Love Is a Many-Splendored Gizmo
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
Director of technology for the Shenendehowa Public Library in Clifton Park, New York.
kgs@bluehighways.com
Column for January 2001
Gadget junkies everywhere, unite—you have nothing to lose but your bank balance! Here’s what I was told when I asked librarians what tools they would bring if they were stranded on a desert island with a high-speed Internet connection.
1. Microsoft FrontPage
It’s one thing to understand how to create a nice Web site from scratch; it’s another thing to actually do it that way. “I just taught a FrontPage class last week and was reminded of life before FrontPage,” said Julie James, technology consultant at the Library of Virginia. “For day-to-day Web development and maintenance, FrontPage 2000 is the best thing since the graphical browser.”
2. Zoomerang
Want to create a library survey, but you’re scared off by the price of most survey software? How does free or low-cost hit you? Erik Jul at OCLC wrote, “I love Zoomerang, a free (or, depending upon the level of service, for-fee) Web-based survey tool. In just minutes the tool enables users to create, execute, manage, and interpret survey data. Easy, fun, and cool.” The higher-end version of this software is $199—cheap for what you get.
3. Google
Madeline Taylor of the Health Sciences Library at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey, has a major love jones for Google (but then, who doesn’t?). “I’m not sure how I survived before I found Google,” enthused Madeline, “and I don’t want to be without it-ever.” Madeline points out that Google is trying to be one thing, and one thing alone—an excellent search engine. Agreed; it’s the first tool I use.
4. A comfortable mouse and wrist-rest
Avi Rappoport, maintainer of the excellent Search Tools Web site, swears by the Kensington TurboMouse and ComfortLab ComfortPoint wrist rest. “I love these things,” writes Avi. “They solve so many hand problems!” Amen. Don’t be like me—replace them before they get disgustingly grotty.
5. Sheriff card security device
Art Rhyno, systems librarian at Leddy Library at the University of Windsor in Canada, wrote to say he is “quite fond of the HDD Sheriff card,” which “restores a hard disk to its original state at each reboot. We use it on some public workstations and it is a joy to start fresh with a clean OS so easily.” Several people have called or written to tell me about Deep Freeze, a similar product, while some libraries (including mine) image the hard drives with tools such as Norton Ghost or Imagecast. If you ever have a hard drive go belly-up, it’s nice to be able to do a perfect restore in less than half an hour. Really nice.
6. Wireless modem, Northern Light, and Google
Joe Schallan, a public librarian in Arizona, wrote to say he wants a wireless modem so he can sit in the local coffee shop surfing Northern Light and Google on his Palm VX, and reading the latest weekly Web news from the Librarian’s Index to the Internet. Coffee? Palm? Web? Digital bliss!
7. A fast connection
“Once I got a T1 at work, and DSL service at home, I never looked back,” said Hillary Theyer of the Torrance (Calif.) Public Library. “The few times I wait now are agony, and if I was expected to return to telephone dial-up either place I would go bananas.” High-speed connections are also about good service; Hillary says that a page once timed her using a dial-up connection, and it was a wasteful wait. As Roy Tennant of the California Digital Library puts it, we should not let our expensive resources (staff) wait on our cheap resources (equipment).
8. Internet Movie Database
Jennifer Obee, patron services librarian at the Jefferson County (Colo.) Public Library’s Standley Lake Branch, explained that this invaluable resource “has tons of info on movies and TV. Search for title, character, or even the key grip (whatever he does!), and it’s all cross-indexed and linked up the wazoo.” Wow, all the way up the wazoo—who could say no to that?
9. Doctor HTML
Carole Leita, coordinator of the Librarians’ Index to the Internet, really likes Doctor HTML for checking the currency of URLs on a Web page. “Great for seeing if the page is being maintained no matter what the date on the page says.”
10. Handspring Visor with Avantgo
My entire life changed when I bought my Handspring Visor. Now I am a relentless bore, insisting that everyone needs a PDA (personal digital assistant). Think about the possibilities: You can attach wireless modems and barcode readers for library shelf inventories, distribute new staff schedules with infrared beaming, manage conference expenses; I’m such a fashion victim. But here’s the real reason I love my Visor so ardently: No meeting need ever be dull again, now that I can use the Avantgo software to download fresh Web clippings from hundreds of newspapers and surreptitiously read them on my Handspring Visor. Now you know!
|
