Digital Photos Online

Uploading your digital photos online is a great way to share them among family and friends. It also creates a backup if you somehow lose the originals and enables you to access them from anywhere in the world. Practically all of these sites offer seemingly limitless benefits if you become a subscriber, but most offer you generous space by simply registering and not costing a dime. The amount of space and features vary of course.

Flickr is a terrific site and one of the most popular on the web, but it only allows you to make three folders and will only display your most recent 200 photos. Photobucket, on the other hand, allows up to 1 gig of storage on a free account. For most people, this alone will suffice, but with the amount of services offering free space, one can easily store photos on the web without opening one's wallet. Other sites that host for free are:

Snapfish
Dotphoto
Fotki
Photoworks
Shutterfly
Webshots

WorldCat Rocks!

Alright, maybe a classical music aficionado like myself should not use such an expression, but WorldCat keeps getting better and better. For those of you who work in a library, you know how useful this website is, and there is more to it than just looking up materials and their locations. Most recently, I've been creating lists of items I own (click here for an example). It automatically imports the bibliographic record and pictures of the item when available. I can also export any list to an Excel file. If you've viewed my Facebook profile recently, you'll notice that I have installed the WorldCat application.

Have a favorite author? Take a look at WorldCat Identities which is in beta right now. Punch a name in and see what WorldCat can offer...

Yes, I am still alive!

Just rather lazy, I guess. Now that I've put a link to my blog on my Facebook profile, perhaps some people will actually visit it now! That means it's time for an update...

As a follow-up to my March 13th post on replacement covers, I have discovered another site which should be of great use. Despite being the largest cover site on the net, there are still covers on websites not found on cdcovers.cc. http://cdcovers.to is a cover search engine which searches 12 different websites. The total number of covers is currently over 3.3 million!

Andrew Carnegie in the Caribbean???!!!

Well, he might not have been on the island of Barbados, but one of his libraries certainly is. Founded in 1904, it is one of the few libraries found outside of the United States or Carnegie's native Scotland. Unfortunately when I visited Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, back in January of 2007, I was informed by someone on the street that the whole place closed down two weeks before due to an epidemic! What I really find mysterious is that I could not locate the website or any further information on this library's current operations. Did it close permanently? I guess I'll have to arrange another trip to the island to find out!

>>> American Philatelic Research Library <<<

Here's a special library, and when I say "special", I mean it! Throughout my life I have been an avid stamp collector and I used to make a yearly pilgrimage to the American Philatelic Society (APS) when it was still located in State College, Pennsylvania. In addition to visiting the sales division, I made extensive use of their library services and resources while I was there. The APS has over 40,ooo members worldwide and its library over 20,000 books and 5,000 journals. The library is in fact open to the public, but only members of the APS can borrow materials. Because many members are not within driving distance (such as myself right now!), around 80% of the circulated items are done through the mail. Now, wouldn't it be great to get this collection digitized!!! Now located in Bellefonte, PA, here's a link to the website >>>> http://www.stamps.org/TheLibrary/lib_AbouttheAPRL.htm

For the marketing report and SWOT analysis I did for my class on special libraries >>> http://rapidshare.com/files/139594353/MarketingAuditSWOT.rtf.html

O’Kelly Memorial Library in Loganville, GA

This library is part of the huge PINES consortium in Georgia. It is comprised of approximately 275 libraries which share a collection of nearly 10 million items. Despite encompassing the poorest areas of the state, this network allows its patrons access to a greater number of resources than even the richest counties such as Cobb, Fulton, Dekalb and Gwinnett. Nevertheless due to poorer conditions of books, outdated material and lack of funding for programming, many people who live near a non-PINES library will cross the county lines in attempting to secure a card.

In contrast to other PINES member libraries I have visited, the one in Loganville was actually well kept. They even had a music CD and movie DVD collection which a Gwinnett County library less than 10 miles away could not even claim.

http://www.uncleremus.org/okelly.htm

Oh my God, is that a typewriter! Those individuals who may be technologically impaired need not fear!
I actually visited this library as part of an assignment for my very last class in library school, Seminar in the Problems of Rural Library Service. For my full report on this library, click the link...http://rapidshare.com/files/138245434/Road_Trip_Assignment.doc.html

Last week we were on the American side of the Virgin Islands; this week we'll take a visit to the British side and the island of Tortola. The first thing I saw after disembarking the ship was their bookmobile, which I later found out after chatting with the library director that it was purchased from a library system in Ohio. The library itself is found above a supermarket in downtown Road Town. Thumbing through the titles in the reference section, one really begins to realize how lucky we are in the States where most library systems have a half-decent budget. New books were virtually nonexistant and the books that were on the shelves would have been weeded eons ago at most other libraries.

Library's website >>> http://www.bvilibrary.gov.vg

Take a virtual tour here >>> http://www.bvilibrary.gov.vg/toursmain.php

All-American Library!

OK, maybe not 100% American, although this library is located in a U.S. territory. Found in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the town of Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas, it is easy to forget you're in a place where people carry American passports and pay using the dollar. For one thing, there actually is a place on U.S. soil where people drive on the left side of the road! And glancing at the names of streets and buildings, you'd swear you were somewhere in Denmark...the library itself is located on a street named "Dronningens Gade"! The U.S. purchased the islands from Denmark back in 1917 and it's nice to see they actually left some things unchanged.

The library is named after perhaps the most famous of all Caribbean librarians, Enid M. Baa. For a bio on her, click here >>> http://www.fostpl.org/Baa.html

For the current library website, click here >>> http://www.virginislandspace.org/Division%20of%20Libraries/dlamhome.htm

My Local Library!

Well, it was my local library when I lived in Pennsylvania. The main branch of the Eastern Monroe Public Library, it was originally located on Main Street in Stroudsburg but relocated in 1996 to the corner of 611 and Chipperfield Drive. The building, which was formally occupied by Stroud's Jewelers, gave the library much needed space. It is a two-story structure and very well organized and visually appealing. I was never an avid reader when I was young (that has indeed since changed!), but this library in Stroudsburg influenced me greatly in the areas of film and music, which is why I am such a great advocate of AV today. From its original vinyl collection to its classical music collection on compact disc to the wide array of foreign films, travelogues and documentaries, I will be forever indebted to the library for making these materials available in the Poconos which was, at least at the time, a cultural wasteland. Thank you!!! http://www.monroepl.org/

If anyone has a picture of the library when it was still located at 913 Main St, please let me know!

Andrew Carnegie was here!

Well, even if Mr. Carnegie wasn't here, he is the reason the library stands today. Beginning in 1883, he funded over 2,500 libraries around the world and I am proud to say that my very first library job was in one of them! Completed in 1902, the original building houses its adult fiction collection and serves as a reading room along with the reference desk. The basement was turned into the children's library during the 1920s and other expansions were introduced over the years. In 1978, the library joined the Chester County consortium of 17 libraries; they do however still maintain their own website @ http://www.phoenixvillelibrary.org

If you're wondering, the last picture shows what happens when the computers go down during the Christmas holiday! Aaaarrgghh!

A library on the high seas!

These pictures were taken aboard the brand new Norwegian Pearl on our Caribbean cruise back in January of 2007. With approximately 2,000 volumes and books in various languages, I was quite impressed. I was disappointed however when I found out there is no designated librarian; various crew members man the desk for a few hours each day. That's me sitting at the desk and thinking, "Wow, wouldn't that be a dream job!" Cunard Lines actually do have a full-time librarian aboard the Queen Mary 2, as well as the new Queen Victoria which boasts of over 6,000 books! Gotta go and get my resume in order...

~The Art Institute of Atlanta Library~

I visited this library back in March of 2007 as part of an assignment for my class on special libraries. The library's mission is to support the curriculum of the Art Institute and in addition to 40,000 books, the library also has over 4,000 videotapes and DVDs, 150 periodicals, CD-Roms and provides access to over 50 subscription databases. The library is open for use by all, but only faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may check out materials.
http://www.artinstitutes.edu/Atlanta/library

Welcome to Suwanee, GA!

I've been a librarian for exactly one month now and this is my library...the Suwanee branch of the Gwinnett County Public Library. http://www.gwinnettpl.org/AboutYourLibrary/HoursAndLocations/Branches/BranchLocationSuwanee.html

For the next few posts, I will upload pictures of libraries that I have either worked at or visited. It is summer after all, so let's take a break from all these electronic resources!

File Sharing Sites

It just recently dawned on me that the link on last month's post will not work unless you log in. My mistake was trying this out at work where logging in to the network is not necessary. My apologies! I re-uploaded the file to Qshare, one of many free file sharing sites on the net. Here is the link http://qshare.com/get/228361/scenario_1_-_Word.doc.html

Sites such as these can be really handy especially when dealing with files that are too large to attach to emails. The following is a list of file sharing sites I have come across on the net. Each have different rules and all would like you to upgrade to a premium account, but each one of these is still very useful even as a free user...

www.sendspace.com
www.megaupload.com
www.rapidshare.com
www.rapidshare.de
www.qshare.com
www.uploaded.to
www.partage-facile.com
www.archiv.to
www.filefactory.com
www.megashare.com
www.easy-share.com
www.zshare.com
www.fastsgare.com
www.ultrashare.com
www.badongo.com
www.filehost.tv
www.fast-load.net
www.4shared.com
www.momupload.com
www.fileflyer.com
www.sharingmatrix.com
www.datenklo.com
www.axifile.com

Technology Training

Recently, I was put in charge of tech training at my branch. I have since drawn up various scenarios regarding technology used on the job. The very first scenario I put together was on word processing, a crucial service offered in today's public libraries. Until recently, we did not even offer word processing and although we still do not have Microsoft Office on any of our OPACs, we do direct people to Notepad and GoogleDocs, an online word processor. You can download the original document which I used in these trainings by clicking on the following link:

https://sharepoint.gwinnettpl.org/departmentsites/Branches/Snellville/Public%20Documents/Tech%20Training/scenario%201%20-%20Word.doc

American Memory @ Library of Congress

American Memory @ Library of Congress
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html)

If primary source material on the United States is sought, look no further than to the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world and it is making a concerted effort to bring that same presence to the virtual world. The National Digital Library Program (NDLP) began in 1995 to digitize books, pamphlets, motion pictures, photographs, sheet music, manuscripts, maps and sound recordings, and out of it was born “American Memory”, a massive digital archive containing around 11,000,000 files. The collection can be browsed by subject, time period, format type or geographic region and, like a good book, will hold you captive for many hours on end.

Regarding primary sources from other parts of the world, there are two websites of note – Internet History Sourcebooks Project, located at the Fordham University History Department and Center for Medieval Studies, and Eurodocs: Primary Historical Documents from Western Europe, begun at Brigham Young University in 1995 and broken into 46 separate web indexes representing the countries and city-states of Europe.

>>> Megasites <<<

As with anything, there is good and bad, and the same goes for the internet; for every great website there are a thousand others that we could do without. The ones we like the most we tend to bookmark for easy retrieval. Compiling an index of useful websites arranged according to subject or discipline is what we librarians do! There are a few of these so-called megasites that try to bring order to this chaotic world of information in cyberspace and they are excellent tools for any library to exploit when searching for quality information online.

Librarians’ Internet Index (http://www.lii.org/)

Based in California and publicly funded, there are over 20,000 entries of websites which have been carefully selected, evaluated and organized by a team of librarians and arranged into 14 main topics and roughly 300 related topics. A free weekly newsletter is also distributed highlighting new editions.

Infomine (http://infomine.ucr.edu/)

Hosted at the University of California, Riverside, this portal is aimed at faculty, students and research staff at the university level. There are over 50,000 entries, about half of which are selected by professional librarians, the other half by robot crawlers.

Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org/)

Over 40,000 librarian-approved weblinks at this site founded by the University of Michigan School of Information but currently hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science & Technology. Not nearly as detailed as the Librarians’ Internet Index, which employs Library of Congress subject headings and more in-depth annotations, but extremely useful nevertheless.


BUBL Link (http://bubl.ac.uk/)

Begun in 1990 as the Bulletin Board for Libraries, hence the name, this site based at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland, is one of the oldest yet least known of the major megasites. What will make this particularly attractive to public librarians is the arrangement of weblinks according to Dewey decimal numbers!

Replacement Covers!

Need to replace a cover that was torn or lost? This website has the world's largest collection >>> http://www.cdcovers.cc/

This site is most handy for DVD covers, but it also hosts a fairly large collection for VHS and software. Doing an audio search will lead you to another site >>> http://www.allcdcovers.com

If you can't find it here, another site for DVD covers that can be very useful is
http://www.dvdempire.com

There scans are not as high resolution but good enough if you are just looking for a decent replacement. The scans though are not in one piece, rather a front and a back. An awesome piece of software can be found at the first site mentioned >>> http://www.coverxp.com/

With CoverXP, you can put together your own copy complete with a customized spine label!

Free Downloadable Audiobooks!

If you're more into listening to books than reading them, the following websites are for you...

Gutenberg Project >>> www.gutenberg.org

Internet Archive >>> www.archive.org

LibriVox >>> www.librivox.org

The Spoken Alexandria Project >>> www.spokenalex.org

Public Domain Books!

This is my very first post. Jeez, the internet's been around for well over a decade and it took me this long to put up a webpage! In any case, the following is a list of sites that contain downloadable public domain texts.

E-Texts
Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/
Project Gutenberg Europe http://pge.rastko.net/
Project Gutenberg of Australia http://gutenberg.net.au/
Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/
Google Books http://books.google.com/
Microsoft Books http://books.live.com/
International Children’s Library http://www.icdlbooks.org/
Gallica http://gallica.bnf.fr/ (in French)
Projekt Gutenberg http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/ (in German)
Libros Tauro http://www.librotauro.com.ar/ (in Spanish)
Liber Liber http://www.liberliber.it/ (in Italian)
Project Runeberg http://runeberg.org/ (in Swedish)