Slideshare

Georges Nijs (Flickr, Creative Commons)

This image of a large tabular iceberg was taken by Georges Nijs, and posted on Flickr with a creative commons licence.

I has hoped to embed the presentation by Dr Julian Paren in this post, but the only way I was able to publish it was directly from Slideshare to Blogger, as a separate post.   I would welcome concise advice as to how I could have achieved this as I have spent far too long pasting the embedded HTML code into my blog and failing, reading Slideshare Help screens etc. I was also prompted to create my own Slideshare account - which I did (yes, yet another password, licence agreement...).  Was this necessary to embed someone else's presentation into my blog?

Hopefully, by the time you read this you will have enjoyed viewing The World's last great wilderness (Antarctica) by Dr Julian Paren, Schools Liaison Officer, British Antarctic Survey.  Dr Paren gave this talk at the Royal Geographical Society, on 8th February 2001.

I hope to master the art of embedding presentations in my blog, and perhaps in future I will embed presentations from SAALG conferences into the SAALG blog.  Currently these are posted on the SAALG website. 

The University's Press Office embedded a YouTube presentation in their press release announcing the launch of the Centre of South Asian Studies' digitised film archive. The Centre's archivist, Dr Kevin Greenbank is interviewed with Film archivist Annamaria Motrescu. We have received very good feedback from the presentation.

I hope to be able to embed presentations into the Centre's Library web pages too, particularly some I have viewed relating to research skills, which may assist our MPhil students, plus the YouTube presentation on our cinefilms.

Flickr and Creative Commons licensing

Mike Thomson (Flickr, Creative Commons)

Timo Arnall (Flickr, Creative Commons)

I believe I shall find Flickr an extremely useful tool, and had not realised that you could search for reusable images under a Creative Commons licence without signing up and creating your own Flickr account. 

My memory of places and people is largely visual, with light and colour playing a very important part, so I have always valued paintings, maps and photographs very highly, and have enjoyed working in special collections where these records are highly sought after.

I located these two beautiful images of Longyearbyen on Flickr, searching for Creative-Commons licensed-content.  The top image of the colourful houses was captured by Mike Thomson;  the bottom image of wooden houses lit by the midnight sun was taken by Timo Arnall.

I am particularly excited about the possibilities of identifying images of unknown people and places in our special collections, as the Library of Congress have done so successfully.

Tagging

Walrus, Poolepynten (Polar Adventurer, 2010)

How would you tag this image?  Would it be: Walrus, Poolepynten, Prins Karls Forland, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, northern marine mammals, Arctic wildlife, tusks, beach, or would you simply date it?  Obviously it depends on the level of your knowledge, interest and purpose.  

I found the essay by Clay Shirky, 'Ontology is Overrated' to be thought-provoking, and will take more interest in tags assigned to digital content.

Twitter

Prompted by Emma's invitation to follow her interview on Twitter, I've finally joined Twitter. It seems hard to justify the time taken - reading Terms of Service and Privacy statements, thinking up yet another password -  and all this after having first created a new email account (as recommended in case I ever wish to Twitter in a professional capacity - hard to imagine currently...but this is a learning process).  I also had to download picture editing software onto my UL PC (I chose Picasa 3) to illustrate this blog as I'd previously been participating from my CSAS PC. Exhausting!  To makes things worse, I struggled to keep my first tweet to 140 characters...I need convincing that this is not all a waste of time.

Google Calendar

I have used a web calendar for about 10 years and consider it an essential time management tool, working as I do in two separate locations in Cambridge.  Colleagues at each library can check where I shall be working on particular days, see when I am available and inform researchers when I will be in.  It is especially important during the holiday season, when I sometimes need to change my regular work days to cover for colleagues' leave.  I do still carry a university pocket diary however, as I find this invaluable at home, on the move and in meetings.  

I have not used Google Calendar before, but have added it to my iGoogle page as a trial.  I dislike its weekly view because of the need to scroll down the page, whereas my current online diary (UL designed) enables me to view a week at a time without doing so.  I shall probably refer to it most in agenda mode.

Using Doodle to schedule meetings

As a member of the Sidgwick Librarians Group, I have contributed to Doodle polls which were used to organise group meetings and lunches, and have found them to be a useful tool.  I particularly like the ability they give individuals to add comments.  I plan to use Doodle software to organise steering group meetings for the South Asia Archive and Library Group, which with participants based in London, Cambridge and Edinburgh, working in a mix of academic, national and special libraries, can be difficult to organise.  I may even use the software to agree the occasional day's leave with my husband!

Has anyone managed to add Doodle to their own iGoogle page?  I have failed - the normal 'add stuff', 'add feed or gadget' route failed, and I could not locate the relevant Doodle software from the browsable list.  I am not likely to forget the URL however, so it is not a big problem!

Polar adventures

Cleits and cottages, St Kilda
(Polar Adventurer, 2010)

Norwegian base, Jan Mayen
(Polar Adventurer, 2010)

Jan Mayen (Polar Adventurer, 2010)

Raudfjorden, Spitsbergen
(Polar Adventurer, 2010)

Back in Cambridge after a wonderful Arctic journey - Svalbard and Jan Mayen, via St Kilda and the Faroes.  Spectacular landscapes - volcanic and glacial - great beauty, and silence.

Looking forward to returning to 23 Things and learning from colleagues' experiences - once I have caught up with my full In box of enquiries.