Virtual tour: virtual library for learning languages

The exchange of experience day was great: seeing what others have done elsewhere (the science cloud on delicious @Cambridge particularly, but everyone on the day really) has convinced me of the positive points of web 2.0.

The Staff Conference was great too, especially the Information overload? Sit back and let the information come to you with RSS

Blog

I have created a blog , inspired by the St Stephen's House Library example.
Thanks to Jane, I have now installed a counter, using SiteMeter ... Let's see how many people have a look at it. If not many people, work more on marketing the blog. Update (July 09): for a while SiteMeter did not work because I had forgotten to properly install it... interesting to see the world map of users, and how long they stay (usually not very long...)

Delicious

I have two delicious accounts, one for the library, and one personnal.

1.The e-library is going well in delicious It is a regular work done by the Extended Hours Library Assistants.

I'm happy with: the beauty of the cloud and how good non-latin funts look like.

I am trying to get some logic between the physical library and the e-one, so that's why you will have similar tags, such as "reference" for grammars etc... I really like the esthetic of the "cloud" and it has influenced my day style with html for building the language links index, a faux-web 2.0 style. Also the html index now is best for people with visual disabilities (we cancelled the table we used to have).

And this is a question I am asking, how good is web 2.0 for people with visual, or mobile, or hearing disabilities?

Update: tried to create a new account "languagelibraryatOxford" (instead of my Librarian379) and to move my bookmarks. Glad I have not yet deleted the previous account. Failing to do that so far.

Update2: I have given up trying to transfer my bookmarks to the new account. Apart from that, students and staff are very impressed with the system when I do my class presentations.

2. Just started (May 2009) to build a delicious account for myself. It will be mainly for web2.0 stuff and copyright. I'm interested for example, in the Hadopi law in France.

Update (July 09): just trying out a broken link checker for Delicious called Fresh Delicious. It's very slow (43 minutes) but my delicious account for the Language Centre has got many entries thanks to the wonderful work done by the Assistants (1312 links!). I have checked a few of the broken links indicated by the sofware, some are broken links, some are not (the fantastic Omniglot website for example!). So it is perhaps best to choose the option of deleting the links after several tests to make sure that only broken links go...

FaceBook

I have been using Facebook personnaly for a few good months now. I have both colleagues and friends there. Update: I have decided not to use FaceBook as a "base" for my library. Inspired by Stephen's House Library, I have created a blog instead. Update (July 09): I have changed my mind about FaceBook and just created a page. I am struggling to get something as nice as Warwick University Library (presented by monsieur le grand méchant homme at the last all libraries conference). I am particularly struggling with boxes at the moment... Queen's Library looks fabulous. I also like the Union Library and Nuffield, from which I take the idea of doing rss feeds from librarything. It is possible, in the Notes' section, to import your blog, it is then possible for readers to do a rss subscription.
Weirdly enough: I have found FaceBook really hard to work with (not with perso page) creating a public page for the library. I do think it is worth it though as so many students and staff are on Facebook.

Google Docs

Can't remember exactly when Jane used this, but I was quite impressed and decided to use the presentation tool of Google Docs that I can now produce for everyone to see from the blog so I can start from the LC website and blog when I visit LC classes. So far students looked quite impressed!

LibraryThing

Seeing what Nuffield Library has been doing, I have created a LibraryThing account for the library and have purchased a CueCat barcode scanning device from LibraryThing. Thanks to Alison for telling me about adding a "," for my subject keywords. (I was thinking it was the same as in Delicious). NOTE: Just a word of warning for those who are purchasing the CueCat using a departmental credit card, the transaction appears as fraud, so the finance department calls you... Having said that, it's good to see that there is a good security system in place.

Update: happily uploading books onto LibraryThing. The evening Assistants seem to have no problems with it when uploading Japanese material. Errors done by most Assistants: not separating keywords with commas.
Problems encountered:
1. if you stay in the English interface, Librarything does not cope well with foreign letters, such as ç à é etc... As I am trying to give the language names in both English and the language itself, it is annoying. Solution found: go to the French version. Seems, so far, to cope well with Chinese and Japanese letters. Philip Garrett, my new Wed/Th Assistant to attempt entering our Japanese collection.
2.doesn't do videos, or very few, which is a shame. Perhaps I should write to them and ask why not?
3.as much of my material is more likey to be found on amazon than Oxford Uni Catalogue, the standards are quite low (I've already noticed mistakes in dates etc...)

Update2: I have contacted LibraryThing and enquired about DVDs. Abby Blachly kindly replied: "we don't promise the perfect system for non-book materials :)". I just need to find a similar website that would be good with uploading DVD records. But, apart from that, I am very happy with LibraryThing and so are the students and teaching staff of the Language Centre. (many thanks to Abby for letting me quote her)


RSS feed: Netvibes & Google reader

I have chosen Netvibes, and not i-google or pageflakes because someone (Isabel Holowaty?) said at the Staff Conference (Information overload? Sit back and let the information come to you with RSS training) that Netvibes offers more Audio-Visual material. And it is therefore something more relevant to my library. I'm currently setting up a public + perso page. But I do understand why most Subject Librarians would prefer i-google: more space on the screen for text RSS.

So far I have installed a podcast search for languages, rss feed from MIT courseware, and, my favourite: a video search widget which allows you to search: you tube, google video, metacafe (though the Inspector Clouzot "French learning English" video does not quite convince me of the seriousness of the material on offer...funny though.. ) and My space (some good stuff it seems for English and English as a sign language videos). Searches quite limited, does not seem to go beyond SEARCH= keyword(s) + site:co.uk and seems to miss out on site:.fr or any other countries... must explore more.

Like very much the Jaman movie search widget with a "language learning" search you get trailers of new foreign (ie not in English) films.

Have explored the ticTOCs Journal tables of contents service to create a Librarianship Reading page on Netvibes. It was very easy to use.

I have now set up an google reader from the Librarianship Readings because the view on Netvibes is not good enough for what I need, even with the "quick details" or "headline" view. On google-reader I can read much more text in one go without having to use the mouse. Pretty cool: thanks to the ticTOTCs (not to be confused with the tic-toc-choc from Couperin...) I was able to send an interesting article to Alison regarding Library systems. I would never have found this article, because, quite simply, I would never have looked for it. The video RSS in plain English on the RSS page explains that pretty well.

I'm currently (May 09) working on my netvibes page, inspiring myself from the Law Library's page (though on Pageflakes, can't wait for them to move to netvibes). But it's pretty much not finished (started?). I speak about the netvibes page in LIP (Language Centre in Print) our internal weekly asking all Tutors to check their own pages so that they can help me get rss feeds for newspapers they think are relevant, preferably from different political viewpoints. Sent a query to netvibes, asking if people can fully contribute to my page (similarly to blogger and other web 2.0 stuff) because if yes, I'd be very happy to let others I trust, contribute.

Latest update: Netvibes people got back in touch saying, thanks for the idea but it's not possible at the moment (to completely share the making of pages). No Tutors has gone back to me and I have decided, after adding not-sure-I-know-what on the Arabic and Chinese and Portuguese pages, to make the netvibes pages live. There is a link from the blog to it. I have participated in the 3i (i3?) competition, speaking about my web 2.0 adventures... we will see...

Screencasting

After a visit to the screencasting page, am trying Jing. Downloading was easy and I have done two tests: one for using the catalogue, another one for a virtual visit of the web 2.0 library. Very easy to use so far, but the free version is pretty basic and it seems that sound is not that easy to have. I have also downloaded Camtasia studio (free trial for 30 days), possibility there to "film/record" powerpoint presentation.
Will try the other screencasting, Wing, if I find the time.
Wish recording of voice would be as easy as with a macintosh...
Update (the day after): I have finally managed to put sound on my screencasting, very happy. No need, so far to use Camtasia studio. I have used one of the headphone/microphone we have in the Language Centre (not the costly type) and used Jing + Screencasting.com . You can see the result from the screencasting page, or go to the library blog. (It was a bit complicated to add the code in blogger, my blog provider, as I had to change the object width and lenghth, from 1024 and 712, I did 414 and 312 so that it was fitting nicely in the blog without hiding the right-hand column.
Tried to download Wing twice, there was a problem. Shame. I will not try again. Happy with Jing. The only thing perhaps missing (or that I failed to learn how to do perhaps) is the lack of captions. Apart from that, I'm really happy.
Warning: watch out for the 5 minutes limit! It goes fast...


YouTube

Asked the Copyright Librarian about e-copyright and YouTube. As I am pointing in the direction of, ie providing a link to, I am not the owner of the content. Furthermore people, when they upload their YouTube video do sign some sort of stating agreement. That allows me to get a good collection of different formats, and it's good for songs with interesting lyrics, extracts of movies with regional accents, or slang.

Mini-thoughts: Regarding copyright: as nor the IT Officer nor I, are the authors of the codes nor the owners of those sites, we will continue to develop the LC website. Library web 2.0 is great, but the copyright is not ours, and these fanstastic websites could disappear without a trace one day, so it is important to keep updating the Language Centre website. Yet Delicious helps me finding popular language learning websites, so I am very grateful for that.