I'm always on the lookout for any tools that can keep me up-to-date on current issues and trends, without requiring a whole lot of web surfing or feed reading. So LibWorm interests me. I created a couple of search feeds using it, which I added to Google Reader. We'll see if this seems to work better than following individual feeds.
Just for fun I played around with Walk Score -- my current neighborhood is 62 out of 100, somewhat walkable. Then I tried an old address from when I lived in Uptown, Minneapolis, and it scored 92, Walker's Paradise. Guess that's how I survived living there when I didn't own a car. I also looked at Wheel of Lunch, which is very similar to Urbanspoon. I have the Urbanspoon app on my iPod, and below is the widget they make available for the Twin Cities.
When I first went to Dapper it seemed like it was geared for commercial business, but after a bit of browsing around I discovered their "open" site. I created a few feed tools and widgets, and can see there could be a use for these on my library's site. I'll have to come back later and explore it some more.
Showing posts with label maps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maps. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Thing #33 -- Travel 2.0
At this point in my life I don't travel very much, and when I do it's usually to known places rather than new ones. I also tend to not pay a lot of attention to other people's reviews--it's hard to know what their criteria for judging are, or how similar those criteria are to mine. So I was a little skeptical about spending a lot of time exploring the sites listed for this Thing. But I can see the appeal they would have for other people.
Several of the mashup sites interested me, however. I like the focus of Green Routes, and can see myself using it to find places to visit on "travels" close to home. With my interest in food and wine, 2 other sites interested me: Wines and Times, because I have enjoyed visiting many wineries in the past, and My Kugelhopf for its focus on food and enjoyable writing. And the next time I do take a trip I'll have to remember MapVivo (provided it's still around in this quickly changing 2.0 world!). It would be fun to use to map out a trip, as well as to share it with friends and family afterwards.
How does any of this fit into my (academic) library? I don't think it does. We hardly ever get travel-related questions at reference, and have removed most of the non-academic related pages of links from our web site, figuring students have other places they are more likely to look for that kind of information than the library.
Several of the mashup sites interested me, however. I like the focus of Green Routes, and can see myself using it to find places to visit on "travels" close to home. With my interest in food and wine, 2 other sites interested me: Wines and Times, because I have enjoyed visiting many wineries in the past, and My Kugelhopf for its focus on food and enjoyable writing. And the next time I do take a trip I'll have to remember MapVivo (provided it's still around in this quickly changing 2.0 world!). It would be fun to use to map out a trip, as well as to share it with friends and family afterwards.
How does any of this fit into my (academic) library? I don't think it does. We hardly ever get travel-related questions at reference, and have removed most of the non-academic related pages of links from our web site, figuring students have other places they are more likely to look for that kind of information than the library.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thing #32 -- Google Maps and Mashups
On the 23 Things on a Stick Ning I commented that this was one of the Things I was most looking forward to. I think there's a lot of potential for creating useful mashups using Google Maps. I said that I hadn't been very successful coding my own map from scratch using the Google Maps API. I could create markers in the right places, but couldn't get the popup windows showing information about each marker to work properly.
This Thing introduced me to Map Builder, which I was able to use to begin building a functional map mashup, complete with marker popups. One of the special collections in my library has information on a number of buildings around the country, and I am creating a map indicating where and what those buildings are, and what kinds of materials the library has for each. One thing I especially like about Map Builder is it can import data from a spreadsheet to create the map. Since most of the relevant information for each building is already in spreadsheet form, I only need to make some minor changes to the spreadsheet to upload the data and create my map.
The My Maps function of Google Maps is very intuitive to use and makes creating custom maps quick and easy. I always have a problem answering the question "Where are you from" because my family moved around so much. So here's a map I made with My Maps showing all the places I lived while I was growing up. I haven't been much more stably located as an adult, but I've left those locations off the map.
View Where I'm From in a larger map
This Thing introduced me to Map Builder, which I was able to use to begin building a functional map mashup, complete with marker popups. One of the special collections in my library has information on a number of buildings around the country, and I am creating a map indicating where and what those buildings are, and what kinds of materials the library has for each. One thing I especially like about Map Builder is it can import data from a spreadsheet to create the map. Since most of the relevant information for each building is already in spreadsheet form, I only need to make some minor changes to the spreadsheet to upload the data and create my map.
The My Maps function of Google Maps is very intuitive to use and makes creating custom maps quick and easy. I always have a problem answering the question "Where are you from" because my family moved around so much. So here's a map I made with My Maps showing all the places I lived while I was growing up. I haven't been much more stably located as an adult, but I've left those locations off the map.
View Where I'm From in a larger map
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