“Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?”
Neil Gaiman

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Comments Posted

http://woodss53.blogspot.com/2008/10/readings-week-9.html
http://anmpittinfotechnology.blogspot.com/2008/10/week-9-xenagoguemalnoia-and-laconicums.html
http://lindsaymattock.blogspot.com/2008/10/assignment-6.html

Muddiest Point -- XML

I understand that XML is used primarily for data while HTML is better suited to formatting and display, but it seems like this line crosses over occassionally. I'm not clear on when, where, and why XML is used for display and formatting.

Week 9 Readings -- XML

This week’s readings on XML, while interesting, definitely showed my weakness when it comes to programming. I got everything at a basic level. I understand that XML supports data while HTML is better suited to formatting and display… and then the waters began to get murky for me…

“It is important to understand that XML is not a replacement for HTML. In most web applications, XML is used to transport data, while HTML is used to format and display the data.”

“With XML, data can be stored in separate XML files. This way you can concentrate on using HTML for layout and display, and be sure that changes in the underlying data will not require any changes to the HTML.”

I sort of understood this area about schemas…

“One of the greatest strength of XML Schemas is the support for data types.
With support for data types:
* It is easier to describe allowable document content
* It is easier to validate the correctness of data
* It is easier to work with data from a database
* It is easier to define data facets (restrictions on data)
* It is easier to define data patterns (data formats)
* It is easier to convert data between different data types”
But when it started to get into XLST and style sheets I’m afraid I was in murky water again. I’d have done better to have been playing around with it. This is why I was an English major and not a programmer.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Muddiest Point

How come the fall break only affected LIS 2600 and not LIS 2000?

Comments Posted

http://my-little-petunia.blogspot.com/2008/10/assignment-5.html
http://maggie215.blogspot.com/2008/10/week-8-comments.html

Koha Bookshelf -- The Fish School

Here is my Koha bookshelf...

The Fish School-- books on diving, the oceans, and marine biology.

http://pitt5.kohawc.liblime.com/cgi-bin/koha/bookshelves/shelves.pl?viewshelf=35

Week 8 Readings -- HTML and CSS

This week's readings were a lot of fun. I have always wanted to learn how to write HTML and now I had the perfect opportunity to get up off my rear end and play with it! I knew the basics and theory behind it, but had never played with it. As I did the readings, I pulled up a text file on my Mac and tried writing some of the examples. It was really fun to see how they worked. I am just learning Dreamweaver at work, so this week's readings were immensely helpful in filling me in on how all of the files in the index I am looking at in Dreamweaver are working together to form a webpage. CSS files FINALLY make sense to me!!!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Comments Posted

http://micq13.blogspot.com/
http://reneeblog-rjz.blogspot.com/
http://cmdilb.blogspot.com/

Muddiest Point

I guess this isn't really a muddy point, but more of a request... it would be HUGELY helpful if Dr. He could make up a slide at the end of the lecture with a listing of all of the web references on it so that we can print it off and go back and refer to it. There are so many throughout the lecture that I get bogged down sometimes making my list of sites I want to refer back to.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Assignment 4 -- Jing

http://www.screencast.com/users/mjosef/folders/Jing/media/7f092198-3215-4e0a-9f0d-0a4fce3a0833

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30034657@N05/

Week 7 Readings -- Dismantling Integrted Library Systems, Inside the Google Machine Presentation, Internet Infrastructure

The "How Stuff Works" Internet Infrastructure was pretty basic, nothing astonishing or new...

The article on dismantling ILS was interesting. I don't yet work in a library, just volunteer at my kids' school library so I haven't experienced the frustrations of incompatibility on a large scale (other than my mac dealing with the PC world). I guess my feeling is that in the long run it is really in the library's (meaning all libraries) best interest to continue struggling through these challenges even if they do mean extra capital expenditures. Ensuring that today's library system integrates with the outside world is more important than holding on to a relic.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Google presentation! The map of Google users worldwide was really cool. In fact, I liked it so much, I downloaded it to iTunes. I'm really interested in the spread of the Internet globally and thought this was a great way to track useage across the planet! I loved Brin and Page's presentation style and am impressed by several of their ideas. I love the idea of 20% time and the way they encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. I also liked the Top 100 list of ideas -- just like Billboard!

Actually, I work within a special area of the University of Delaware where innovation and entrepreneurship are also encouraged. If one of our researchers has an idea outside of their specific research area, they are encouraged to go with it. One of our PhD candidates has a provisional patent for an idea outside of his research area right now. I want to show this video to my boss -- I think he'll like it!