Thing 17 ELM

Before getting to the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) another Paris shot, this one from the Musée d'Orsay. One of the strategies we employed in many of the Paris museums was to concentrate on a particular format or time period, for example paintings or 19th century. This worked very well and helped us not to feel overwhelmed by all the riches surrounding us in each of the collections. In a way, it was kind of like setting up a search alert in ELM. You create the limits for the materials you're looking for and then let it all come to you.

I've got search alerts set up in the EBSCO databases for anything relating to Conan Doyle or Sherlock Holmes. Once a week I get an e-mail with any hits that have come up based on my criteria. I take these hits and export them to my RefWorks database and then once a month, after a little formating and editing, post my findings in my ongoing Holmes and Doyle bibliography found on the web page for our Holmes collections.

In playing around with the Page Composer I found it a little clunky. It isn't really easy to stick an image on the page. It seemed to work best with text and background, but when you wanted to add other stuff it got a little more complicated. Like anything else, the more you play around with it the easier it will get.

Creating web pages in ProQuest was a breeze. I'm still trying to figure out how I might use these pages, for example, in a class or for some kind of presentation. I'm sure the opportunity will present itself.

The notes function in NetLibrary could be interesting as well. I did a search for Sherlock Holmes books and found quite a few. This would be a way to create some annotations with the text.

Thing 14 Library Thing

What would my little side trip to Paris be without a picture of this, the Eiffel Tower. This was taken during our first night in Paris as we walked around and got an initial feel for the city. We did a lot of walking because of the transit strike, but it was a great way to experience the city. Also, because of the strike, there were long lines (even during the early evening) to get up into the tower. We took a pass on the chance and just kept exploring.

As to the Library Thing...one of the interesting uses of this tool that came my way was the use made by a donor. All of his material had been entered into Library Thing and it was a great way for me (and others) to peruse the collection and get a sense of what all was there. I thought this was a very creative use of this tool. Not all of my donors will go this route, but it was a great help in this particular case.

One of the items that caught me eye with this tool is the limit on the number of things that can be entered for free, i.e. 200. Beyond that you can enter as many as you like, for a small price. This is the first time that I've run into this kind of limit, although there's something of the sort on the photo sharing sites. At the same time, it kind of blows you away to see that over 25 million books have been cataloged by members.

I've been wondering how the Library Thing differs from something like, say, RefWorks where you can dump records into your database(s) from online catalogs and yet still have the opportunity to share this material with others. I do a lot of work on RefWorks (although its not shared with others at the moment). But inquiries have come from others about this possibility.

When looking at some of the other links I was struck by how active some are and how inactive others are. It seems, in the latter case, like there might have been a great flurry of activity and then interest dropped off. The MLA group, for example, has a fairly small membership and not a lot of talk happening. I've experienced something similar with being a part of Gather. Like so much else, it takes time. I'm part of some books groups on Gather, but its been a while since I've been online, so I know I've missed out on some conversations. Not just enough hours in the day...

Don't lose this thought

A note to self. Part of the key with 2.0 stuff seems to be interactivity. So, for instance, I have an ongoing bibliography that I'm creating on work related to Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. In an interactive 2.0 world, would there be a tool that could be created (if it doesn't already exist) to allow interested people to suggest additional entries to the bibliography? I do a lot of the bibliographic work using RefWorks, so would it be possible for me to create a basic input template somewhere on the web page that would allow folks to input a new citation and that citation, in turn, would be automatically loaded into my working file of things to check and edit before I add them to the bibliography? Just a thought, but one I didn't want to lose. And, of course, I'm wondering who (if anyone) will see or hear those questions? (Another part of learning about this 2.0 world!)