When I Worked in My School Library.........

When I  Worked in My  School Library a very confused guy asked me for help. " The computer just started typing  in Latin. I can't understand it." he said. It turns out he was typing in italics.

Susanna  Wolf, collegehumor.com.

Interviewing a Technician

Assignment #3

Bokshim Fox / MLIS 7505 / Dr. Yang / Summer 2012

Identify libraries (2 or 3 depending on the group size) that use Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 technologies and conduct interviews with librarians or administrators who using these technologies on a regular basis.

Interviewing the technician/ assistant director, Valerie Blanchard was a very helpful experience. She has been working at the Lake Blackshear Regional Library (LBRL) for about 6 years as a technician, and she pursued her Specialist degree in Information Studies. She has great knowledge and technological abilities.

1. How and where did you hear about CMS?

v  We covered it at FSU when I was getting my Specialist degree, and I'd been using it here since 2007.

2. What were our library’s motivations to adopt CMS for its current use (library website     or any other purpose?)

v  It's what our web host used so we went with it. He will make changes to our website if we need him to, but I always do so it will look like we want.

3. What were our library’s decision-making criteria?

v  Cost, ease of use

4. How long have we been using Joomla? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Joomla?

v  Since 2005-2006. It has a great user interface but like many open-source software, it always has a few bugs with each update.

5. Would you prefer to use HTML and CSS over Joomla? Why or why not?

v  No! Joomla actually gives me a choice. I can do most of it using the Editor, then tweak it in html. But no, as bad as the Editor acts up sometimes, I'd hate to know I had to code it manually for each page!

6. What are the important benefits or advantages of CMS for our library we are using now over the old system or another CMS system our library used in the past?

v  This is the only one we've ever used.

7. How was the learning curve?

v  Not too bad. I learned as I went, and since it resembles most editors, creating an article is pretty easy.

Reflection:

Technician’s main / multiple duties.

—  System administrator

—  Webmaster

—  Tech person everything related to computer problems…more)

—  Provide all tech support for the LBRLS, from apps and software to hardware

At the academic library where I work, the technician doesn’t have responsibilities like the public librarian has because the university has an IT department and Web designers. These staff members work for the whole university, including the library.  If the library has problems related web design or IT, they have IT specialists to come to the library and fix the problems.

Therefore, I’ve learned that the technician that the public library has has more duties than the academic library technician. Also, she has to have abilities to fix all kind of problems related to technology.

What Kind of Advice for MLIS 7505 Classmates?

Get as much technological training and study as you possibly can while in grad school, because technology IS the future of libraries.

Shelf Life

The book parents tried most frequntly to ban from libraries and schools last year. Complaint No. 1: sex.

1. TTYL (series) by Lauren Myarcle
2. THE COLO OF EARTH (SERIES) by Kim Dong Hwa
3. THE HUNGR GAMS( TRILOGY) by uzanne Collins
4. MY MOM'S HAVING A BABY ! by Dori Hilestead Butler
5. THE ABOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF APART- TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie

Joomla

                              A summary of your activities and experiences of Joomla

Learning about the Joomla software was a new discovery for me and creating menus and articles with Joomla was a very interesting experience. First, in order to use the Joomla software, I had to install the demo version of Joomla, and I signed up to use it for a 30-day trial. After I signed up, I got a confirmation e-mail, and I confirmed it.  Then, I got another e-mail, and it contained my login information, the user name and password. After I logged in with my user name and password, I was able to access the Joomla program.

There were different kinds of manager features and tools on Joomla, such as media manager, category manager, and global configuration. However, mainly I used module, article, and templates managers to do the assignment. I created two menus and articles, and using the tool was not as complicated as I had thought. I thought I would have to put some special computer language codes in to create the menus and the article. However, I didn’t have to do that.  Now I have confidence to use the Joomla in the future.

Finding a Wiki for a Library (LBRLS)

I chose Lake Blackshear Regional Library for finding a Wiki for this library assignment.  The reason is that I currently work at the library, so I’m familiar with the library. Also, I would like to help the library to better serve the community.

The library is located in Americus, GA, and the population of the community is about 19,000. The library contains about 90,000 materials, and there are three librarians and ten employees at the library. The LBRLS related PINES system and the library has five branch libraries in different locations in GA. 

I would use 3F WIKI to meet the library’s requirements.  3F WIKI contains many good features for the public library below:

ü  3F WIKI has been installed with the following database servers so far: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL, SQLite3 and even Microsoft Access.

ü  3F WIKI has been designed to operate as a CGI behind the Apache 2.x Web Server.

ü  By leveraging HTML Macro interface, web designers can make Wiki look like any web site on the Internet.

ü  The most important aspect of people finding you and your content, our built-in search engine has no equal.3F Wiki have 5 programmable search algorithms making our product work with any language. Our "May we suggest?" feature rivals that of Google's "Did you mean?”

The PINES search engine is well known for being unfriendly to its users, and I always wanted to have a better search system at the library because the current search interface is not efficient. In my opinion, search interface is one of the most significant tools of the library in helping the patrons to effectively save time. It also saves the librarians’ time as well. That’s why I would like to use 3F Wiki for the libray.

HTML & CSS

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the main markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language.

Information Architecture Class

Last spring semester, I took Information Architecture (MLIS 7370) course, and it was my first computer class.  I’ve learned HTML and CSS from the course.

BokshimFox

Welcome to My Blogger!

My name is Bokshim Fox, and I'm currently enrolled in the course, MLIS 7505, Applied Tech Library Practice. I'm very excited to learn about my classmates and the material!