The Web According to Google #87: Google Reader

1) Take the tour or sign-up and try the service out. Do you currently use a feed reader? If so which one do you use? Would you switch to Google Reader if you don't already use it? Why or why not?Read a little about one or two of the Google Mobile apps available for mobile phones. Which ones do you think you would use the most and how?

I took the tour which was not much more than a listing of the features of Google Reader. I currently have an account with Bloglines that I created when I did the original iHCPL 23 Things. I hardly ever check it. Last time was 200 days ago. Rather than transfer the feeds there to Google Reader, I decided to search for and add some feeds to a new Google Reader account and see if I would use it more. The items I selected have to do with Spring, Texas; the Barbara Bush Community partners; and Harris County politics. The Bloglines account has feeds more related to the field of librarianship.

I checked the App Store on my iPhone to see what mobile readers are available. I found:

App Google Reader (2-1/2 stars; 97 ratings; $.99)

iNews Premium 9 (3-1/2 stars; 13 ratings; $3.99)

GReader App (2-1/2 stars; 686 ratings; free)

Feeds - RSS Reader (3 stars; 56 ratings; $3.99)

GooReader (1 star; 6 ratings; $2.99)

Newsie Google Reader (4 stars; 5 ratings; $3.99)

MobileRSS - Google RSS News Reader (3 stars; 735 ratings; $1.99)

I decided to give the last one a try after reading the reviews. I installed it and it linked to the new Google Reader account I just created on my laptop. Probably I will check it more often since it is on my phone.

2) Take a look at some of your favorite sites. Do they have feeds? If they do, subscribe to one of the feeds. Hint: Our website has feeds.

As noted above, I add a bunch of feeds to my new Google Reader account.

The Web According to Google #86: Calendar and Documents

1) Create a calendar in Google Calendar and try adding some events or tasks to it. How do you think you would use Google Calendar in the workplace or at home? Do you think you would find it helpful to share calendars with coworkers, friends, or family?

I created a Google Calendar in my gmail account some time back. I was hoping it could turn out to be my "ideal" calendar -- the one with every event on it that I could access from anywhere (home, work, on the road). It has never worked out for me, though. The calendar I began creating a while ago is still there but I have never made use of it.

Right now my calendar is based at work. It has a huge number of entries in it, and to transfer things by hand would be a burdensome task. I see now that Google has a way to sync with Microsoft Outlook. The problem is, this involves downloading and installing Google Sync. At work, I don't have permission to install anything new. Network Services might assist with this, but that doesn't solve the second problem.

I have my work e-mail open at all times at work, so access to my Outlook calendar is right at hand. Reminders pop-up as I work, and it is very easy to switch back and forth between mail and calendar. I will have to experiment with having the Google calendar open at work, alongside Outlook. It may be that the reminders are just as easy to get.

Right now it seems that Outlook is easier to use to enter data, and more pleasing to look at. That might just be due to familiarity. I will give Google a more extended try, and see if it gets easier. Having a web-accessible calendar could be worth the effort. Right now I have problems making appointments because I can't access my work calendar from home.

Sharing a calendar with my husband could be helpful for him to keep track of my activities. Sharing at work might be handy but if I stick to my goal of one master calendar ("everything from everyhere"), that would give my co-workers access to my private calendar. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet!

2) Try creating a file in Google Docs and uploading one from your computer. Can you see yourself using Google Docs in addition to or instead of a desktop office application? Why or why not?

When HCPL decided to make Sundays a regular part of the work week, this meant that all branch librarians and team leaders in our region would need to have input to the Sunday schedules. We decided that the easiest way to do this was to create a template in Google Docs, give all the pertinent leaders access to edit, and let everyone input their own part of the data. We did this as an experiment for the April and May schedules, and it worked very well. We have also given access to view the schedules to those Barbara Bush librarians in charge on Sundays. They can check these at the start of the work day Sunday, and have an up-to-date list of those they should expect to appear for work.

I think I would use this process again for files on which I need other people's input. Working in Google Docs is much less cumbersome than trying to use a Wiki. Everyone can see the changes right away, as compared to trying to e-mail around a Word file for comment and someone having to type all the suggested changes into a master file.

The Web According to Google #85: Resistance is Futile

1) What Google products do you use on a regular basis? Why do you use them and what makes them better than a competing product?

I use a lot more Google products than I realized. Some of them must recently have been acquired by Google, as I didn't know they were part of the "family." I currently use Google Alerts; Google Books; Google Earth; Google Images; Google Maps; Google Web Search; Blogger (didn't know it was Google); Google Docs; Google Mail; YouTube (didn't know this was Google, either!); Google Mobile Search on my iPhone.

I use them because they are easy to use and fantastically helpful. They provide information and services most of us never even dreamed of when we were younger: reading books online; seeing aerial maps of Iceland; seeing who in my neighborhood has posted comments about my library on their site; getting directions (with maps) to almost anywhere from anywhere; watching home videos made by millions of people, etc.

Google Images is a perfect example. Earlier in my library career, I used to imagine how wonderful it would be to have a magic "picture finder" box for all the books in the library. You could enter into it what you needed an image of, and press a button. The book that would have the necessary image in it would BEEP in response, and you could go pick up the book and search for the image inside it. Google Images is even better than that dream. You don't even have to go pick up the book, and you get lots of sizes and poses and contexts from which to choose.

Frankly, because Google is FREE and has such a presence and such good marketing, I have never really searched for competing products. The only possibility might be Google Mail. I have had Yahoo accounts and Hotmail accounts that were quite helpful at the time. Being able to access the other Google products easily through my e-mail site is probably what has bought my loyalty to gmail. The integration of all these features is a big plus.

2) Check out Google Labs. Did you see any new products that you want to try?

Some of the items in the Lab look potentially useful:

Google News Timeline: Brings up selected events or topics in chronological order by dates specified. Can search for the news events of the past few days, or significant events on any particular date.

Google in Quotes: Finds quotes on specified topics from the particular celebrities that you choose. Would be useful for comparing the views of candidates on issues.

Google Squared: Creates a table of data on the topic you enter. I tried "Female Members of Congress" and "Herbal Remedies for Diabetes" and got a "square" (or a table) of items that would be useful as a potential starting point for an investigation.

Some of the items in the Lab have graduated to regular features of Google. For example, "Similar Images" has become Google Images.

3) Search or browse Google Books. Do they have the book or magazine you looked for?

Google Books provides access to what a recent SirsiDynix webinar called "Google's Hidden Libraries." This is truly amazing. According to information on the site, today you can search the full-text of over 7 million books.

Among other things, it includes the full-text of a large magazine archive, complete with cover art and all graphics. And you can do a search across all issues of all titles. A child doing a report on Texas Indians could type in the word "Karankawa" and get three pages of hits, many from Texas Monthly magazine.

Clicking on books under the category of "Literature" gives one the choice of 4,710 titles that can be viewed, at least partially. Of these, 1,115 are full-text public domain titles that can be read online. I found Hawthorn's "The Marble Faun" that I needed to read for a book club.

In some ways, Google Books appears to be capturing the best features of Library Thing. It lets you capture titles for your own "library," organize them into book shelves, rate books, and write reviews. You can share what you have in your library with friends or with the world. Probably the next time I check, Library Thing will have been acquired, as at least subsumed, by Google Books.

Did you find any gems?
Searching Google Books for "Nancy Agafitei" brings up listings for my doctoral thesis; a looseleaf family history that I wrote; issues of the ALA Directory; a quote I gave to a book called "The Accidental Library Manager;" places where my name appeared in several 1970's issue of the American Association of University Women's "Graduate Woman" magazine; and an acknowledgment of my assistance in a scientific article by a co-worker. While these are not "gems" in any sense of the word, they do indicate the massive power of this tool. It has a better memory than I do! If it can find me in these remote contexts, it can find almost anything!! There is no privacy any more...

How can this be used in the library?
Google Books is fun to introduce to people. Because it is currently hidden under the "More" link on the main Google page, lots of people are unaware of it. I'm sure that once some of the legal issues are resolved, a big marketing push will make Google Books a phenomenon.