Kompozer no longer driving me Krazy

For our first HTML assignment, we had to format a fragment of Dickens' American Notes, which seems easy enough after watching the lectures and reading articles and tutorials. Of course when I went to attempt it...no go. It took me over an hour of playing with Kompozer to realize I just didn't have the time or patience the night before the assignment was due to figure it out. I resorted to using the most basic means possible, TextEdit with my Mac, which I actually think was better for that assignment. It helped me understand how to actually write the tags and how to make it work, and I still had to work with FileZilla to upload it.

For this last assignment (adding links to the Dickens fragment and making it a separate webpage), I tried again to use Kompozer. It was a lot easier after Professor Tomer ran through it in class Tuesday night. I understand that making us figure things out on our own helps us to learn and understand more, but sometimes it just feels like a waste of time when I play around for hours and don't get the programs to work the way I want, and then after watching a lecture that runs through it, I can get the assignment done in half an hour.

Caffeine Please.

Oh goodness some of these readings are difficult. Since the world refuses to exist with 50 hours in a day instead of 24, I'm now speed-reading through Wealth of Networks and supplemental articles online for our LIS 2000 essay due Wednesday...but I literally cannot read more than 10 minutes of Wealth before I start to fall asleep. I'm actually a little worried about how to shape up this essay. All three assigned books talked verrrry extensively about copyright and its history, laws, litigation, effects on society, etc. but the topic of the essay is the effects of copyright and intellectual property laws on library services, which the three books don't delve into to much. I've found a decent amount of supplemental articles that discuss the topic, but I'm hoping my essay is alright with citing the articles more than the actual books.

And now I'm digitally rambling. Back to work.

Friendly Faces at Fast Track Weekend

As I was walking over to the IS building Friday morning for our first Fast Track weekend, I felt a little like a high schooler on the first day of classes or a new freshman on campus for the first time. I was excited, nervous...and anxious to get the exam over with so I could relax my brain for a bit before tackling the rest of the school work due this week.

I've been "talking" to most of these people and reading their blogs for two months now, but it was so nice to put faces to the names. And what a diverse group! I think having such different backgrounds, careers, and lives is what really helps us as classmates to have the kind of discussions that we do.

By Saturday afternoon, it seemed like everyone had a weight lifted off their shoulders. It was so helpful to finally have an orientation of sorts into the program, the LIS library (which I honestly did not know existed so extensively as it does), the potential career paths, the possible program tracks, and be able to realize that these names that I see on the screen are people just like me, just as busy, just as stressed, but they're getting though it so I can too. Yes this is scary, but I'm now looking forward to the next two years very much.

Droid does EVERYTHING.

So I was playing around with the apps on my Droid last night, and I found something called "Kindle for Android." So of course I immediately think: finally something to blog about!

My goal next time I have a saved-up chunk of change (oh, probably in ten years) is to invest in an e-book reader. I honestly don't think I'll really like it that much; like many other people, I'd much rather prefer old school "analog" books. However, getting started in the library and information technology world, it's probably best to experience first hand the options that are being created. Don't get me wrong, if I spend that much money it will get used...I'll just like books better. :)

Until then, apparently my Android cell phone can get me started. Instead of the Kindle app, I downloaded one called "Aldiko," because it had high reviews. Briefly browsing through the possible books to download, there are a lot of classics, comics, romance, western literature. I can search for a particular book within the system, and the time it takes to download a book is less than a few minutes. It is very interesting to look through, but I really can't see myself using it too often. Like I mentioned, I'd much rather go to a public library or bookstore and pick up a hard copy of a book instead of staring at a tiny screen and tapping it to "flip the pages." It might come in handy if I take the bus and need something to do or if I have a sudden urge to read Pride and Prejudice or Dracula, but other than that, lead me to the nearest bookstore please.

A productive vacation? That's silly.

I took my computer, books, and notebooks to the beach with me on vacation this past week...did I honestly think I was going to get both school work and job tasks completed? I forgot what a vacation is for: to get away from everything for awhile. So, while the trip was great and I feel recharged, now I'm back to trying to catch up and keep up with everything. Ah.

As a recent undergraduate, I'm a little thrown by grad school. I'm constantly watching lectures, reading books/articles, and doing supplemental work, and I feel confident that this is the right degree and career path for me. The things I'm learning are exciting and I look forward to doing the work; the tasks I need to complete are never a waste of my time (unlike taking a bio class requirement as an Art History major). It is just so overwhelming sometimes! Our class has learned so much in the past two months, but I get anxious every time I think about how much more is out there to learn about this new career path.

I am an optimist, so bring it on!

Procrastination

I'm slacking on the two posts a week requirement. For the readers out there (aka classmates and Mom), I don't want to blog just to blog and have it be a complete waste of your time. I'll leave this one short and sweet and just comment on our first quiz.

Even though we had all weekend to complete the quiz, of course I left it until Sunday night to do. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. Ironically, (and luckily for me) procrastination usually produces my best work. Anyway, this was my first time taking a quiz online, and it was kind of difficult. I'm used to the quiet classroom with 30 other people and the clock ticking minute by minute. Instead, I took an online quiz sitting on my carpet with my dog sleeping next to me and time flying by. I think I did alright, at least I answered all of the questions, but I was constantly worried my computer was going to crash or the site would kick me off. Maybe being in a different setting (like a library!) for the next quiz will help me focus.

Jing-Zotero Assignment

For our assignment due 6/9 we had to create a brief presentation with audio narrative showing how to download and configure Zotero. Enjoy!

Now back to work on the LIS 2000 essay due tomorrow as well...

OED3

I just finished The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester, for LIS 2000. (Of course, as soon as I finished reading it, I realized I had taken three hours to read the completely wrong book for an essay assignment.) It's the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, which, as daunting as it sounds, was actually a fast and interesting read. The book mainly tells the story of the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which took 76 years to create and is twelve volumes. It mentions the Second Edition which came out in 1989 and is twenty volumes, and Winchester speculates on the Third Edition which is currently being created.

This third edition, conveniently shortened "OED3", expected to have forty volumes and could reach a million words. (http://cogscilibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-unregistered-words-to-oed3.html) Winchester brings up excellent possible disadvantages regarding the OED3, such as environmental waste and taking up too much space, and he throws out the possibility that OED3 might only be available online.

Is this a good idea? Should we even entertain the fact of printing such a massive collection or go straight to a digital version? (It might be a refreshing change of pace...at least there would be no arguments on the best way to digitize the collection!) The historian, romantic, and pack-rat in me would like to see a printed version just for the sake of having one created. Unlike local newspapers, hardly read novels, and barely circulated journal articles, there is no question on the importance of keeping a record of the entire English Language. No matter how many digital copies and formats we have, wouldn't you just feel safer with a printed version to keep in libraries and universities?

Luckily we have plenty of time to figure out the answer to this question...the latest estimated completion date of OED3 is 2037.

Connected

In LIS 2000 (Understanding Information), the group discussion this week involves the question of whether libraries and librarians themselves are becoming obsolete. As technology evolves, more e-books are created, more journals are scanned, and more articles and books are published directly on the internet, and so on. Will this lead to less trips to the library, less hard copies being checked out, less human librarians needed to help with research?

In one word: Yes.

It is extremely faster and more convenient to be able to access the information you need from the internet in the comfort of your own home instead of traveling to the library, searching the catalog, wandering around the stacks, lugging massive books around, and hoping it has the quote or piece of text that you need. (I actually happen to love this part of researching, but I know there are not many of us left.) If there's a rare italian 17th century book that an art history student needs for a thesis, instead of going through the inter-library loan process and waiting weeks or months for the book, the student can possibly just have the scanned copy sent to them in days. If they're lucky.

If the librarian of tomorrow is smart, she will embrace the technological evolutions to avoid the threat of obsolescence.

In addition to the new ways of finding information, I think that it's also very important to stay up to date with the different ways of sharing information. With the ever growing social networks, blogs, webpages, and so on, it's definitely not difficult to share information...the hard part is keeping up with all of the different ways of sharing. In addition to having three email addresses (work, personal, and school), a Facebook account, a MySpace profile (if people still use MySpace anymore), and this newly created blog, I also created a Twitter account after discussing with my friends the benefits of following "tweets." I am so connected it's scary.

Just call me Overwhelmed...

Hello to the impossible-to-imagine number of MLIS students, friends, and random people in the world reading this blog.

First ever blog and first ever semester in graduate school. It doesn't help that due to work circumstances, I am now officially 2.5 weeks behind in starting both of my classes, and overwhelmed does not even begin to describe how I feel. How did I ever think I could work a full-time job, spend 20+ hours a week on school work for a masters, and have a life, let alone sleep, eat, and be human?

The little devil on my shoulder is telling me to stop whining and get back to reading Double Fold so I don't fail...so I'll leave this at one of those emotional ventilation posts and tell myself that the rest will be more optimistic, entertaining, and academically sound.