Photoshop

I have to thank the wife for this bit of info….

A difficult part of my job is to help patrons modify/edit images and load them onto facebook, myspace, blogs, and etc. The problem is that a person can only do so much in the program Paint. Forget about fixing “red eye” or reducing an image. Eventually, most patrons tend to leave frustrated. Now, thanks to Adobe(thanks to the wife for telling me) you can access an express web version of Photoshop. You need a valid email address to sign up. You get roughly 2 gigs of server space to save photos. There are wizards/tutorials to help you share photos and make galleries. Once I try it out I will report back.

jessamyn west

A coworker pestered me to go to a worshop called Teaching Technology in Libraries. The whole reason is to hear Jessamyn West as the keynote. Am glad I went. She truly is a great speaker who captivated the audience of about 70.

There were 5 presenters speaking on various topics involving libraries and technology. How to structure basic computer classes? How to teach/deomstrate gadgets(ipods, kindles, etc)? Why are were technology trainers? Does New Horizon or the local con ed program handle that? Well, not for most of our patrons. And that was the theme. A chunk of patrons who cannot afford classes come to us and boy do we need all the help to get them past the beginning.

Jessamyn was able to put all the frustration and daily life of a librarian helping others with technology in plain yet hillarious terms. Helping one person with there mps player to cursing the computer for locking up and then ending the day with helping a person submit a resume online. Oh, they do not have an email. Need to do that first. have they used a computer? No! They were just told to do it at the library. SOmetimes you can help and other times they walk out frustrated.

Check out jessamyn’s blog at librarian.net. Many aspire to be as good and cool as her.

hidden treasure

Buried at MSU is H-Net, a great resource for book reviews and posting/contacting scholars in the humanities and social sciences. What is great is that it is home grown and shows the potential for cooperation and new types of jobs for the 21st century.

The skinny is that there are numerous discussion networks that you can subscribe to and read discussion threads, book reviews and post questions. Citation checking to where can I stay in DC for cheap for a conference. For librarians and others wanting more detailed book reviews, the review tab is the place to start your search. Scan the the discussion lists, there is probably something there for everybody to enjoy.