Libraries and YouTube

This was a great activity. I had fun perusing the YouTube to see what was there on "Libraries".

Here are my three favorite videos.

1) Cleopatra - The Burning of the Library of Alexandria
This is the classic Liz Taylor movie and she is really mad about this little event!

2) Mr. Bean - Library
Mr. Bean would really rile the preservation and rare book librarians with his interesting use of the rare library book. He really tries to follow the rules. He is creative in his methods to copy a figure in the book, using tracing paper and colored pencils. Unfortunate events follow that cause the disfigurement of the art work and then the accidental removal of the page. (Well maybe the page was removed on purpose to cover up the act of destruction.) You don't even want to know what he does next. This is classic Bean!

3) No Cookies in the Library - Classic Sesame Street
Cookie Monster visits the library. Excited about all the books he wants to read a book, but also a box of cookies, please!

I liked these videos, as they were all classic clips from other mediums--film or TV. They were all about preserving the written or printed word. Jesse Shera wrote the we should "Maximize the social utility of the graphic record." In order to do that, one of our responsibilities is to preserve that record. That is what these three clips are really about. How cool is that? Or for my generation -- Far out!!!

Far out! The Flickr Badges worked!!!

I am so pleased. My Flickr badges work. I don't know if you have to have Flash to be able to see the first one work. Please drop me a comment if you are unable to view my changing picture show in the Flash Flickr Badge on the right side of the screen.

Thanks.

OK, now that I can do it, what do I think? This is a great way to share photos. We could have a University of Kentucky Libraries group that uploaded our pictures after events. Then the person responsible for our staff photo archive could download the best pictures for saving, and the rest of us could enjoy everyone else's pictures for awhile, before we had to make room for more.

Some Flickr experiences

Well this had its ups and downs. I added 9 photos to Flickr after I created my new account. I actually had most of a post written and lost it when I tried to add a Flickr badge I created into the post. I tested it and it didn't do what I expected, then the post was toast!

So here goes again. I've added a lovely set of Campus Flowers - Spring 2006.
My photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24917633@N08/

I've created the HTML on Flickr for the Flash and the HTML badges. I will try to put them in a section of the blog on the right side. Wish me luck!

Later...

Picture editing with LunaPic Online

This was my favorite Blue 2.0 activity so far. I have lots of pictures to play with from my trip to Scotland four years ago. I chose the "Free online image editor" which turned out to be LunaPic. This site seems like it has limitless possibilities to edit, including some that I use all the time with Adobe Elements. (But please don't take my Elements away.)

The image on the left is of the Castle at St. Andrews. It was actually a beautiful day, with big white puffy clouds in the sky. The effect I used was animation-pouring rain! It looks great animated, but I couldn't seem to save the animation. It didn't like my RealPlayer version. It makes for an interesting jpg anyway.

The image on the right is a picture taken on the Isle of Skye. The effect is called

Photo Spread, I think. It was the example they had on their site and I thought this picture would work well. The picture at the right is a jpg. I first exported it as a gif, but it cut the top and bottom off the picture, and I didn't think it was as effective.

There are a lot of normal editing things you can do on this site, like change the brightness of the picture and work with red eye problems. I didn't upload any people pictures, but the red eye reduction would be something neat to test. I have more problems with my cat pictures and red eye!

I would recommend this site to anyone who wants to edit pictures, particularly to use in their digital or online scrapbooking!

Meebo is on the Blog!

OK, I got the Meebo IM widget up. Now I am trying to figure out how to use it. I think I need to talk to my buddies in AIM and see if we can try some more conversations. I am hoping this will make IM easier to use than AIM Express. It is easier to logon to. That is for sure!!!

And I had fun picking the colors.

Onward to picture editing.

Returning to the scene of the crime...

I am hoping to get back into the Blue 2.0 routine today. I've been out of it for three weeks, while trying to get into IRIS Business Warehouse work. I took the training online and passed the test. They had an interesting approach to online training. A PDF document that looked like it started in Word was used to step you through the training exercises. As long as you didn't make a mistake, it was easy. All the BW basic training is based on the Financial part of IRIS. That area is not my forte. AND I was playing in the sandbox, so I was using an interesting mix of data. I am glad I don't have responsibilities in IRIS for creating reports on that data.

IRIS is a very different kind of IT animal. It is closer to my "day job" of Voyager work. There are three main parts to besides this reporting part. I've already had some training in each of the three others: FI (Financial), HR (Human Resources) and CM (Campus Management). The BWx area I am currently trying to master is supposed to make it easier for me to pull together the extracts I need for Patron record updating in Voyager. You don't get to pull your own "report" together. You get to pull a "view" of an existing report. You can submit a request for a new report, if none of the existing ones have the information you need. I am currently looking at two reports that might be usable. I need a break from that, so I am back to Blue 2.0.

Later...