That didn't take long...

Well, I've submitted the link to my final class portfolio. It can be viewed here:

http://www.pitt.edu/~clp56/portfolio_puzak.html

It has been an interesting semester, and a rather enjoyable class. I look forward to the Fall semester, but I'm very excited to have a short break. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I hear my pillow calling...

The Final Countdown!

I've been working on my final assignments for both classes this semester. I finished my GIS assignment earlier in the evening, and am now preparing to put the final touches on my LIS 2600 web page. I just hope that Dr. Tomer can access everything! I have an hour and 15 minutes left to complete this, which will be plenty of time. I'll post an update when everything is ready.

Last Week!

It's the last week of the Summer semester! I can't believe how quickly the past few months went. I have one final project for my GIS class, and of course, the web page for LIS 2600.

I had to dogsit this past weekend while my parents visited Boston. Taking care of three hyperactive dachshunds is an exhausting (but rewarding) experience. Needless to say, I did not find time to work on anything but my dog bathing techniques!

In other news, the Cumberland County Library System just gave its website a much-needed overhaul: Cumberland County Library System

Caffeine Required to Post

After perusing my older posts, I finally, FINALLY realized that I kept calling Jing "Zing." I have no idea why. I blame my broken coffee maker and the subsequent caffeine withdrawal that goes along with Mr. Coffee's absence.

Tangent: I am a State employee, and the paycheck I'm receiving tomorrow is for $160. After that, I won't be receiving any pay until the budget is passed. With that said, donations are welcome! I even take Paypal!

Web Page Content

I just finished another project for my GIS class, and I'm now looking forward to the last assignment for LIS 2600. I have experience creating web pages, but I think I tend to underwhelm audiences. I rarely put multimedia on my pages, and I never use flashy banners or extraneous animated content. My goal for the final project is to keep things simple and professional. Nothing screams "amateur" like glittery fonts and disgustingly cute backgrounds!

External Stylesheets

I just completed the CSS assignment for LIS 2600. It's been awhile since I last experimented with external stylesheets, so I had to refresh my memory with a few web searches on the subject. At first, I accidentally put all of the style information directly into my HTML page source code, instead of linking to my separate stylesheet. While it obviously worked, it wasn't what the assignment called for. So I merely copied the style information into my CSS file, saved both of them, and dragged the updated files into my Fetch FTP program. I can see the updated page here:

http://www.pitt.edu/~clp56/thoreau_fragment_1.html

Missing Fast Track Weekend

I had talked to Dr. Tomer during the Spring Fast Track weekend about not being able to attend the summer on-campus session. I'm actually somewhat depressed, because I love visiting the campus. I attended Pitt as an undergraduate, and it's nice going back for a visit every semester.

Originally, the dates of the Summer Fast Track weekend were July 10-12, so I had planned to be out of town on those days. Unfortunately, the on-campus session dates were changed for Cohort 8.5, so I'm unable to make the trip to Pittsburgh this weekend due to vacation plans that couldn't be rescheduled. Thankfully, I'm only missing LIS 2600's class, because my GIS class does not have an on-campus meeting this semester.

I'm very glad I had the opportunity to use Jing earlier in the semester, because I'm required to make an online presentation for my GIS class, LIS 2970. The assignment is to present a GIS related library website, database, or clearinghouse; demonstrate a tool within ArcGIS; or present the ArcGIS software in general. I just hope I can give a thorough explanation of the software and still remain within Jing's restrictive five minute time limit!

Thoreau Fragment and Fetch

I just uploaded my Thoreau HTML page to the Pitt server, after fighting with it for a few minutes. I had to download Fetch (a program for FTPing) instead of Filezilla. Apparently Filezilla doesn't like my Macbook, and refused to install correctly (I tried several times). I believe my OS might be outdated, so I'll have to check on that later. In any case, Fetch worked quite nicely. I changed the file upload to SFTP, and just dragged my HTML file from my desktop to my Pitt public folder. After reading Tim's posts online, I finally realized that I need to create another folder within the public folder for the link to work correctly. So, I created an "HTML" folder and dragged my file into that. Presto! I could finally view my Pitt webpage. I hope Dr. Tomer can see it, as well!

Web Design in Two Minutes

I just watched the "Web Design in Two Minutes" video and found it pretty entertaining. Time lapse photography makes everything seem easy, but it really takes significant time, planning, and patience to create a website of that caliber. I'm not too certain, but I think the designer was using PhotoShop and Dreamweaver. I'd love to see someone create this website using only HTML and JavaScript. I suspect the video's title would then change to "Web Design in 30 Minutes."

GIS Assignment - Close Call!

In my last post, I mentioned how relieved I was that the due date for my GIS assignment had been pushed back by one day. After I posted this news, I checked just to make sure I was right, and apparently the due date was only pushed back for people who had submitted the assignment incorrectly at an earlier time. I'm just glad I discovered my error in time! I was able to complete and submit the assignment before the stroke of midnight. Crisis averted!

Koha Assignment

I just completed the Koha assignment for this class. It was a simple assignment--Dr. Tomer's video was straightforward and easy to follow. Like the other assignments, though, the work was tedious. It took me about two hours to add all 25 Battle of Gettysburg items to the virtual bookshelf I created (Puzak). I'm assuming that real library work won't be as mundane, but I haven't had the benefit of library co-op experience. I do volunteer at the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library in Mechanicsburg, PA, but I am just a lowly shelver. I'll have to find out if the librarians there are utilizing any of the citation/reference programs that we have addressed in class. To be honest, I usually see the librarians dealing with administrative issues (i.e., intra-library book transfers and setting up meeting rooms for local reading groups), so I'm not very familiar with the demand for reference services at J.T. Simpson.

In other news, I am somewhat concerned about my next GIS assignment. Thankfully we've been given another day to complete it, but I have a feeling I'll be spending several hours just trying to understand it. I wish I had a longer weekend!

Okay, I'm a Moron...

I was browsing the class bulletin board and noticed that several classmates had questions regarding the ePrints assignment. I'm very glad I read Tim's instructions to move our "deposits" to live storage, because they'd still be sitting in my account with an "under review" status! I just moved all 25 sources live, so hopefully they appear when Dr. Tomer reviews the assignment.

ePrints3 Assignment

Well, after a good two hours, I managed to find and post 25 references to my ePrints3 account. Honestly, I think 25 references was way too many--I understood what I needed to do after the second or third reference was complete. I realized just how time consuming compiling citations really is. I'm in the reference services specialization, and I'm starting to regret it (ha, ha)!

If I Fail my GIS Midterm, I'm Blaming Michael Jackson

This week has been fairly hectic for me. Right now, in fact, I'm visiting my grandmother in Johnstown (in beautiful Cambria County!), so I had to duck into her bedroom quickly to use her computer before she spends her usual two or three hours entering online contests.

It's amazing that senior citizens can learn to use the latest technology. My grandmother is 84 years old, but she manuevers through webpages like a pro. I definitely believe that all libraries (with enough resources, of course), should have computer classes for senior citizens during the week. At the very least, there should be one course every week that introduces new patrons to the library's online catalog and how to perform simple searches.

I'll be working on this class's latest assignment tomorrow, when I return home. I spent Thursday night and Friday morning completing an assignment and a midterm exam for my GIS class. It wouldn't have taken so long, but my roommate's sister was watching all of the Michael Jackson news and video marathons she could get her hands on that night. Trust me, trying to explain the difference between vector and raster models is a bit difficult when the Thriller music video is being shown every ten minutes.

Well, my grandmother wants to use her computer, so I guess I'll have to "Beat It."

Additional Notes About the Embedded Video

I tried repeatedly to fit this video into my blogger page, but as you'll notice below, it's a bit difficult for the viewer to see any fine details regarding the Zotero installation process. I decided to stick a hyperlink below the embedded video in case someone wants to view the video in its actual size.

I also apologize for the rushed ending--I forgot that the videos are limited to five minutes' recording time!

Trying to Post this Video at an Appropriate Size is Like Trying to Herd Cats!

PLEASE NOTE: The video can also be found here: 2009-06-21_1113

Preparing for the Zotero Presentation

I finally managed to track down my friend who had been using my computer microphone for her online language lessons. I'm fairly comfortable explaining how to download and install Zotero for Firefox, so I'm getting everything set up to do the recording early tomorrow morning. I'm also excited about using Zing. I realize that this technology is nothing new, but until now, my experiences with audiovisual presentations have been limited to PowerPoint slideshows. If I need to explain to a coworker how to perform specific actions on their computers, it's easier for me to show them how to do it, rather than telling them what to do. Zing allows the utilization of both techniques. I'm definitely looking forward to this!

Google Docs Aberration!

Today, I discovered that my Assignment 2 submission was lost in cyberspace. Dr. Tomer sent me an e-mail, requesting that I resubmit the assignment because he couldn't find it. I logged into my Google Docs account and checked my documents, but I couldn't find my uploaded assignment! So, I had to upload that again.

Also, as part of Assignment 2, we had to create RSS feeds based upon our searches. I'm not sure how I managed to do this, but apparently when I initially posted the feeds as a note within Google Docs, I signed into my personal account (as opposed to my Pitt Google Docs account) and posted it there.

I really have no idea how any of this happened, but I do remember suffering from severe jet lag that night. I blame my vacation!

No homework!

I am very glad that no homework is due today. I had let a friend borrow my USB microphone a few months ago, and she hasn't returned it, yet. Considering that the next assignment involves creating a video with voice-over narration, it would have been a bit difficult to complete if the assignment were still due today.

It's Sunday night, so I'm turning in early in preparation for work in the morning and reviewing my classes' materials in the afternoon. I'll need as much sleep as I can get--it's going to be a long day tomorrow!

WorldCat Assignment

I finally had the chance to work on my WorldCat assignment today.  It was a pretty straightforward assignment: find 50 items related to scholarly journal publishing.  I entered the entire phrase into the WorldCat search bar, and immediately found over 1,000 hits.  I refined the search by selecting only items in English, and limited the results to the items found in the Library Sciences.  This narrowed my results to over 100.   I saved the first 50 results (sorted by relevance) as a list to my WorldCat account.  I then exported the list in the .RIS format, and saved it in Excel.  It looked bizarre (i.e., the citation details were spread over a series of excel columns, instead of being neatly formatted), so I checked the class Bulletin Board for Tim’s explanation.  My file looked reminiscent of the .xls file he uploaded as an example, so I think I did this correctly.

Finally, I uploaded the spreadsheet to my Google Docs account and sent Professor Tomer an e-mail notification of its completion and his access to view it.  

My initial impression of WorldCat was a positive one.  It seemed to be a less cumbersome method of obtaining and saving citations than Google Scholar.  This was a short assignment with a general search request, however, so I'm curious if WorldCat is refined enough to provide significant citation information for more specific searches.  I'll probably try some additional searches on my own time and decide if I prefer WorldCat as my primary citation engine.

It's almost 9:30 PM, though, and food takes precedence over WorldCat any day.  

 

GIS For Librarians

I have the pleasure of taking a Special Topics - GIS For Librarians class this semester. My mom majored in Geography as an Undergraduate at IUP, and subsequently worked for the Federal government as a cartographer for a few years. I've been around maps since a child, so I jumped at the chance to take this class.

We're currently learning how to apply the ArcView (map making) software to theoretical scenarios. The latest project was determining the best place to build a new university in the Boston, MA area, given specific criteria (i.e., the university should be located within 200 meters of open space, more than 5 km away from existing universities, etc.). The software is fairly easy to use, but my results didn't quite match what was given in the examples, so I'm curious as to why the discrepancy exists.

It's Thursday, and the weekend can't come soon enough!

MLIS Land Lubber

It has been quit a while since I last posted, due to the unexpected hurdles I encountered on vacation to Alaska. I knew ahead of time that I would need an internet connection to keep up with classes, so I brought my trusty Macbook and planned to use the ship's wireless internet (for anyone who has not cruised before, many cruise ships now use a satellite service for internet connections). In fact, I had successfully completed and submitted homework assignments for my MLIS 2000 class when I was on a cruise to the Caribbean during the Fall 2008 semester, so I was confident that the same scenario would occur.

This was my first time going to Alaska, so I had no idea that the internet connection, even on the ship, would be dubious at best (and nonexistant most of the time). I tried several times to connect to Pitt's library services, but received nothing but time outs or pages that refused to load. It was simply impossible to do anything other than send short e-mails before the connection was lost. Incidentally, the ship had a library, and I attempted to use the public computers to connect to the Internet, but had no more success than with my laptop.

I flew from Seattle to Chicago to Harrisburg this evening. I finally, finally completed Assignment 2 and made the bibliographic data and RSS feeds available to Professor Tomer. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to create RSS feeds linked to my Scopus searches, so I hope everything turned out okay.

In other news, I start a new job tomorrow. I'm hoping that the jet lag will disappear by the morning.

Technological Preparation

I called off work sick today, so in addition to napping, I decided to prepare my computer for the semester.  I downloaded Jing, created accounts for Screencast, WorldCat, and RefWorks, and watched the introductory presentation posted on Courseweb.

I then installed Firefox for Mac, since I'll be using my MacBook for the class.  Finally, I installed the Zotero, XMarks, and PittCat + add-ons for the Firefox browser.  

I will be addressing Assignment 1 after another bout of snoozing.

Introduction!

Hello, everyone!  I'm a Fast Track MLIS student from cohort 8.5.   I began the MLIS program as an Archives student, but have recently switched to the Academic, Professional, and Specialty Libraries track.  I'm a web master for the Commonwealth, so I'm fairly comfortable around websites and new technology.  I'm looking forward to the semester and hope to supplement my current knowledge of IT with the information from this course.  

Also, Macs rule!