) is still the most excited about blogging of all the technologies, because it is all about "conversation." Teachers keep telling him how excited students get about writing. Assignments stop being "assignments," but become engaged conversations. And it's so simple--get to the conversation quickly without a lot of preparation.”
Can they both be right? Maybe so. I think that in the blog world, there is a lot of chaff and much less wheat. Those people who have important or enjoyable sites will survive. So will some of the sites with limited appeal, that are directed at small audiences, like reading club blogs, family blogs, student blogs for various content discussions, etc. I know that, speaking for myself, I am willing to go to certain blogs, and I am not so much going for a specific topic as I am going to hear what that person has to say, period. For example, I will go to Doug Johnson’s blog without knowing what his current topic may be, just because I am interested in his take on just about anything. The same is true for Teri Lesesne’s blog, and others.
Where does that leave me? The jury is absolutely out on that question. I held off starting a blog until I thought I had some definite ideas and time to make entries at least twice a week. I see my blog as a way to explore in more detail topics of interest from listservs or from my own columns. I know LM_NET sometimes seems to need a place to spill over to when a topic gets a lot of discussion, and tell myself I might be able to assist with that. Right now I am enjoying the experience so will continue as long as I feel it is worth the time and effort. Wonder what everybody else thinks?

Geeky Fun

OK so it is Friday night and I am sitting in front of the TV with my laptop, neatly nested in my lounge chair. On the show Numb3rs one of the victims was wearing a flash watch. So off I go Googling for watches with USB slots. Sure enough I found them! Prices range from $10 to $500 range. Not sure I want one though. And then I went from there, next arriving at The Red Ferret Journal, which is surely an impressive repository of geeky things. For instance, get a load of the USB Retro Lamp! Only $10! Why I could probably get $10 worth of fun with that on one trip. Imagine flying at night and switching on this little honey instead of your overhead lamp. Anyway, while admiring it, I noticed the little scrolling display on the lower right. One after another, lovely geeky toys…GPS sneakers! Glove mounted indicator lights! The ultimate pooper scooper!

A little more looking and I realize that Red Ferret links to Wists. Well that makes sense! What is Wists? Take a look…it is social networking meets shopping! Give it a try at http://www.wists.com/

By the way, when I went to Wists (wish list=wists, get it?) and spent a few minutes gazing at other people’s lists and considering where to click, I noticed an ETSY site. What? You have not visited Etsy? Well here it is:

http://www.etsy.com/

And it is the place to shop for all things homemade! Are we having fun yet? Meanwhile the Numb3rs episode is drawing to a close. I had a bunch of fun!

New Site to Me + Fun Finds Via Vanity Searching!

First off, I happened today upon something new to me, and a nice Web 2.0 tool that bridges the "old" and the new. It is Slideshare:
http://www.slideshare.net/
Like so many other Web 2.0 environments, it is free to sign up and then you can upload and share your PowerPoint Presentations or Open Office slideshows. The show I viewed was very clever, and informs us about RSS. Take a look at it and the site as a whole. I just signed up. I have been boycotting PowerPoint of late, because everybody uses it and I don't like to be like everybody else. So for my presentations I usually just post some very simple web pages. BUT, with the uploading so easy and something a bit new, I may think again about PPT. The presentation I was talking about is by David Jakes and located here:
http://www.slideshare.net/djakes/rss-the-new-information-pipeline

Now about the fun finds. Last night I was in my easy chair again, with the TV on, and indulging in my usual pre-bedtime vegetative state. I got the idea to do a couple of vanity searches--you know--when you search for yourself. First I Googled my daughter and came across a really super review of her CD. I had seen it before but it has been quite a while and really I do think this is someone who "gets" what it is she is trying to do. The review is here:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/07/194137.php
Then I thought what the heck, I will Google myself and did so. As always my SHSU page comes up first, which I am glad to see. But look at what I found out there!
http://www.delenemartin.com/?p=116
Wow, is that nice or what! These kind words really made my day, and I found her blog in general to be one I will follow and recommend to students.