Searching #78: Videos

1. Search for a particular video using both Truveo and Blinkx. Look for any similarities or differences in the results, and write about them in your blog.

Well, this training has just paid for itself! I used Truveo to search for samples of one of the videos we hoped to make at our branch: How to Buy a Print Card.

What I found was a video called "Printing at Freeman: Buying the Print Card."
With just a little editing to change the branch name, this video will be perfect to post on our branch web page. It was posted as of January 15, 2010, so I can only assume that is why I have not heard about it before.

I'm glad I used Truveo for this first. Blinkx did not give me this result at all, even when I searched for it by exact name.

2. Go to HCPL’s YouTube channel and take a look around. Discuss in your blog ideas for how your own branch video could add to the mix of searchable video content on the Internet.
If I hadn't found the Freeman video with the Truveo search, I would have found it by looking at HCPL's YouTube channel. It shows the video above, as well as three other related items involving printing from the computer; dealing with the print release station; and adding value to a print card.

It is strange for me that the seven Barbara Bush videos do not show up on the HCPL YouTube channel under the link for "All." You have to clink on the "Uploads" link to see older HCPL list. You can see the Barbara Bush playlist by searching another way.

The Freeman self-help videos are posted too low on the Freeman site, and won't be readily noticed by customers. If the unnecessary "Locations" box on the upper left of the Freeman branch page was deleted, links to the videos could be posted there that would be more helpful to customers.

Searching #77: Images

1. Using AllFreeClipArt, how many clicks did it take to get to a color Santa that doesn’t look like a troll?
I have to admit that I clicked dozens of times all over that site, and never did find a Santa I would want to use. I found the site very difficult to navigate, and quite deceptive because not everything you were led to was "free."

2. Read “10 Places to Find Free Images Online”. Blog about 2 of the sites listed.
FreeMediaGoo.com had high quality photos plus some digitally created images that could be used for free. I liked this digital image that I found there:

However, this site would not be very good for general use. The number of free images is very limited.

Fotogenika.net sounded good from the description, but it was just a link to a bunch of links, and finding your way to "free" photos was challenging.

The FreeDigitalPhotos.net gave me a nasty surprise. It seems that you get a bonus with some of the "free" photos. My virus software went into high gear, and started deleting all sorts of bad stuff. I will never go to that site again!!!

3. Try logging in to the clip art program for HCPL use. Each branch has their own login and password you can get from your branch librarian. Find an illustration that could be used for a program at your branch and add it to your blog. Be sure to credit that piece.

----------------------@jupiterimages

This is an image from the library-licensed clip art that I used in an iHCPL Wellness module post last year. There are very many good images available through this source, including regular drawings, cartoons and photos. After my experience with the viruses possible with "free" photos from the web, I think I would stick to a source like this in the future.

SEARCHING #76: SOUND EFFECTS

1) Use FindSounds to search for and post at least three animal sound effects in your blog.

Did you know that hummingbirds make sounds? Until I lived in Texas and had a feeder outside my kitchen window, I never knew that they "talked" in addition to the humming sound that their wings make.
http://www.kwic.com/~pagodavista/humming.wav

That sound comes from this site, which makes great use of animal sounds, and can also lead you to many more:
http://www.kwic.com/~pagodavista/schoolhouse/species.htm

Then there is the wonderful sound of a cat purring that I have missed ever since my cat died at age 20 several years ago: http://kessels.com/CatSounds/purr2.wav

Cats make LOTS of sounds, and you can find many of them here:
http://kessels.com/CatSounds/

Loons have fantastic, haunting calls that bring back memories of summer vacations at lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota:
http://www.wildernessbay.com/loon/loonwail.wav

The sound is used as the background for this website:
http://www.wildernessbay.com/

2) Using the Simply the Best Sounds site, search for sounds in the public domain. Post links to three of them in your blog.

Falling Bomb with explosion:
http://simplythebest.net/sounds/WAV/sound_effects_WAV/sound_effect_WAV_files/bomb.wav

Olympic fanfare:
http://simplythebest.net/sounds/WAV/sound_effects_WAV/sound_effect_WAV_files/fanfare.wav

One of my grandfathers was a railroad engineer, so this file of a train leaving the station brings back fond memories:
http://simplythebest.net/sounds/WAV/sound_effects_WAV/sound_effect_WAV_files/train.wav

Searching #75: Google and Beyond

1) Type in at least three queries in Blindsearch, hit search, and then vote for the column which you believe best matches what you were seeking. The columns are randomized with each search. How did your favorite search engine rate in the three tries? Do you think this will affect how you search in the future?



Query 1: Sandstorms in Beijing (a topic I was hearing about on the Science Channel as I was working on this post). Google was the winner, being most specific and current, but all looked pretty good.



Query 2: Harris County Texas History (a display we are working on at the library got me thinking about this). Google was a clear winner here. The other search engines got sidetracked in issues of crime, cemeteries, and even gardening!



Query 3: Nancy Agafitei (Hmmm... It's interesting what is out there!) Yahoo did the best job finding sites with real info, not just mentions. It included my Harris County blog as #1, the branch page, a review I wrote for Amazon, the branch E-vents calendar, and my son's website.



Google is the engine I use most often, so Blindsearch supported that. However, I might use Yahoo if I am searching for people.




2) What search engine was #1 on Hitwise the week that you searched? How did it compare to its closest competitor? Do the usage statistics match your own personal choice of a favorite?



For the week ending 1/2/2010, Hitwise had no surprises. The big three took the top spots, with Google pretty much ruling the roost when comparing volume of searches:
1. google 72.25%
2. yahoo 14.83%
3. bing 8.91%

Other search engines that made the top 10 by number of visits were (in numerical order):



4. Google Image Search

5. Ask.com

6. AOL

7. Yahoo Image Search

8. Dogpile

9. Sphere

10. Yahoo Video Search



So once again, Hitwise supported my choice of Google for searching.



Interesting side note: The list of the top 20 websites for the week included all three of the top search engines and their variants (images, videos, e-mail, etc.), plus eBay, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, MSN and Amazon. Notably absent was Twitter. Perhaps it has outlived its usefulness as it has grown so big??




3) Marketing of search engines requires that they continually add new features that they hope will appeal to you. Explore the features of one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, or Bing). What new things did you discover that you would find useful?



Since Google is my choice, I checked it first. I most often use Google to search the web. I also use it a lot to search for images. Sometimes I have used Google Maps. This year I opened a gmail account for my own e-mail. But clicking on the "More" button open some additional possibilities that I would like to try out:

Blogs -- Let's you search in blogs.

Books -- Gives you 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 work "Karankawa" and get three pages of hits, many from Texas Monthly.

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 added a classic Hawthorne title I needed for a book club to "My Library", and could have read it online.

Genealogy #70: Genealogy 2.0

Here's my experiment with the Look-alike Meter on MyHeritage.com. It's a nice, safe answer, but actually one that I agree with.

MyHeritage.com had some interesting and fun things to try, but I found it pretty poorly organized and not very easy to use. I would opt for a more serious site when I get ready to do online family history.

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

The celebrity look-alike collage is a little stranger. I like the #1 match with Susan B. Anthony, although she looks a little fierce. However, the other matches are guys!! They are handsome, but what's that about??

Footnote is a place where people can post local genealogy sources, tagged photos, etc. It seems pretty "hit or miss" as to finding anything useful there. I got excited when I found Herman Halleen, one of my mother's ancestors, was found in dozens of entries. Checking them out, however, led to many, many old Detroit city directories.

Genealogy #69: Database Researching

Searching in the 1920 census via Heritage Quest led me to this entry for my grandfather, Walter Edmunds, age 32, who lived in Blue Island, Illinois, at that time. Part of the chart I found is copied below. The record shows that he was a railroad engineer, and that his father was from England and his mother was from Wales.

Also shown under his name is my grandmother, Cecil, age 33, whose father was born in Scotland and whose mother was born in Illinois. Then my father, Robert Edmunds, is listed. He was only 10 months old at the time.

A bonus that I had not expected is that my grandmother's parents are also shown on this sheet, just below my grandparents. They must have shared a home or lived next door at that time. Thomas Roberston was 58, and Dora his wife was 56. Thomas was a section foreman for the railroad. His parents were from Scotland, and Dora's parents were both from Germany.


This record also shows my grandmother's 28-year-old sister, Mary Robertson. She worked as a stenographer for a paint company.

It is wonderful how records such as these can be accessed so easily through the Internet now. When I started my family history research in 1978, I had to travel to a large library and spend hours searching through census records on microfilm reels.

Genealogy # 68: Detective Work

Harris County owns some oral history CDs that can be checked out. One is "Texas Wisewomen Speak." In this collection of interviews conducted by author PJ Pierce, twenty-five Texas women ranging in age from 53 to 93 share the wisdom they've acquired through living unconventional lives in the Lonestar state.

In my family, I have become the matriarch as these things naturally happen over the years. That means I need to be making my own oral history audio or video. It would be interesting to get together with my brother and sister and do a joint tape of reminiscences, although I suppose we all would remember things very differently.

I found all three of the cemeteries I searched for in "Find-A-Grave": Evergreen Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan; Cedar Park Cemetery in Calumet Park, Illinois; and First Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. However, none of them had the data recorded for the ancestors I know are buried there. They do permit you to register and add names for free so others can find them. You can also post pictures of the cemetery and particular monuments and head stones. I have lots of these, and when I have more time I will come back and add this information.

First Lutheran Cemetery is the graveyard for First Lutheran Church, an old German Lutheran Congregation in Blue island, Illinois. The oldest grave I see listed is 1886. Many of my ancestors on my mother's side are buried here. I own a plot, too, so someday I will join them. Walking through that cemetery is like walking through the aisle at the old church and seeing many folks you know.