BOOH!!!!!

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!

Your favorite spooky Librarian......................

Aloha world of Wiki's

Friends lets just get it out of the way now! When you heard the word wiki you thought  Wikipedia right? You thought to yourself; why would I want to read an entire blog about Wikipedia?  I use it everyday and I know everything there is to know about Wikipedia. Well my friends I have something to tell you. Wiki isn't Wikipedia.............

Your shocked aren't you? Granted Wikipedia is the most famous wiki page in the world right now, but it is not by any means the oldest. In fact it is only one of millions out there.

So if Wiki is not short of Wikipedia then what does it mean?

A wiki is a piece of server software that easily allows members to participate in the creation of the web site quickly and easily without any prier HTML knowledge. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has simple text syntax for creating new page and links between pages. So basically a wiki is a type of website where any member of the site can easily go into the page and change information without having to have a degree in computer speak. As an example lets use the big bad world of Wikipedia, which as you may or may not know is a online dictionary of sorts. Members and staff of Wikipedia will enter information on a subject and than post it.  What if a member reading it can looks at the page and says "hey that's not entirely correct!" Well than that member can go in and change the information. The change can be performed as easily as typing in text in a word program. There are no codes to know or formulas to figure out. If enough people on Wikipedia agree that a piece of information is correct, it will then be changed on the page.
This is a screen shot to show you an example of Wikipedia:

The little numbers in brackets represent citations; which can be changed. Occasionally with the citation there will be a note stating that a citation or more information is needed. Information on Wikipedia can actually be published before the information is agreed to be fact. The blue font is of course links; which will bring you to other pages within the Wikipedia world. All wikis allow you to utilize links very simply without any knowledge.

Now there are good and bad things about being able to so easily change information. An example of the bad is comedian Stephan Colbert. On his show "The Colbert Report" he has routinely asked his audience to all go to Wikipedia, on specific articles and change the information to make it incorrect. The flaw is that with enough people claiming something is fact it does become fact. If enough people stated the sky is green Wikipedia could actually post that as fact. This does not seem to be much of a problem for smaller wiki sites.

Wiki sites can be large or small; on any topic. They can be used internally within companies, or externally to fans or groups. If you wanted to start a wiki site of your own; on say your favorite TV show or band, books you have read or even a political party you choose to support; the first thing you want to do is go to a site such as Wikia, webpaint or pbworks. These are all FREE wiki web hosting sites that will help you get started. Out of there three I personally like Wikia the best. It seems the most straight forward and easy to use site. Plus it just looks the best of the three. And lets be honest a big part of the websites we choose to use these days is based on the aesthetics. PB works is aimed towards businesses and the site seems a little too beige and boring for my taste.

Now as with many of the things I have blogged about, I have never really used wikis before; other then the king of the wiki of course. I use Wikipedia all the time; but I do not think my use has anything to do with the fact that the information can easily be changed. I like the idea of community use of web sites and the simplicity of wikis, but I don't think I would really use them myself. I personally think that if I wanted to import information of any kind on a website I would just use a blog perhaps. I don't think I would ever take the time to follow another wiki or change information in any other wiki. I can see for certain groups of people why wikis would be quite useful for being able to easily change information but for my personal use I do not find them that useful.

One place that could easily benefit from Wikis use would be libraries; especially public libraries. Internally libraries could use wiki's to communicate information to each other. The best feature of course is the fact that so many hosting sites are free to the library. Any free services that the library can use are things we should take advantage of. There are many uses for a library wiki page. Higher ups could put information in a wiki page and the people who respond can easily add or change information as needed. Also patrons could benefit from things such as changes in hours, upcoming events, new materials available in the library, library history and general information; such as late fees, card applications and types of materials available. The nice part is that all the things on the libraries wiki page can easily be changed without hiring on outside company to run a website or an expert in html
.

While I was researching wikis I did come across a few that I thought were fun, so if your want to see a few examples of different types of wikis then please take a look!

1. The Mighty Boosh Wiki 

This is an example of a very simple, user friendly television show wiki.(And my personal favorite show!)

The Mighty Boosh

2.Hello Kitty
This is an example of a Wikia wiki page. A nice, colorful page dedicated to Hello Kitty, with pictures, video and text.
Hello Kitty Wiki

3. Travel Wikis
A very wikipedia style travel wiki page. This one is is a very classically styled page that is easy to use. There is a lot of information to find and the ease of use is high.
A travel Wiki 

 So now that you have said Aloha to Wiki's what do you think? Would you or do you use wikis? Let us know below!

Till next time friends!
Sincerely 
Amanda- Head Librarian.


Librarian Currently Listening to: City Lounge: Paris
                                                    Lies that Chelsea Lately Told Me- Audio Book
Library Currently Reading:
The Swan Thieves- Elizabeth Kostova

 

The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton : Noel Fielding

Random facts for today:

Google: 1,000,000 servers, 24,000 employees.
Facebook: 60,000 servers, 2,000 employees.
Microsoft: 220,000 servers, 90,000 employees.
Yahoo: 50,000 servers, 13,900 employees.
Wikimedia: 370 servers, 73 employees.

Favorite inappropriate book of the day-  If You Give a Kid a Cookie:

To celebrate the last days of Canadian Library Month don't forget to stop by any local branch to drop off a book in our donate a book program! Or stop by any of this weekends children's reading events with Where the Wild Things are read by David Sedaris on Saturday and The Cat In The Hat read by Chuck Palahnuik.

Real Smart Stuff about RSS feeds

Librarian currently listening to: William Orbit- Pieces in a Modern Style.

                                                Royksopp- Junior and Senior

Good to see you again friends and patrons.

You have now officially entered into the world of blogging. As it turns out it can be a lot of fun. You started following our blog, your friend’s blogs, cooking blogs, and art blogs. You have even started following the blogs of big organizations such as CNN, The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the Onion. But now that you have all these blogs to follow how will you keep track of them all? There is the old fashion way. Every day you could log on to each individual blog to see what; if anything they have updated that day. Don’t forget to write them down on a piece of paper so you don’t forget any of them. Maybe you could add them to your favorites on the browser you happen to use. That would make it a little easier to keep track. I don’t know about you, but I do not have that kind of time on my hands. I do not want to go to a bunch of blogs only to find out they have nothing new. This is where the RSS feeds come in handy.

What is an RSS feed?

Admittedly if you asked me this question yesterday I would not have been able to answer it. Up till yesterday I didn’t know what an RSS feed was or how it was used. But today I know the answer and I am glad you asked.

Originally called RDF (Resource Description Framework), RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Unfortunately the explanation is anything but simple. RSS takes all these blog entries, news headlines, music and videos that you subscribe to; and in a standardized format they publish the frequent updates.This is all done through one standardized format. It is all clear now right? It wasn’t for me either. Basically an RSS feed is a way of getting updates from all the sites you subscribe to. Instead of you going to each website individually all the news you want comes to you. And with this method it is only the news you want that comes to you. Your favorite writer is coming to town at some point this year, but you don’t know when. You could go to the website every day and see if there may be an update. Or you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed and when the information is updated; bling it will come to you.

Now that you know what an RSS feed is how do you use it? Let me explain.
The first thing you will need to do in order to use the RSS feeds is get yourself an RSS reader. Readers are free websites that you can use to house all your feeds and information. The lucky thing is to access one all you need is email account. When it comes to the readers you have many options to choose from. Some of the most popular include Google Reader (GoogleReader), Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), Newsgator (www.newsgator.com) and MyYahoo (ca.my.yahoo.com). For a full list and reviews of RSS readers you can check out Choosing an RSS reader or lib guides to choosing RSS readers

The handy thing I found out is that I already subscribed to a reader and didn’t even know it! I happen to be a Gmail girl. (Google’s email service) When I got this assignment about RSS feeds the first thing I was asked to do was subscribe to another libraries RSS feed. So like you, I had to figure out how to use a reader. I decided on the Google reader since I am most comfortable with all things Google. I went over to the Google Reader site and found out all I had to do was type in the email I already used and voila! I was all set up! Once I put in my password it brought me to my reader. Here is a handy screen shot of my Google Reader page to help you:

This is what you will see when you first open your reader. On the left you will see all the subscriptions that you have. Google Reader happens to even organize your subscriptions for you by type. So all the BlogSpot blogs (Google’s blog pages), that I follow are in one category and all others are in another. In this screen shot we happen to be looking at the news feed of MoMA. (The Museum of Modern Art) So what you see on the right is the recent updates from MoMa, including the date and time, category, title and a brief description. Now if any of these things interest me all I have to do is click on the link and it will bring me to the appropriate place on the website. It is as easy as that! Since I have recently began following many of my classmates new blogs they are all listed there as well. So to catch up with all my classmates writings all I have to do is click on the left on the title of their blog. If they have written anything new, it will be there for me to see on the right. 

Now that you have chosen your reader and set it up you can begin adding all the subscriptions you want! I’ll tell you how. 

For this explanation I will use part of my class assignment to help us out.  Part of the assignment was to find another library of our choice and subscribe to their page or blog, and then link it to our blog. This was a tough decision for me. There are just too many libraries that I love. The one that is closest to my heart is the Bibliothèque Nationale De France (National Library of France).

I have been a Parisaholic for years and when I saw this library and couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful. So I headed on over to the site and sure enough they had an RSS feed. To subscribe to any page is simple. Head on over to any page you would like to subscribe to and look for this logo:

 
This pretty orange symbol is the RSS feeds logo. If a page subscribes to an RSS feed it will have this symbol somewhere on the page. (sometimes they can be a little hidden under media links or the like, so look hard!) Once you click this button you will get a big jumble of html wording. (Hypertext Markup Language) What you will want to do is go to the address bar at the top of your page and copy that address. Now go back to your RSS reader and find the button or section that says “add a subscription”. In that bar paste the address you just copied. Now click add. You are now subscribed to that pages RSS feeds! It is really that simple.
You could also see links like this:  

These are quick links to subscribe directly to your specific reader. All you have to do with these is click the appropriate box for you and follow the easy steps!

Now that I understand the world of RSS feeds I think they are a great resource. RSS feeds can be used by absolutely everybody. I find them very useful. I used to go to my favorite food blog once a week to see if it had been updated; and if I found any of the recipes useful. Now I can just add it to my RSS feed and know instantly whether I should visit the page. Business types can keep up with The Wall Street Journal, people like me can keep up with friends blogs, and the news of the day from the Onion at the same time, and fans can find out what is happening with bands and upcoming books. I think it is a great tool to filter out what I don’t need to know while keeping me up to date on what I do want to know. I honestly do not think that if I wasn’t assigned the topic of RSS feeds I would have ever given them a thought. Now that I know what they are I will use them with certainty. I love knowing what is going on in my favorite libraries, and with my favorite people around the world. 

I think RSS feeds can be a fantastic benefit to libraries. There is so much news that the library would like to share with its patrons. With the excess amount of information that is being feed to the public many things can be overlooked. This way the people who are looking for the information will actually receive it. I am not sure that most libraries are using RSS to their full advantage. Libraries could use RSS feeds to give their patrons such information as upcoming book releases, events, library closings, exhibits and book groups. Libraries could also use RSS feeds internally to announce such things as job postings, and general information. Public libraries could benefit most from this technology; but smaller libraries and more specialized libraries could benefit also. 

Sincerely head librarian Amanda



For a really fun simple explanation of RSS feeds check out the video below.
RSS in Plain English

Librarian Currently Reading:
Larry Clark- Tulsa

 Note to the reader: This month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (Otherwise know as Pinktober!) In honor of this I decided to make this entire blog PINK! If you would like more information about Breast Cancer Awareness Month or to pick up your own Pinktober merchandise checkout these sites: 

http://www.hardrock.com/philanthropy/pinktober/pinktober-2011.aspx
To find out more about Pink Ribbons in your country click here;
Australia
www.pinkribbonday.com.au
America and Canada
www.thebreastcancersite.com
www.pinkribbonstore.com
United Kingdom
www.pinkribbonfoundation.org.uk