Library Zen

Awful Library Books

Published on November 11, 2009 in Day to Day. 1 Comment

We interrupt this 2 year hiatus from blogging to congratulate my co-worker, Mary Kelly, and past co-worker, Holly Hibner. They will be appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show tonight at 12AM EST to talk about their blog – Awful Library Books.

Be sure to watch!

Update (11/14/09): Video Added

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LISZEN Reloaded

Published on October 26, 2007 in Day to Day. 2 Comments

On October 26th, 2006 LISZEN went live with 530 searchable blogs. Today that number has grown to over 750 blogs thanks to blogger submissions. In light of the 1 year anniversary of LISZEN, I decided to rework the site design from the ground up.

Those familiar with the old search page design would agree that it had a Google feel to it. This consisted of a standard logo and a few links leading to additional information. In a word, the design was simple.

When setting off to give LISZEN a new feel I had a few goals in mind:

Reduce number of clicks to get to desired information.
Offer a way for library bloggers to promote LISZEN.
Create a unique results page that focuses on results.
Continue to keep the Graphical User Interface (GUI) simple.

I believe the new version of LISZEN meets all of these goals. And I hope others agree. As always, if you have a suggestion for improving the design shoot me an email. Many improvements were the result of comments and the ever wonderful Google Analytics data.

So, have at it… the newly redesigned LISZEN.

old_search
(Old Search Page Design)

(Old Search Page Design: Results)

search
(New Search Page Design)

(New Search Page Design: About)

( New Search Results Design: Promote)

(New Search Results Design: Results)

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LISZEN: Searching Trends and Notable Blogs

Published on August 16, 2007 in Day to Day. 0 Comments

Since it has been a few months since I’ve provided a the “monthly top ten searches” I’ve decided to instead compile a list of the top 20 from April 1st, 2007 – August 15, 2007. So here we go:

As usual Library 2.0 and Information Literacy hovered at the top, but a number of new trends have made their way up.

Highlighted Blogs

Senior Friendly Libraries

Resources and discussion about library services to older adults.

Librarian Central

Your official source for Google tips, new and updates. (Which mentioned LISZEN in its May 28th newsletter- thanks Google)

Prairie Librarian

A wide open space to talk about libraries and First Peoples, the environment and more!

Morphed Librarian

“Librarians need to change to keep up with technological changes in the profession. Many of us have ‘morphed’ into techies (we were already nerds)”

Dewey & Main

Where library meets local

Obnoxious Librarian from Hades

Library satire inspired by BOFH.

Final Notes

As usual, thanks for all the submissions. There has been a bit of a bottleneck with maintaining Library Zen, LISZEN and working on other projects. However, things are beginning to settle down.

With my final semester as a LIS student approaching the launch of LISZEN: Social (codename) has been delayed. An update will be provided in the next couple months.

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Second Life Spoof

Published on June 24, 2007 in Day to Day. 0 Comments

For those that enjoyed the “Get a First Life” campaign. Check out the video below- this is seriously how I feel when interacting in Second Life. I’d say the major drawback of the Second Life is usability. No matter how you feel about Second Life, you’ll be sure to get a laugh from this spoof if you’ve tried “interacting” in the virtual world.

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LISZEN: Top Ten Searches + Highlighted Blogs

Published on April 12, 2007 in Day to Day. 0 Comments

5 Highlighted Blogs

Librarian of the Possible

Musician, public librarian, bookseller, cook, cyclist, dumpster diver, theatre usher, Masters student. Passionate about public libraries for social justice, community development, information literacy, emerging technologies. BA, Grad Dip (LIS), Social Work background, completing MA (Public Administration).

Further & Higher

To 999, and beyond.

infodoodads

Five librarians review online information tools.

The Librarian in the Stacks

Just adding to the many wondrous experiences wrought by the public.

The OPLIN 4cast

The OPLIN 4cast is a weekly compilation of headlines, topics, and trends that could impact public libraries, published in a blog format.

Final Notes

Thanks for all the submissions- LISZEN is nearing the 700 blog milestone! In the meantime, I’ve started to migrate the “Library Zen Network” over to a new server. This is in anticipation of my newest project being completed in August. LISZEN has already been moved over to the new server which leaves Library Zen as the final stage. The Library Zen Wiki will continue to give updates on such changes or outages.

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National Library Week: Corner Banner

Published on April 11, 2007 in Day to Day. 0 Comments

National Library Week it just around the corner (pun not indented) and if you’re looking for a quick way to promote the special occasion, look no further.

The corner banner will displayed in the upper right corner of your website. The code is provided below and can be demoed over at LISZEN, enjoy!

Place in <Header>:

<style type=text/css>
#topright {
position: absolute;
right: 0;
top: 0;
display: block;
height: 216px;
width: 216px;
background: url(http://liszen.com/banner/national_library_week.gif) no-repeat;
text-indent: -999em;
text-decoration: none;
}
</style>

Place below <Body> (includes link):

<a id=topright href=http://yoursite.com title=Library Week>Library Week</a>

Place below <Body>:

<a id=topright title=Library Week>Library Week</a>

Below are some additional colors you can use for your site:

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New Library Classification System Created

Published on April 1, 2007 in Day to Day. 1 Comment

This week a new classification system was introduced to the library world. It includes 10 main categories as follows:

Computer science, information, and general works
Philosophy and psychology
Religion
Social Sciences
Language
Science
Technology
Arts and recreation
Literature
History and geography

The new system is being called the “Melvil Decimal Classification” and offers a number of benefits for libraries wishing to switch from the inferior Dewey Decimal Classification ®. These benefits include; not needing to re-label any books or place a ® symbol on posters referring to the new classification system- an ink saver.

This new system was created by Conan the Librarian, well known for his library advocacy videos. “He really has a way of persuading people and I’d expect 99.9% of all libraries to be using the system next year” commented an anonymous ALA member.

Critics argue that the system is exactly the same as the Dewey Decimal Classification ® and therefor has the same flaws. Conan responded that, “these flaws would be fixed with Melvil 2.0″ a more “user centered” classification upgrade.

When asked if April Fool’s Day would still be classified as 392.262, Conan let out a roar and yelled “Don’t you know the Melvil Decimal System!”

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LISZEN: Plugin Fix

Published on March 5, 2007 in LISZEN. 0 Comments

Please Read: Required Update

LISZEN Search 2.0 Plugin (click on link to install) has been released today. Any previous versions of the Plugin will no longer work. The update is necessary for a minor change in the structure of the search engine- switched from an HTML to a PHP extension. The Plugin remains compatible with Firefox 2.0+ and IE7.

With the new structure you can expect improvements to the LISZEN results page in the near future. You will notice that the “white space” at the end of a search result has been eliminated (a common complaint). I apologize for any inconvenience.

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