I’ve been doing a ton of research lately, but a lot of this has involved gathering information from internet searches. I’ve grown accustomed to creating PDFs from web pages and even Web Archives, but tonight I sat down and asked myself if I could use DEVONthink to be more systematic. DEVONthink is an important tool in my research kit because everything I archive into it becomes fully searchable for easy retrieval later on. I can...

A classmate recently asked me about how I set up this site and I promised to share the details with her. It’s not the first time I’ve had people complement me in this way, but it got me thinking that maybe I could centralize a few ideas in a blog post to help others. I’ll try to make it into a simple-to-follow list that will help you get your own WordPress installation up and running. 1) Register a Domain and get a Web...

I’ve been working on a project to create a library catalogue of locally geotagged items for a class. That’s already a mouthful, so I thought I’d outline the major points of my paper here on my blog. Think of it as a lengthy synopsis The idea Libraries and archives collect materials about their local region. This material is not always well-advertised and often has low circulation and usage. Archives in particular are...

I’m finishing up a course right now on social media use in libraries. As part of this project, I’ve been investigating means of using mobile technology to increase a library’s digital footprint. What do I mean? Well, libraries and archives often have material that is particularly relevant to their municipality. Archives will have primary documents and media and libraries will often specifically collect books about local...

I recently did a test project on mobile learning in the Gastown neighbourhood of Vancouver. Basically, I wanted to create a learning environment where people could geotag media (notes, web pages, audio clips, etc.) so that they could be retrieved contextually by location. I also wanted people to be able to upload media back into the project folder and have that material be geotagged upon creation. Sounds tough? It gets harder. Since this...

I logged on to Facebook for just a quick second tonight to see if I had any notices. I’ve been far too busy to do much of anything there in the past month. But my eyes were drawn to the “Facebook recommends” on the side corner. The recommendations were surprisingly spot on…a little too surprising. Dan Simmon’s Hyperion Cantos and the Donald Strachey Mysteries. Both are well known in their eclectic circles, but...

Sing to me O Muse, of the man of many e-mails, who surfed the Internet far and wide, after returning to the Ivory Tower of Graduate School. Okay, so I haven’t suffered an electronic torment anywhere close to that of Odysseus, but I do have my share of sorrows and listservs are certainly part of that. What brings this rant on, you ask? Well, I was skimming my news sources at lunch today and came across an article title I never thought...