Then either search for 23thingscity or follow the link from this QR code with your iphone or ipad2
The app will keep you up to date with this blog, and the 23 Things City programme, but unfortunately it can't use flash, so things like prezi won't work on it.
See the Ned Potter's blog for more info about bloapp
Well done to those of you who have completed 23 Things within the original 11 weeks! If you haven't finished, don't worry as everyone finishing by 5pm on the 9th September will be eligible for the prizes**. After this date everyone finishing will still be able to collect a certificate.
Well done on completing the 23 Things programme! We hope you've found it useful and fun, and that you'll continue to use some of the Things and concepts in future. Don't worry if you haven't finished by the end of this week, as to give everyone a bit more time to finish, we've decided to extend the finish line a bit.
Everyone finishing by 5pm on Friday 9th September will be eligible for the prizes. After this, anyone completing the programme will till get a certificate. And please don't worry if you won't be at City at this time, we'll get certificates and any prizes to you. Remember you'll need to blog on all the Things (not including the Cool Extra Things).
We nearly made you watch a YouTube video of Cliff Richard singing 'Congratulations' but here are some nice 'reach for the stars' pictures from the Smithsonian instead!
(if you're really desperate you can watch Cliff if you want!)
Summarize your feelings on 23 Things City on your blog, and add your blog to the UK Librarians wiki (if you didn't do this as Thing 17 in week 7). You will need to create an account with the wiki to add your blog.
Register your completion so that the 23 Things Team know that you're ready. All completed blogs registered by 5pm on Friday 9th September will be eligible for the prizes!
We'd also like you to vote for your favourite 23 Things City Blog, as one of the prizes will be the staff award or people's choice. Don't forget to nominate your favourite 23 Things City blog on the completion form
No actual Things this week, just a chance to catch up as we near the end of the programme.
Don't forget that you'll need to have blogged on all the Things (not including the Cool Extra Things) to receive your certificate and be eligible for prizes!
Even if you've decided that a particular Thing isn't really for you, please do blog your thoughts as to why you didn't find a Thing useful, or if you feel that you don't need to use it now, but would do so in future.
If you're already familiar with a particular Thing then blog about
how you've used it and how you might use it in future for home or work
To give everyone a bit more time to finish, we've decided to extend the finish line a bit.
Everyone finishing by 5pm on Friday 5th September will be eligible for the prizes. After this, anyone completing the programme will till get a certificate. And please don't worry if you won't be at City at this time, we'll get certificates and any prizes to you.
Of course if you're on track to finish at the original date (end of week 11) that's great!
Week 9 Search engines beyond Google
We all use Google, and all use it every day. There are lots of tips to get the most out of it, but have you ever used any other search engines? Those of us old enough to remember the early days of the web (hey anyone else remember the Netscape/Mosaic web browser face off?) may remember that you searched mostly via subject browsing and directories. You may also remember searching via subject sites from BUBL. This is no longer being updated, but brought together sites classified using Dewey so that you could browse for topics. Google soon swept the board though. But wait a minute, my laptop defaults to searching via Bing! Should I try another search engine?
Thing 21 Look at some other search engines and search tools
This week we want you to take a look at some other search engines, and to blog on which ones you prefer, and what you would use in future. If you find a new search engine, please share it with other 23 Things participants via your blog.
There are lots of different search engines out there, but the main rivals to Google are Bing: http://www.bing.com/
Try running the same search across each of these and see how results compare. Have you found useful hits which you didn't see on Google? Are there useful features you like on these other search engines?
You can see some very extensive lists of other search engines from the SearchEngineList and from internet guru Phil Bradley
Other search tools enable you to focus on specific types of data or on particular subjects. These allow you to cut out some of the less relevant or less academic results. Here are a few for you to consider - don't forget to blog about ones for other subjects so as to share with other participants.
Wolfram Alpha Not a general search engine - rather a 'computational search engine' so great for finding statistics, mathematical equations, data, musical chords etc. You can check their subject examples for a suprisingly wide range of topics
Scirus for scientific information including journal articles, researcher information etc
TechXtra for engineering, mathematics and computing
Open Access Repositories
Most universities have set up archives of research content available as open access institutional repositories. As you will know, we're in the process of setting up our repository at City.
Repositories can contain full text access to pre-print versions of journal articles, theses, working papers etc. Much research is freely available, although sometimes there will be time delayed embargoes. This can mean that you will find different versions for example you may find the authors finished word document rather than the actual typeset and published article.
Many of the hits you may find via Google Scholar are mined from open access repositories, but you can search repositories via Opendoar a world wide repository listing and directory. An alternative is Oaister which is now part of the WorldCat family. You can always go directly to a University's homepage and search to see if they have a repository. This can be especially useful if you're looking for a thesis from another country or are looking for further information on a project associated with the university in question.
Thing 22 Meta Search engines and comparing search results from different search engines
It's important to compare the different number and type of results you've found between different search engines. Does the quality of result vary? Do different search engines offer different types of materials e.g. images or data? This will help you reflect on the nature of the web - can we ever search everything via a single search box? How much stuff is not included in search engines?
Meta Search Engines
These search across several search engines so that you don't have to repeat your search in each one - although I find that results do vary. Try running your search in one of the engines directly, and then compare the number of results you find running the same search using one of the meta engines – do you get the same number of results or not?
http://www.metacrawler.com/searches google, bing and yahoo and will state if results are exclusive to any of the providers
www.dogpile.com Dogpile seems similar as it searches google, bing and yahoo and will state if results are exclusive to any of the providers. The design is quite cute with dog images though! You can search the UK version and compare results
http://www.zuula.com/ Zuula searches several different engines in addition to google, bing and yahoo. You can see results by each provider in results tabs at the top of the screen. You'll see very wide variation between the different sets of results – you may also discover some odd results
Try searching for your name in Zuula. How do the results compare? Why do you think that is? Is Google still your favourite search engine?
Rowena
Cool Extra Thing - Google Fun There are lots of fun things you can do that use Google. Here are three of them (warning some may be addictive)
A Google a Day On this site they pose a question every day and you have to use Google to find the answer. The questions are not always easy. http://agoogleaday.com/
Let Me Google That For You Do you get fed up with people asking you a question they could just as easily google for themselves? Let Me Google That For You shows them how they could have done it. You enter the question and then send them the link. http://lmgtfy.com/ Here's an example of the results: http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=What+is+23things+City%3F
We looked at images in week 3, but this week we're going further and looking at a range of multimedia. The early days of the web were much more text based, and images could take a long while to load. We've come a long way from the days of the Cambridge Coffee Pot (am I the only person who remembers this? Please blog if you remember it!) when people logged in from across the globe to see a scratchy black and white live image of ... yes you've guessed it, a coffee pot! (It was exciting at the time!) But this does illustrate how important and captivating dynamic content can be.
Thing 19 YouTube and Information Literacy
I'm sure most of you will have looked at YouTube, whether for checking out your favourite band, performer, tv clip or even just to look at cute videos of sleepy kittens! (OK yes, I admit it, I like looking at videos of sleepy kittens!) We've used videos from Youtube in the 23 Things City programme to help explain some of the different Things.
So this week, whilst providing a bit of light relief, we'd also like you to consider how libraries use YouTube, or how they could consider using it in future. What about using YouTube for education more broadly? Uploading videos to YouTube means a much greater audience for Library information and also enables people to check out videos on their mobile phone or ipad.
This video from the Library at the University of Sydney is one of our favourite YouTube videos as it's a great way of getting information literacy across to students - making important topics fun, using a variety of visuals and using student to student learning. Have a look and then blog on your responses to it.
What is Information literacy? Why is it important for Libraries, students, researchers and the population in general? There are various definitions for you to have a look at from CILIP and SCONUL and other key information is available from the Information Literacy website
Here are several other videos on information literacy topics
And a Doctor Who inspired video on learning Dewey from an academic librarian, llordllama. As a fellow Dr Who fan, I love this, but it may give you some food for thought on copyright and on content across cultures. And come on, Librarians are heroes, not Daleks! We know how to save the world!
Have a look at these and then comment on your blog. A huge variety of styles and techniques are on show in the various library and information literacy videos available. These include slides set to music, talking heads, comedy sketches, cartoons, silly stuff, puppet shows, documentaries, lectures, send ups of tv programmes and films etc, some use professional actors, others use students or librarians. I find some are very entertaining and get the point across well, whilst others are dull, and some of the music is terrible! What works best? Do you have a greater understanding of Information Literacy now you have watched these videos? Did you learn more from watching the videos than you did from reading the definitions and looking at the websites? Does this make you want to be a Subject Librarian?!?
Search for some other library related videos and share your favourites with other 23 Things City participants via your blog
Rowena
Thing 20 Podcasts
Go podcast crazy!
Confession time...I don't really listen to podcasts! Oops... however I'm hoping I will inspire myself while researching for this week's Thing 20. I might even have a go at creating one, though alas my media career floundered on the fact that I am neither graced with a voice for radio or a face for tv.
So the basics.
What makes a voice recording a podcast?
Despite many audio and visual sources being available on the internet, the term podcast really only comes into play when that content can be subscribed to or syndicated, or downloaded automatically (e.g. via RSS) when new content becomes available.
Podcasts can be listened to via your PC or downloaded onto your smartphone or ipod/mp3 player. If you are an Apple user then there are thousands to choose from on iTunes or iTunesU which contains a City University, London guide to podcasting; if you want help in creating your own. For those visual learners out there, here's a Common Craft YouTube clip on Podcasting:
So how do I find podcasts that interest me? You can use one of the podcast directories (PodcastAlley or the wonderfully named Podcast Ferret ) or take a look at podcastnation where you can submit your own. A quick straw poll of colleagues highlighted the following but of course there are many library-related ones available if you're feeling swotty.
Library ones Library of Congress - featured podcast series include Digital Preservation Slave Narratives and Music and the Brain British Library - talks, lectures, discussions as well as those focused around current exhibitions. I liked: Educational standards: not as good as in my day and Who owns the future of the story? Goldsmiths has a podcast tour of their library to help new students, whilst other universities Oxford Brookes) use podcasts as guides for their services. There are loads of reasons why libraries might find podcasts useful - in the public sphere, things like storytime and author talks can be great, academic libraries generally tend to focus on the areas mentioned above: tours and guides. http://skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/podcasts.php?PodcastEpisode=2 from the University of Leeds also have podcasts on essay writing and critical thinking for their students.
What do i do with them? Click on the orange RSS logo to subscribe or pull into Google Reader.
How can I create my own? Audacity is the tool of choice for many but I decided to give Audioboo a go. I downloaded it as an app for my iPhone, registered an account and clicked record. Here's the result (apologies in advance for the cheesiness of it, amazing how you can't think of anything to say when faced with a big red Record button!)
So it's over to you! Why don't you blog about the great podcasts you've found? Or maybe about where you think City University could be dipping its toe into podcasting - what should we be using the medium for? You might even fancy creating one yourself?
Image credit: iPod - Podcasting by D'Arcy Norman (flickr)
~~Emily & Verena~~
Cool Extra Thing Music Playlists
There are lots of music related social media sites available. All allow you to share songs using Facebook and Twitter, along with other sharing sites.
Spotify and Last.fm are two of the most popular sites. They are both free to join and have subscription options. Spotify requires you to download software to your computer and a lot of Last.fm's features are now subscriber only which is why we haven't looked at either in detail for this week but here's a Last.fm playlist (notice the songs are often only samples).I've also created a collaborative Spotify playlist (only works if spotify is installed) which if you have Spotify feel free to add to.
Amongst the great free sites available Grooveshark appears to be one of the most straight forward to use. You can upload your own music, play music and create playlists to share with your friends.
Creating an account is easy. You either click Become a Member or login using your Google or Facebook Accounts.
This is how to create a playlist:
Once you have created a playlist you can either play items from it or share it with friends using the share playlist option.
This is a Grooveshark Playlist.
This week create a playlist using any social media music service and share it with the other 23things participants via Twitter, email or your blog.
The finish line is nearly in sight!
Most universities have set up archives of research content available as open access institutional repositories. As you will know, we're in the process of setting up our repository at City.
www.dogpile.com Dogpile seems similar as it searches google, bing and yahoo and will state if results are exclusive to any of the providers. The design is quite cute with dog images though! You can search the UK version and compare results
http://www.zuula.com/ Zuula searches several different engines in addition to google, bing and yahoo. You can see results by each provider in results tabs at the top of the screen. You'll see very wide variation between the different sets of results – you may also discover some odd results 
I'm sure most of you will have looked at YouTube, whether for checking out your favourite band, performer, tv clip or even just to look at cute videos of sleepy kittens! (OK yes, I admit it, I like looking at videos of sleepy kittens!) We've used videos from Youtube in the 23 Things City programme to help explain some of the different Things.
