Virtual Library Tour

As a part of the Web 2.0 Projects, I made the decision to take part in a photo sharing project. For this, I had to take some pictures of my library and create a virtual tour of sorts. My library is the beautiful Grand Rapids Public Library, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was able to get some great photos of the outside of the building. Unfortunately, when I entered the building, I was not granted permission to take photos of the inside, so I suppose this virtual tour has a fee of sorts. I compiled my photos into a set on my Flickr account. So, form a single file line for your very own virtual tour of the Grand Rapids Public Library! (sort of)

Twitter Project-Final Blog

Wow, well, it looks like this semester is almost finished for me. For this project, I had to experiment with a form of technology that I could use in a library. I decided to go with Twitter for this project. After all, I'm one of those people who was late to getting a Twitter account, now would be my perfect excuse to take part in the Twitter epidemic. Honestly, I found Twitter to be trivial, but I never found myself checking my page constantly for updates from those that I followed. I found plenty of people to follow, that wasn't too much of a problem. There were a multitude of library organizations on Twitter to follow as well as some of the bands that I listen to and celebrities that I enjoy. I followed The Grand Rapids Public Library, Kent District Library, and OCLC, to name a few. I found that the Kent District Library page was very helpful due to the fact that they will post whenever a job opening is available on their Twitter page. The Grand Rapids Public Library gave me helpful updates of when it will close early, or what activities are going on there. OCLC helped me stay up to date on the latest edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification. I already think microblogging has been implemented into many libraries quite well. All of the uses that I could think of, such as posting job openings, hours, and program updates, are already being done with Twitter. While I personally don't check my Twitter account as often as I should, the times that I would check it, I was provided with very useful information. I think Twitter is a great why to provide this technologically absorbed generation with sufficient information.

Session 13 Skills Blog

For this blog post, I decided to use the article "Hardening the Browser" by Kathleen M. Kern. This article was published in the Spring of 2012. I found my article in the Academic Search Premiere database of EBSCHO HOST. In order to find this article, I kept the search terms rather simple by typing in library internet, all lower case. "Hardening the Browser" speaks of increasing the privacy of library users' information when they use the internet. The features of each popular web browsers are covered, and then the author describes which areas of security need to be improved in each web browser. I know that my library primarily uses Mozilla FireFox, because they believe that that browser is the easiest to protect user information with.

Picasa Project.

For the grand total of 2 people that view my blog posts, does anyone here remember the movie Fargo? You know, the movie that takes place in the middle of nowhere, and it's really snowy all the time? Well, this winter when I was out in Allendale, Michigan, I couldn't help but think of that movie when I saw the beautiful countryside that was around me, so I decided to take pictures of it. I was going to take pictures of the some of the flooding that the Grand River has done to me here, but when I saw this album, I couldn't resist but upload a slideshow of these pictures instead. What I found to be pretty coincidental is that I drive an economy car just like the character off of Fargo did, and I'm driving in a similar area. Go find the opening credits soundtrack to these pictures and it will fit pretty well. Anyway, I'm getting off topic, I just wanted to share these.

Web 2.0 Project

So for my Web 2.0 Project, I decided to do the Twitter Project. Here is a link to my Twitter page, my username is just Spencer Litten. https://twitter.com/SpencerLitten

Search Skills Blog

     For this post, I was to find a peer reviewed, full text article about library website design. The title of the article that I found is "Library Website Design and Database Access" by Barbara T. Mates. The article was published in the academic journal Library Technology Reports as a part of the May/June 2004 issue, volume 40, Issue 3. I found my article in the EBSCO Host Academic Search Premiere database through the Ivy Tech Virtual Library. I found this article by simply typing in library website design, in all lower case, in the search bar of Academic Search Premiere.

     "Library Website Design and Database Access" alludes to our previous session of assistive technology by stating that library website design should be detailed enough for patrons to find information successfully, but at the time same should be accessible for those with physical disabilities. According to this article, the library website is no longer a novelty, and is now a necessity in this technology driven world. This article touches on many of the concepts that were mentioned in Chapter 12 of our textbook such as how a library website should be remote accessible for users. I do happen to have some personal experience with website design. About six or seven years ago now when I was in middle school, I became incredibly curious with how websites were designed.

     After some quick research, I stumbled across HTML, and then began to teach myself how to use it. I would make fake websites through notepad when I would get bored, and did make a website of sorts back in the day through a free domain provider, but I'm not sure if it even exists anymore. I had and still have a lot of fun with HTML, and thanks to it, I've considered the position of web librarian.

Virtual Reference Project

At the Grand Rapids Public Library, I don't believe that virtual reference is available just yet. I think with such a large population, virtual reference may come in handy. Virtual reference may be an effective part of library staff time depending on the questions asked. I didn't have any complaints about using Skype, it seemed rather novel to be able to talk to someone through my computer. Well, I actually just used a text chat. However, Skype may be an inconvenience to patrons who do not have the technology for a video call.