Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Week 8 Reading Notes
CSS = Cascading Style Sheets
Styles saved in external .css files – External Style Sheets enable you to change the appearance and layout of all the pages in a web site by editing one file.
{ and } used to define declaration groups
CSS declaration always ends w/semicolon ex. {color:green; text-align:right;}
I don’t quite understand comments – will they display on the web page, or are they just for use in editing code?
3 ways to insert a style sheet: external, internal and inline
External = style applied to many pages
Internal = used when a single doc has unique style
Inline = mixes content w/presentation – has highest priority inside an HTML element
There are many background and text-formatting options – I wonder whether people can really use this so often that they memorize it, or if they always use code sheets!
Interesting to learn which fonts are easier to read…
The quiz is helpful in trying to apply this stuff – but it is disappointing that when you review your answers is doesn’t display the choices, correct answer, and your answer. That would make it easier to know what you need to learn.
This seems simple enough. Again, it would be nice to have a simple code sheet on hand – so I don’t have to search through a tutorial to create meaning from all this nonsense code.
This seems to repeat a lot of what I already read in the first two pages. I understand how the code works, and I am not going to memorize it because I won’t use it enough right now to make memorizing it useful, so it seems silly to re-read another explanation of how the code works.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Week 7 Reading Notes
Learning HTML is a great deal more simple than I imagined. This tutorial is super clear and easy to follow, and the wired.com cheat sheet is good to have for reference. I used to get overwhelmed when looking at HTML - but now I can tell what it all means and not get so anxious about all the weird brackets.
I do wonder about upper and lower case letters, though – why does the W3C require lowercase? Perhaps if I learn more complex HTML this difference will make sense to me.
Beyond HTML: Developing and re-imagining library web guides in a content management system
By: Doug Goans and Guy Leach
Seems a useful case study for a library seeking to work with such a CMS…
I don’t have much of a basis for this information, so it doesn’t seem relevant to me (except that I am now aware of the existence of CMS and how the language differs from HTML).
Friday, February 10, 2012
Week 6 Notes
“Every computer that is connected to the internet is part of a network.”
“The internet is simply a network of networks.”
POP = Point of Presence
NAP = Network Access Point
Routers determine where to send info from one comp to another – it makes sure info doesn’t go where its not needed, and that it does go where it is needed.
ISP’s connect their users w/other ISP’s users through NAP’s, and routers keep our stuff safe in the process of all this sharing??
And, is a backbone something each ISP has of its own?
What does “the default network” (as referenced during the section about reserved IP addresses (0.0.0.0.)) mean?
You used to have to provide the IP address of any computer you wanted to establish a link with. DNS is necessary b/c now there are too many computers and IP addresses to manage. DNS “maps text names to IP addresses automatically.”
DNS allows for web addresses to have words instead of IP addresses (decimal numbers)
Domain name = .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, or howstuffworks.com
Left most word in a URL is the host name.
“All of the machines on the internet are either servers or clients.”
Machines that provide services = servers; machines used to connect to services = clients
I’d like a more thorough break down… like, what is (physically) a NAP or Backbone? Do most ISP’s use existing phone/cable lines for their services? What is it that they are actually providing? It seems to me like it is way overpriced if much of the infrastructure already exists.
Because my experience in a traditional library setting is limited, I don’t have much experience w/ILS. I know the Free Library of Phila uses Sirsi, and that there is some kind of cool semantic mapping that happens when you search the catalog… but that’s about the extent of my knowledge.
Reading this made me understand why certain systems lack interoperability though – I hadn’t really realized before that there were even often 2 different systems working (as in the peoplesoft example).
With my limited knowledge in mind, take my opinion lightly, but I have to say it anyway – sometimes starting over from scratch is a lot easier.
“If they can’t obtain something via keyboard, it may as well not exist.”
I think this sentiment is apt to describe the changes of the ‘internet generation.’ And I think this author makes a good point for digitization – the parallel he draws to loss hits home for me. As society becomes more and more accustomed to the internet and some of the sophisticated search abilities now available, those resources that aren’t digital will likely get lost in the abyss of information. If someone types in any word in Google, they are going to get some results – probably thousands. So, if there is this much to sort through already without leaving the house, why bother going to find some book? Librarians probably cringe at the thought of this, because they know that it isn’t all good information. But, most people don’t, and that’s the way it is. I don’t think this will be as much a problem in academia in general, really – but for the general population, perhaps digitization is a good thing. And, for academics, it could potentially save them a lot of research money – they may not have to travel in order to get resources. But, what information they would have come by in their travels are they missing b/c of that conveniently scanned article? I’m not against digitization, but I do think that everyone should be urged to seek out books and paper every now and then, regardless of whether it is a perceived need.
Google answers is new to me – really cool that you can pay a reasonable amount of money to have someone go research whatever you think is important! I wonder though, what the rights would look like after.
I also love the 20% idea (that Google wants their employees to spend 20% if their time doing whatever they think is most important) – perhaps if librarians were able to do this, ILS would be better, among other things.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Week 5 Notes
“local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer lab, or office building.”
WAN = Wide area network
LANs have higher data-transfer rates, a smaller geographic area, and don’t need telecommunication lines than WANs. (LANs can use Ethernet and Wi-Fi to connect).
What I am still confused about is – is a LAN something that allows multiple computers to connect to the same internet, or is it something needed with or without the internet factor? The definition says it is a “computer network.” When I think of a networked computer – I think about the computers I have at work – where 4 computers are connected to one server, and I can (from the main computer) access the files from all of the computers in that network. This doesn’t have anything to do with internet – so how is LAN related?
The description of a computer network in the second Wikipedia article doesn’t really clarify this question for me. It defines a network as “a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels…” So, in my case (above), the communication channels are wires that work with or without internet. But, say I remote over to the other server, then I am using the internet to do the same thing. My understanding based on the above is that a network doesn’t require the internet as a communication channel, but it can be used in different ways if the internet is used as a channel of communication. So, does LAN refer to only the type of computer network that is using internet as a communication channel?
Management of RFID in Libraries
By: Karen Coyle
RFID = radio frequency identifier
RFID is like a barcode that is read w/an electromagnetic field. It carries more info than barcodes and doesn’t have to visible to be read (an can be embedded in an item).
Hundreds of different RFID products on the market – EZ tags, card keys, animal tracking chips, etc.
In libraries, RFID can be used for inventory purposes, and for circulation and security.
-Ex “checked-in” vs “checked out” state of a book going through security gate.
As with most library security measures, RFID would only be a “social deterrent” as opposed to an actual preventative measure. The real value is in the fact that one RFID tag can be used for many different purposes (and the security isn’t any worse than any other measure).
I think anything that lessens the need for staff to do dull tasks like running a circulation desk is probably something to consider. I also realize that not everyone would consider this task “dull,” and that there is an opportunity present for someone who wants a low-stress job in circulation. At the same time, I think in this day and age having staff replaced by technology is inevitable to some extent. I don’t think that means fire your circulation staff, but it would give them an opportunity to utilize other skills and spend some time doing other things (that are also super important and perhaps not replaceable by technology). RFID seems to be a fairly cost-effective technology, and also seems to inspire new ideas about what patrons value and how staff time is best spent.
Week 4 Lab
In the screen shot below, I used the query: SELECT j_abbr, j_if FROM isi_jcr_report_isls WHERE jcr_year = 2008 AND j_if > 1. The results indicate that there are 27 journals with impact factors higher than 1 in isi_jcr_report_isls.
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