Microsoft Office Live

Microsoft Office Live inserted itself into my life this weekend while I was trying to update an Excel spreadsheet. This free document sharing program from Microsoft is modeled on Zoho and GoogleDocs, although you need to download Microsoft's program to use it. If the library decides we want it, we'll need ISS to install the software on our staff and/or public computers.

Because Office Live supports Microsoft Office Word and Excel, I think that it might, in the end, be a more attractive option than GoogleDocs. However, right now I can't get rid of the annoying Office Live ad that pops up every time I open a Microsoft document, even when I tell it that I never want to see it again. I would not want to inflict that on the rest of my colleagues.

Musings

I've been wondering recently just what my dad would have done on the web if he'd been born just a little later. Unfortunately, by the time attractive web pages with bells and whistles arrived he was already suffering from Parkinson's disease. Not that he didn't try. We bought my folks a computer. Our first sign that all was not well was when we had to extract my dad's Visa card from the floppy disc drive. Eventually, after we could no longer get the thing to work, he literally took it apart. I had my first look at the insides of a pc.

In his working days, my father was a wonderfully witty book review editor and columnist, and also a talented photographer. Although in general a techno-klutz (he never learned to drive), he did learn to use a word processor. I think he might have enjoyed having a forum beyond the Sunday paper for his take on the world. He would have loved posting his photos. And the man who wrote about one letter to me in his whole life might actually have had a use for e-mail.

Whether I could have turned my dad into a competent computer user I don't know. But every time I help a senior use the library computers I know that nothing they do on them can surprise me.

Streaming Screaming

During a slow hour off the desk, I finally turned on some streaming audio from Naxos Library. The featured music all seemed to be classical except for Snack Time by Barenaked Ladies. I do enjoy classical music, but somehow the day seemed to call out for Barenaked Ladies. I enjoyed listening for a while, despite occasional static and some abrupt stops when mouse-clicking in other applications. If you are not a music purist, you can probably live with the glitches for a time, but eventually you may reach your tolerance limit. I am going to try this at home and compare the sound quality.

I did wonder how much bandwidth I was claiming. (While I was streaming, were patrons screaming?) A colleague here was watching a Skillsoft video online this fall and later found out that her web activity had slowed the patrons' computers to a crawl.

Spreek je Dutch?

AquaBrowser's HQ is in Amsterdam. Who knew? I am ruminating about this morning's session with an AquaBrowser trainer via the bat phone. Lots of useful features, although the vocab was not as user friendly as I'd been led to suppose. Syndetic, for instance, and that acronym with four letters, three of which are frb. Supposedly anyone who can use Amazon can use this. I can use Amazon. Sort of... I do like being able to see the refine options on the results page.

Then there's the word cloud. When I put in barbara rosenblatt, did I get the correct spelling, which is rosenblat? No. I got Greenblatt, barbra, barbera, havers, lynley. Stop trying so hard, AquaBrowser! I then clicked on author and retrieved a list of Rosenblatts. Including Rosenblatt, Barbara, which was the first listing. So, AquaBrowser was smart enough to put the last name first, but it still didn't show me what I wanted. Maybe there is a way to scroll through the list that I missed.

One interesting feature is the ability to add an RSS feed of a search to your own reader, blog, etc. I occasionally do a PowerSearch in iBistro to look for new DVDs. AquaBrowser would feed me titles right to my reader. You can even select to be fed every new title added to our entire catalog. Yikes. I am tempted...

A wonderful feature--AquaBrowser will remember your username and PIN after you've typed them in once when placing a hold. No punishing you for not remembering to login first.

Ok. Here is my greatest apprehension. I was practicing back at the branch. I brought up one detailed record, because that is the only way you can see what's in and what's out. And the little circle flower thingy went around and around for a lot longer than I'd like. Will bandwidth issues slow down our catalog?

Montpelier, lifelong home of our fourth president James Madison, has recently reopened to the public and on a windy Monday last week we took a tour. The house is not yet furnished, but many of the paintings that hung in the great hall have been restored to their places. While visiting, I remembered that James Madison (father of the U.S. Consitution) was the person I chose to investigate for a presidential papers project in my Government Documents class.

How things have changed in 30 years. Now most of President Madison's papers are available digitally and some are searchable. And the world of government documents has changed too. Back then we were dependent on the depository libraries--at least one per state--that kept and catalogued the vast array of gov docs. These libraries still exist, but the U.S. government has also embraced computerization and digitalization to make resources more convenient and managable. And the federal, state, and local governments continue to add user friendly features to their databases. For instance, it sure was easy this year to help people who didn't know where they were supposed to vote.

Hats off to the librarians, archivists, and subject specialists who continue to find ways to make our government documents accessible to all.

Good Reads

Thank you, Curious Claudia, for showing me how to add the Good Reads widget to my blog. Now if I could only find time to add more than seven books to my bookshelf...

Cloris Leachman's Voting Bloc

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I have become hooked on Dancing with the Stars.

As in politics, the best dancers among the "stars" do not always win the voters' hearts. This season, 82 year old Cloris Leachman, despite low scores awarded her by the judges, has outlasted at least two technically better dancers with the help of a voting bloc of appreciative fans.

I am not hooked enough to waste money actually voting for the dancers. (Nor do I know how to do so. I obviously need a Web 2.0 texting lesson on my Go phone.) I would be fascinated to know the demographics of her electorate. Are they all golden oldies? Or are they simply people who like her guts, enjoy her wit, and think that the program would be a poorer thing without her? After all, Leachman is the closest thing to a "star" that I've seen on the show. (This is making a distinction between famous people, like athletes, and stars, who are famous performers.) I know that Cloris is going to be voted off the island at some point, but wouldn't it be fun to see her win the mirror ball. In the meantime, I may try to get my 82 year old mother hooked.