The Web According to Google #88: Wave, Buzz, and Mobile

1) How do you think you could use Google Wave or Buzz for collaboration? Do you currently use any online collaboration tools?

The only collaboration tools I have tried are wikis and Google Docs. Google Wave offers a wealth of possibilities, but you have to have people to collaborate with who are rather tech savvy. I don't see this being useful for my relatives, or even most of my friends for just social purposes. It could be useful in a work environment where everybody can be trained and on the "same page", so to speak.

These days I get lots of videos, photos, and websites "shared" with me via e-mail. There are so many I can hardly keep up. With Buzz I see this sharing becoming even easier, and I see myself drowning in information.

What all these tools make clear is that reading and being able to assimilate information will be even a more highly valued skill in the future. Surely the library's success in turning young children on to reading should be even more important in the future. How can we capitalize on this aspect of our role in the community?

2) 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?
The best thing I found while searching for this module was the free Mobile Google app. Previously I had been searching Google indirectly through the Safari App. It was OK, but not very easy to use. The print was often very tiny. The Mobile App is great. It has a voice recognition feature so I can just speak what I am looking for and it gives me a screen of choices that look great! Why did I wait so long to get my iPhone?! It surprises me with something cool all the time.

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.

Publishing Evolution #84: Writer Communities & Author Websites

Exercise 1: Have you contacted your favorite authors or gone to their websites? Do you like knowing more or less about them? Search for your favorite author. Do they have a website or blog? Can you interact with them via web?

When you lead a book club discussion, it is important to add value to the group by bringing in additional information about the author, time period, locale, literary form, etc. One valuable place to find a lot of this information is on the author's website. Knowing more about an author's personal life, education, prior works, geographic location, even "pets", can bring new insight to the book under discussion.

On several occasions, book club participants have e-mailed the author via his/her website, and received responses that they shared during the discussion. This includes author like Robert Kurson (Shadow Divers), Dave King (The Ha-Ha), and Lisa See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) who responded directly, as well as less-approachable authors like Jeffrey Archer (Eleventh Commandment) whose office staff replies.

I don't have just ONE favorite author, but I have many of them that I like a lot. For purposes of this exercise, I will look up Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, as well as other books. In the Events section, I found out that he will be in Houston on April 27, at Murder by the Book at 12:30pm and at Brazos Book store at 7:00. I suppose these will be just sales events. I wish he would be appearing at a library or a lecture hall where I could hear him speak, rather than just wait in a long line for a signed book. Besides the events calendar, the website has lots of promotional stuff about his many books, audio excerpts, video interviews, and links to print articles about his work.

McCall Smith is a fascinating character! Besides writing perfect books from the viewpoint of a "traditionally built" Botswana woman, he has been a professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and Vice Chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the UK. What a mind this man must have!

Exercise 2: Does the idea of a book being published based on popular vote give you more or less faith in the material?

A large popular vote might give me more confidence in the material. After all, this is what the New York Times Bestseller list is all about. People in that case vote with their wallets.

Readers' tastes are so different, though, that just a high popular vote is not enough for me to tell if I will like something. This is true with books, but even more so with movies. Having free access to a wide variety of choices is the American (and the library!) way.

Publishing Evolution #83: Paper to Pixels (or e-ink)

Exercise #1: Do you prefer paper or pixels? Is getting the material faster on the computer or is reading in a paper form more important to you? Why?

I still prefer paper to pixels, but I have only had a cell phone and a laptop to compare. I have not tried to read a book on a Nook or a Kindle, although I am very tempted by them. A number of my book club participants are now using e-readers for their books. I see them get online and order books each time we announce a new selection at the end of a session. These same folks are among the most loyal book club fans, though, so even though they aren't boosting circulation by checking out paper copies, they still keep coming to the library for "social networking."

Sometimes getting the material fast is important. I once bought a paper copy from Amazon that I needed to teach a class. Someone borrowed it and I had to prepare for the next day's session. It turned out that for $.99, Amazon would give me access to the e-book version of the book I had bought in paper. I was able to get it online in minutes and read what I needed. It wasn't a great reading experience, but I was very glad to have the option.

Exercise #2: Does price influence how you get your books or is it availability? Would you pay the same price for a digital book as you would for a paper copy?

Price primarily influences what I buy, but format and the availability can be important on occasion. I would not want to pay the same price for a digital book as for a paper copy, because I don't think the cost of each is the same for the publisher.

Exercise #3: Visit iFiction and look at what it offers. Do you like the idea of preview and then pay?

iFiction did not appeal to me. The titles are almost all science fiction and fantasy that I don't read. A group of the books are written by the person who created the iFiction site, so his motives are obvious.

Preview and then pay could rule out some really good books. I just recently read "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver. It is one of the best books I ever read, but it took at least 100 pages to get rolling. Based on the "preview, then pay" model, I might never have bought/finished the book. Also, I don't have lots of time to read samples, hoping for a winner. I'd rather spend my time reading good reviews or talking with fellow readers about what they have liked.

Publishing Evolution #82: Print on Demand

Exercise #1: Visit each of the websites listed above and see what they offer. Is it higher or the same as traditionally published books? Look at some of their published books. Have you read any of them? Would you?

It is not encouraging that the once-independent companies, AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, and Canada-based Trafford Publishing are now all owned by Author Solutions Inc. This explains why most of the websites have a very similar look and feel to them. Prices range from $399 to $13,999, and each company has a series of packages. Most of the low-end packages include no images, no copyright, no "complimentary" copies, no sophisticated publicity or marketing. The high-end packages still seem to include some gimmicks, like book-signing "kits", marketing "kits", and other things that still sound like do-it-yourself options.

As the WriterBeware article notes, "When researching POD services, it’s important to remember that you are a consumer buying a service, not an author contracting with a publisher. As with any consumer service, the sales pitch is not intended to benefit you, but to motivate you to buy."

Several years ago, I purchased a copy of the "Happy Minimalist" by Peter Lawrence. Peter used to be a customer at our library until he moved to California. It is a very interesting book, but the topic is probably not one that would have caught the interest of a traditional publisher. Peter had it published through XLibris, and they did a good job with it. I quoted some sections of it in an earlier post on this blog, on 9/6/08, in the iHCPL module on Going Green.

Before I purchased Peter's book, I read a review of it in "Foreword" magazine, which is described as "Reviews of good books independently published." At the time, I felt that "Foreword" was a good way to sort out the wheat from the chaff of self-published materials. The books included there look good for the most part. However, with this module, I took a closer look at the magazine.

It seems that rather than "independently" reviewing good books, authors pay for their reviews, just as they paid to have their books published. The publisher, Clarion, described their Review-For-Fee Service in this way: "A qualified, respected review is one of the best marketing tools an author or publisher can have for a book. With today's growing number of published books and dwindling newspaper review sections, it's harder than ever to get a review. Clarion provides a professional review, guaranteeing the same quality and word length you see in ForeWord Magazine reviews. "

Exercise #2: What do you think of self publishing? As a reader, do you prefer books that have gone through the traditional route and have the confidence of a company’s financial backing, or do you not care how the book got printed, you’re just glad it did?

As a branch librarian, I am increasingly being solicited by local authors to buy their self-published books. Most of them look very good, but most are not well written. The lack of a good editor is obvious.

If the book has any merit at all, we try to give local authors a break. We invite them to present a talk on their book at the library. The Barbara Bush Library Friends assist them in selling their books at the program, and having a signing. Before we offer the invitation, we ask for the book to be added to the HCPL catalog. That way library customers could read the book without having to purchase it. Having someone interested in their book, having the opportunity to sell copies, and having the book added to a library seems to be a big boost to a local author. We feel that this is part of our role as a community library.

There are so many books on the market that I prefer books that have gone through the traditional route. I think you can have more confidence that the book will have valuable content, will be well-edited, well-illustrated, and professionally reviewed.

I am enough of a '60s "hippie" though to not totally trust the establishment. Sometimes people have good messages to tell, but can't get a hearing through the mainstream channels. I am glad that there are options out there for anyone who wants to be heard.