Over 600 internet video sites, and STILL nothing good to watch.

Wow, I had no idea I was missing out on all this online TV. Well, except for YouTube. The other sites I haven't heard of.

So I did the same search in all of the listed sites, and most were able to read my mind, but some didn't do a great job. I searched the term "harp" at each site, wanting videos of people playing the harp, as in a big musical instrument normally associated with angels. Blip.tv, YouTube, and MetaCafe came up with mostly videos of people playing the harp. The closest Viddler and Revver did was a guy playing a guitar on his lap, and someone playing a harmonica (which is not a harp). You Are TV apparently either can't read my mind or doesn't have any harpists posting.



Here is a cool video of a SIX YEAR OLD playing the harp. Amazing.

I was thinking it would be great to have video tutorials on the intranet. For instance, a tutorial on how to use a particular database, or on how a new procedure in Circulation is done. The major problem with that is timeliness. Procedures change overnight, so the videos would quickly become outdated. The solution would be to have someone dedicated to creating and uploading videos, which would cost money.

Other great ways to use online videos on our website:

• An instructional video on how to use our new self-checkout machines
• Tour the library from home! People could get a feel for each library before they go there.
• How about those school tours? Why not post an introductory video online that the class could watch before they come? That way they have more time at the library to do their research and look at books, and the librarians don't have to go hoarse giving the same basic information over and over, but can then spend their time helping people find things.
• Or how about a weekly or monthly feature video that highlights a particular library service or collection? For instance, one week the feature video could explain ILL, another week could be DIS, or the OPACs, or the world languages collection, bookmobiles, etc. The possibilities are endless.
• What about a "Behind the Scenes" video for people who are curious as to how a book makes it into circulation?

Tivo for the internet...

That was my revelation whilst perusing the materials on podcasting. Podcasting is like Tivoing your favorite shows, only instead of TV shows you're recording other programs/content and having it "recorded" via RSS to your computer or Ipod or digital device, for you to enjoy at your convenience. Again, I can't think of any sites that I frequent that podcasting would be relevant to, but it is interesting. If used by the library for marketing purposes, it would cover a very small portion of our patrons (those tech savvy enough to be using podcasts), so perhaps wouldn't be worth it. On the other hand, it would be useful to podcast content for patrons who can't see.

How come we say "audio visual" not "visual audio"?

Here is my rundown of online musicking, in order of preference:

#1: Songza.com

I like it because you can search AND PLAY exactly what you want, and save your playlist. It is simple, easy, and quick. The only downside is that you get multiple listings for each song, some of which are scratchy, live, or otherwise not what you want. You have to listen to a few before finding one that is good. But then you save it to your playlist, so you don't have to do that everytime you listen.

#2: Pandora.com

I like Pandora because of it's "sounds like" features. You type in an artist or a song, and it creates a radio station around that artist or song, meaning it plays a mixture of that artist's music as well as similar artists. It is a great way to discover artists you don't know. The downside is that there is a limit to the number of songs you can "fast-forward" through if you don't like them.

#3: last.fm

This is sort of a combination of Pandora and Songza and Facebook, except you can't always listen to the specific song you want to like you can in Songza. Unlike Songza you can connect with other people by seeing who else listens to your music, tag the songs, etc.

#4: IMEEM

This is my least favorite because of it's layout and complexity. There is so much going on the page it is hard to understand, the layout isn't as readable as last.fm, and in short I wasn't motivated to spend much time at IMEEM since I am lazy and easily frustrated. I'm sticking with Songza.

As for the other online media sites:

Internet Archive

Too confusing. I did a couple of searches and came up with random crap or nothing. Moving on to the Absolute Sound Effects Archive, the link didn't work. So, onto:

Gutenberg.org's Audio Book Collection

This site is cool. I didn't actually download and listen to any books, but I trust that it would work and when I have time someday I might try it out. There are a lot of old books in a lot of formats, and I think it is a great service for those who can't read.

Mango Languages

I spoke German for a while when I was in college and lived in Vienna, so I thought I'd give the first lesson in German a try. Fortunately it was free, and you could hear the recordings clearly. Unfortunately if I didn't already understand the basics of German grammar I wouldn't have understood what they were trying to explain in the lesson with regards to the grammar. So although the idea is great, their lesson isn't the greatest. I wouldn't recommend Mango.

The only site I can really see the library using is the online audio books on Gutenberg. It would be a nice service to offer patrons the ability to download audio books.

Google Docs Rocks!

This is an addendum to my previous post, Google Docs Ditty: Google Docs saved my butt last weekend. It was Sunday night, I was finishing up my school assignments that were due to be emailed by the following day. And guess what happened? The computer crashed.

Luckily, just THAT DAY I had saved a copy to Google Docs as a backup (actually, I was procrastinating earlier in the day, and thinking what else I could do on the internet before continuing with my school work, and the thought popped into my head "I could save a copy of my Word files to Google Docs as a back-up." So I did. Yes, I have a jumpdrive, but I was too lazy to go get it. I mean, the internet is right there.). What a freakin' coincidence! I was able to access my file from my roommate's laptop and finish my assignments on time, thanks to Google Docs. The ONLY downside was that some of the formatting was lost, but that doesn't matter as much as the actual data. I shudder to think what the outcome would have been had I not just learned about Google Docs at work. Thank you Discovery 2.0!

Google Docs Ditty

I grabbed a book
and took a look
and what did I behold?
A brownish spot
that smelled a lot,
and no, it wasn't mold.

I like to call the above ditty "The Joys of Delivery." I composed it, and this whole post, on Google Docs, which I think is an excellent invention. We should have Google Docs bookmarked on all of the computers. That way when patrons forget their jumpdrive and we no longer have floppys, they can still save their work, and better yet access it from home (or if they don't have internet access at home just save it and come back later with a jumpdrive). Actually, there are other programs we've been learning about that would also be great to have bookmarked on the PALs, like Goodreads and Librarything. What a great reader's advisory tool! Much more user-friendly than Novelist, I think.