Category: Web/Tech
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Search Engine Users – PEW Report
You’ve probably seen this already, but this is how your distance students think they do with search engines… No significant mention of libraries, just some user demographics. Search Engine Users Internet users are very happy with their experiences searching the internet, but many are naïve about how they search and the results they find. [via…
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Embedded Librarians
There’s an interesting thread on the OffCamp listserv right now about how best to become an embedded librarian.
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Google Video Bookmarklet
Tangential to distance education (or at least library support of), but it was easy to build so I thought I’d post it here. Back in November there were a couple announcements about multimedia search engines. Well today the 300LB Gorilla came to the door in the form of Google Video Search (beta of course). Right…
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Macromedia Captivate vs. Qarbon Viewletbuilder Pro
At the end of last year I finally got around to playing with the demo version of Macromedia Captivate, and my initial impression was quite favorable. In that brief review I promised that I would create identical tutorials in each tool so we could all compare the output. They’re not pretty or pedagogically sound; I…
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Getting closer to linking into Digital Dissertations
New category added for my blog today: Linking. One of the things I use this blog for is as a reference tool, a place to keep annotated bookmarks. As a new semester begins I’m asked by faculty to help them build persistent links to articles to insert into BlackBoard, and I can do the common…
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OCLC’s Data Visualization Pilot with Antarctica Systems Inc.
This is pretty neat. I’ve seen other pilots of Antarctica’s visual catalogue interface before, but this is the first one I’ve seen that attempts to lead you to an online version of the book in question. The interface is really fast, which I appreciate. Maybe that’s because this is a small test set of data? …
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ebrary Introduces Isaac; Launches Custom Collections; Announces Perpetual Access Model; Distributes Via Blackwell’s; Partners with BookSurge
My library doesn’t subscribe to ebrary, but this is certainly news of interest to those supporting distance education… ebrary Introduces Isaac; Launches Custom Collections; Announces Perpetual Access Model; Distributes Via Blackwell’s; Partners with BookSurge [via EContent: Breaking News]
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The Future of Books
I think Technology Review might be my new favorite publication. Just finished a short article called The Future of Books, by Jason Epstein, who "…worked in book publishing for more than 4o years. He was editorial director of Random House and founded Anchor Books, the New York Review of Books, the Library of America, and…
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Good graphic for the invisible web
I just finished reading an interesting article in Technology Review (What’s next for Google) that’s mostly about how Google has to start paying more attention to MS or risk being eaten, but what caught my eye was a neat table with the caption, "The searchable Internet (in red) contains only a fraction as much information…
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Macromedia Captivate – First Impressions
For a long time now I’ve wanted to compare my favorite tutorial-building tool, Qarbon ViewletBuilder, to Macromedia Robodemo. Well I waited so long Macromedia came out with a new product called Captivate, and during this slow week before Christmas I finally took some time to give it a test drive. I hope to build the…