Uncontrolled Vocabulary uses Talk Shoe to host the live discussion and to record the hour for dissemination through podcast. The discussion is on newsworthy library-related items that have arisen during the week and are often suggested by listeners, through the use of an unvocab tag in del.icio.us. Greg has an Uncontrolled Vocabulary blog and also a Facebook group which sends out reminders about the upcoming episode.

It is 32 episodes strong now and I have been listening in since the 1st episode. It is entertaining, informative and a fun way to keep in touch with library news, whilst also doing some professional development activity.

So this week, I finally got onto the call – Uncontrolled Vocabulary #32 – Cranky people make good audio. The few communications issues I had encountered in the previous 2 weeks were finally bypassed through the use of Skype. I had a great time being a part of the call, even if I didn’t contribute all that much and I am looking forward to joining in again where possible.

If you haven’t listened to the podcasts, I highly recommend them. Greg is a accomplished moderator, there is a great group of regular callers and some very interesting topics arise, with conversations sometimes taking unexpected turns or presenting points of view you may not have considered.

Thanks Greg, from grateful listener and now participator. It is a lot of fun and I appreciate what you do to make it happen (nearly) every week.

When recording a speaker, they put the recorder on a front row seat, next to someone monitoring it. For a concert, they place it next to a speaker and for an interview, on the table between the questioner and guest.

They use Wavepad (ironically its Australian) software, to compress the wmv file to MP3, Caitlin says it is much better than Audacity and its still free. They keep file sizes down to under 25 meg to keep it easier for up and downloading. If the session is longer than 20 minutes, they split it into separate files to keep it under the limit. Caitlin also uploads their podcasts to iTunes as well as having them available through their events blog. They have done podcasts on how to podcast, responses to the question of who will die in Harry Potter, teen book reviews, concert, speakers and more.

Caitlin also does audio reviews of audio books for Audiofile magazine, which helps her stay current on podcasting techniques and equipment. Darien also has a MySpace page and although they haven’t done much with it, they have over 100 friends – mostly publishers and librarians however.

I finished the day with Alan Kirk Gray – an amazing and delightful gentleman. We talked about the new Darien Library and all the changes that will come with the new building. Some of these changes include roving reference, RFID with no set circulation desk, a learning commons in the basement, teen center next to the computer, SOHO – small office, home office space, virtual reference office and much more. Its all very exciting and a lot of risk taking, so it will be amazing and exciting to watch how it all develops. They are aiming to be collaborative, with patron to staff and patron to patron.

Darien is very customer focused – what I experienced as a visitor is also the type of experience that every user enjoys. Alan and the entire Darien staff were a pleasure to deal with and I felt like a treasured guest as that was how I was treated. I can’t thank Louise, Alan and the Darien staff enough for sharing their experiences and the journeys involved with me.

The first task was to link to a YouTube video, but of course I had to take the extra challenge and embed it into my blog entry. Which once I joined up to YouTube (oh the problem of so many logins and passwords!), was pretty straightforward. I wanted to embed the video of the help desk for the book (monks, Norwegian, funny), but unfortunately the English subtitled version is no longer on YouTube, so instead I chose the Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us – which is a clever 5 minute video which gives an overview of what Web 2.0 is. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]

So what did I think of YouTube. I haven’t visited the site much as I usually get pointed straight to the video URL via Digg or blog posts. However, my first exploration of it left me impressed. Its easy to search, easy to join and after I did, it was easy to find how to embed a video in my blog. All good! Once we get started on our own videos at my library (goodness knows when that will happen though), this will definitely be the place to put them.

Next was podcasts, I have already listened to quite a few, usually through my computer, although I am downloading a few to my iRiver for when I go overseas. So the last part of the exercise I had already completed – I am subscribed to podcasts from Opal, the Sirsi Dynix Institute and Second Life amongst others.

The first part however, was to check out some podcast search engines. I chose Yahoo Podcasts and Podcast Alley, both of which I had heard of before. After looking at Yahoo’s overview of podcasts, I used their podcast search to find Thomas Ford’s click -a-story, an audio storytime of public domain picture books. Great service, one I hope we can copy someday. I also searchd on some of the other places I am visiting on my study tour and found that OPLIN also has a number of podcasts. Podcast Alley on the otherhand was a bit less user friendly. When I did a search on Princeton Public Library, it did an or search, so I got everything else but. Not very helpful. However, they do have a genre search which could be very useful.

The extra challenge was to add audio to your blog, using Blogger’s Audio Blogging service, unfortunately it was discontinued in November last year.

So that’s the program. I will do one more post to sum up what I have learned and I’m done with it, but not with learning!

Spoke about the insatiable need for information in our society, which places libraries and librarians in an ideal position – in a parallel to the drug scene, people in our society are information junkies and we are their dealers. We are Infovores, addicted to consuming vast amounts of information.

According to Damian, the most disruptive technology has been Info Tech – in general. IT changes what we do, not just how we do it and who does it. Writing was the area of the clergy, until others could write, printing was the aristocracy until the Gutenberg press, most recent disruption is the public library, giving power to all!

Damian’s title for this presentation was Four funerals and a wedding. The four funerals are for:
Ignorance – ubiquitous computing and ambient knowledge will mean that everyone will be able to access all information, anywhere, anytime. The disruptive technology here is ultra storage, for example, the entire Library of Congress on one small memory device.

Publishing – new model is now e-books, Gutenberg, Google’s Book search etc. There is the potential for an unlimited catalogue and theory of unlimited print distribution and duration with print on demand etc. The disruptive technology here is the rpint on demand machines (Espresso at NYPL), Sony Book Reader which is very paperlike.

Dewey – proven, extensible and out of date. Disruptive technology? Been replaced by IPv6, the newest version of numerical URLS (IPv4). Instead of having 3 ranges of 3 number, IPv6 will have 8 ranges of 8 numbers, with a maximum of 340 billion, trillion, quadrillion unique addresses. Which means every word, in every copy of every edition of every title published, could have its own address. Every word could be cross-referenced. Add to this that in 10 years, RFID tags will be the size of a full stop and you will be able to make ink with them, which can then be read by a reader. Whoa!

Media Barons was the last funeral – print is declining and online is not making up the difference. Disruptive technology here is hyperlinks that link the knowledge. What happens when meta knowledge is created by everyone all the time?

The wedding is a world that is suffused with ambient information. But it needs navigators, teachers, guides, architects, conservators, reviews, critics, police – a skill set which librarians have been developing for centuries.

So what will librarians do in the coming information economy – everything that matters!

Peter Blake from Australian Catholic University then spoke on using wikis in Information Services. They converted their Reference Desk Manual into wiki format. His advice included: working out the wikis purpose, decide on features, database, community and scope and decide on how much structure it will have. Wiki features include images, attached documents and RSS feeds. If it is included as part of an intranet, it means one login gives you access to everything. Their structure is a loose hierarchy of topics, cross linked to the maximum depth with a welcome screen and help text. From their evaluation they found that they were missing features they really needed and that there was confusion as to whether or not to link to their intranet. The intranet is only at one campus at present as they have been unable to do training and rollout to others because of other IT rollouts.

Sue Grey Smith and Luke Padgett from Curtin University spoke of some of the initiatives that have been introduced there using Open Source software. They are using Miranda IM to provide their Ask Online chat reference service. Its free, customisable under open source and has a number of install options. No IT support, but has a great support Forum. Can receive messages from different IM clients. Students can login directly via Curtin’s IM system or via any IM client. It has been marketed as a general point of contact, so queries can be technical, reference or lending based. Answers are immediate and although statistics are not availabe in the software, it has been very successful and saved money.

Using Open source PHP – Pirate Source from East Carolina Uni, they are able to provide subject guides on the fly. 46 guides are provided, the old format was static and linked to via divisional directories. Programmers at Curtin had to make some changes to the software, but as a result, they now have 2 click, customised subject guides.

Podcasts have been created using Audacity, a laptop, microphone, quiet place and script. Mixed using Audacity and Creative Commons music from CCMixtr. They generated RSS feeds for them using online tools and created a web page to host the podcasts and feeds. They now have 30+ podcasts covering info literacy and book reviews, with 9379 downloads made from Feb to Nov 06.

They use b2evolution as their blog software – its free open source, which allows mutiple blogs, categorisation and has anti-spam features. It is resilient, needs little support and is easy to maintain. The use MediaWiki, a server based package for their internal documentation. They are considering using it for their public FAQ page. Open Source has made all these things possible. Some IT support is needed.

Gerard Egan from the ATO spoke on podcasting from a non-techie view. He highly recommended Michael Abulencia’s (RMIT) guide on podcasting. What to podcast? News, tours, information literacy, storytimes, workplace training, 5 minutes on important topics. Podcasts give personality and a voice to your organisation. You can find them using Podcast Directory or Loomia search engine. Podzinger lets you search within podcasts. Reverse podcasts are being used in education – the students listen first then come and discuss it in class. To convert text to MP# you can use Natural Reader, 2nd Speech Centre etc.

That was it for Day 2 – Session 4 was dedicated to exploring the Exhibitors Hall. I spent some time with old friends at Thomson Gale, OCLC Pica and Sirsi-Dynix and picked up the odd bit of information elsewhere. Didn’t win any of the prize drawers unfortunately.