the beginning of the end

I intended to keep this blog going throughout my 2 years at uni, but that never happened. Here I am at work, contemplating my last proper day at uni tomorrow and I’m really quite sad about it. The two years have been tough (and to be fair I still have a lot of work to do) balancing work and study. Sometimes i’ve done it well, sometimes I haven’t – panicking the day before an essay is due is hardly ideal

Bottom line, I’m going to miss being a student one day a week, going to lectures and seeing my friends…

Now I move to the dissertation stage, so its not over at all. Just different. My plan is to better with this blog and keep a record of the next 6mths of research and writing, if only to keep myself sane!

DITA Resources

My websites:

Blog: www.juliarandall.wordpress.com
Website: www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc175
JavaScript: www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhc175/javascriptexercise.html

Web Resources (from all ten sessions)

What is web 2.0?: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Technorati: http://technorati.com/

WordPress: http://wordpress.com/

Blogger: https://www.blogger.com/start

ASCII: http://www.asciitable.com/

File formats: http://www.ace.net.nz/tech/TechFileFormat.html

History of the Internet:
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

The internet as a human right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_access#Internet_access_as_right

What is the internet?: http://www.internet-guide.co.uk/what-is-the-internet.html

JISC Digital Media: http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/advice/file-formats-and-compression/#ff2

Vector resources: http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/advice/introduction-to-the-vector-image-format

XML tutorial: http://www.xml.com/

CSS vs Table based design: http://www.webphoria.co.uk/css-web-design.asp

CSS zen garden: http://www.csszengarden.com/

JISC Data mining: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/topics/datatextmining.aspx

Stemming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stemming

How search engines work: http://searchenginewatch.com/2168031

W3Schools: http://www.w3schools.com/ (I have made extensive use of the tutorials and explanations of HTML, XML and CSS)

References

Alcock, J and Rooney-Browne Christine (2009) Blogging: An opportunity for librarians to communicate, participate and collaborate on a global scale. Refer, Autumn 2009 [Available at http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxyZWZlcnBsdXN8Z3g6MmRhNjVmNzQwNTc4NDg3 ]

Budd et al (2006) Blog Design Solutions. USA. Friendsof

Doctorow,  C. et al (2002).  Essential Blogging. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

Kane, S.K. (2007). “Everyday inclusive Web design: an activity perspective” Information Research, 12(1) paper 309. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-3/paper309.html]

MacDonald, M (2009) Creating a website. 2nd ed. USA. O’Reilly Media

McGrath, M (2005) SQL in easy steps.  UK. Computer Step

Rosenfeld, L. and Morville, P. (2007), Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (3rd Edition), Sebastopol, CA.: O’Reilly

Stacey & Stacey, A (2004) Effective Information Retrieval from the Internet  Bedfordshire. Chandos Publishing,

Session 10 – Information architectures

Information architectures focuses on how information is organised, labelled and navigated within an information system. (Rosenfeld and Morvelle, 2007). The effective organisation of information to facilitate its efficient retrieval is becoming increasingly vital as the volume of data created by individuals and organisations increases. As a library science specialist, the goal should be to find ways to structure and present information in the most effective, efficient and user friendly way.

An appropriate organisational structure is very important for LIS services. It is clear that a confusing, muddled approach to information architecture is detrimental to users. The hierachy elements of a website must be clearly tagged/labelled and organised so that the resources can be found quickly in a clear and logical fashion, for different users, with different needs and information seeking behaviour.

I have thought about how to bring together what we have learnt about website design. Generally speaking websites are made up of 3 layers:

1. Content layer: HTML, XML
2. Presentation layer: CSS
3. Behavioural layer: Scripting (javascript for us).

We need to consider and evaluate all the technologies behind the workings of a website. A logically structured website, built on a strong, valid XHTML structure, with clear CSS presentation, utilising appropriate javascript (or other client side programming language) for interactivity will meet the users needs, as well as being easy to maintain and build upon. Any graphics used need to add to the understanding of the information.

Personalisation and customisation plays an important part in the way a user interacts website and how they view it. Personalisation is based on a user’s behaviour such as shopping history, (e.g, Amazon and iTunes) whereas a customised web page is to a certain degree controlled by the user – e.g, the ability to change text size and colours.

Session 09 – Application Development

JavaScript is not a stand-alone language, at its most basic it’s a scripting language developed to add behaviour or interactivity to websites, for example; pop up windows, marquee style scrolling text and buttons that light up when visitors mouse over them. (MacDonald, 2009). JavaScript is added to HTML commands by use of the ‘script’ tag. Anything within this tag is (or should be) ignored by browsers that do not support JavaScript.

I have really struggled to understand JavaScript this week – mainly because I have tried to do too much too soon and not worked at one line at a time to see what is happening. The language of JavaScript has also confused me, it seems that programmers have their own language! Terms such as “variable”, “function”, and “object” don’t have just their normal meanings, but also have quite specific meaning to programmers. I’ve also had problems getting the curly brackets in the correct place and remembering to use double equals signs (==).

JavaScript is a powerful tool for a non programmer to get to grips with – just a small amount of it on a website can add a important element of interactivity to a website.

I’ve now started noticing JavaScript on other websites, for example Long Tall Sally. When you mouse over an image, it shows a second photo. This is called an image rollover event, triggered when the mouse pointer goes over an element.

My BBC javascript programme can be found here. It works better on Firefox I have discovered!

Session 08 – Information Retrieval

The role of the search engine is to catalogue the billions of web pages on the internet, and to try to make them accessible to users. Being able to find information on the internet efficiently and to retrieve it quickly is an important skill.

Information need:

Find out about healthcare in the UK before the creation of the NHS (an assignment for Access to Nursing students).

Search strategies:

This could be an example of a berry picking search, finding some information, reformulating the query and picking information from different places. (Morville & Rosenfield 2006). Taking the title of the assignment and putting it straight into the search box gives a range of results, one on the first page is promising, but the majority are useless. Putting it in quotes is too specific and gives no results.

My next step is to change the search terms to and remove the stop words; health care before NHS. This still gives me mostly unsuitable results, this website gives me mostly what I am looking for.

My next steps are to think about how else I could phrase my query to find the information, also introducing some boolean search;

• pre NHS
• healthcare before NHS
• healthcare prior to 1948
• NHS AND history
• medical care AND development
• poor law AND hospitals

All of which give some useful information, but it is clear that no one website or search engine is going to give me all the information I want.

Generally for this search I have found that using quote marks is not suitable because I want the search engine to find my keywords in any position in the document – it is not a key phrase I am looking for.

Searching is all about the quality of the query and the choice of search engine. Different search engines use different ranking systems to determine the order of the links shown to the user. For example, one search engine may look at the number of sites linking to a particular website and another may look for keywords in the page title, URL or headings.

Session 07 – Relational Databases

A relational database stores data in separate tables instead of placing all data in one large table. Relational database technology allows databases to be larger, faster, and more efficient.(McGrath 2005).

Below are two examples of SQL queries written for the biblio demonstration database.

First query: a list of title, year published and ISBN for all books on CSS published since 2002 in date order.

• SELECT author, title, isbn
• FROM titles
• WHERE where year_published>=2002
• AND title LIKE ‘%CSS%’
• order by year_published;

Second query: A list of the Company Names of all publishers who have published books on website design since 2000.

• SELECT company_names, title
• FROM publishers, titles
• WHERE title LIKE ‘%website design%’
• AND year_published >=2000
• AND publishers.pubid=titles.pubid;

Moving on from the biblio database a practical example of how a relational database could be used in my work would be record new books/resources bought for the library against the different ‘schools’ (academic departments in the college).

It comprises of 3 tables: authors_titles, schools and librarian I could use it to find out how much we’ve spent on each school, how much each librarian has spent and keep track of how much we spend each month/academic year.

Another practical example for relational databases is the process of data mining. Analysing data from different perspectives and finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases. JISC is involved in several projects advising and funding researchers on data mining. It is a fascinating example of how this technology can be used to give existing information a new perspective and relevance.

Session 06 – CSS

Cascading style sheets (CSS), are a very versatile tool that web designers can use to apply consistent formatting across a range of web pages.

Pros:

• Allows you to control the layout of the entire site with one file.
• Changes affect all documents at the same time.
• Can eliminate redundant in-line styling (Font, Bold, Color, Images
• Provide multiple views of the same content for different types of users (improving accessibility)

Cons:

• Older browsers may not be able to understand CSS.
• Different browsers interpret CSS in slightly different ways.

As a starting point, browsers have their own defaults, so it’s not a level playing field from the beginning. So the fact that browsers interpret CSS differently is more of a con with browsers in general rather than solely with CSS. Below is a screenshot of basic elements with no styling applied that shows this.

Moving from left to right:  Firefox 3.5, IE6, IE7, IE8, Opera 10, Safari 4 and Google Chrome.

On my website, I have written a new page called ‘mysyle.css’ which is linked to all three webpages to control the formatting and design of the website. I have changed the fonts, sizes and colours of the text and used positioning to move two pictures next to each other on the holiday page.

Blocking websites?

Our IT department is really bugging me today and not for the usual reasons. At college, we use something call websense to block unsuitable websites and presumably monitor internet usage (worrying thought… can they see my bank account when I login to my online banking?!)

The practice of blocking social networking and personal content is probably not that unusual in an FE library. Afterall, our computers are for college work and not for students to sit on twitter and facebook all day. However, if we are expected to promote new technologies and new ways of learning and communication, then surely this blanket policy of blocking all of these sites needs to be looked at again?

Session 05 – XML

As someone put it in our Monday morning lecture, XML is simply a richer version of HTML combined to make XHTML; not a language in itself, but a very flexible way of describing information that can be created how the developer wants.

A Library application for XML

The library delivers inhouse information literacy sessions for students, however, teachers also want the flexibility to deliver the sessions themselves during tutorial classes. So the sessions need to be available on the college VLE.

To solve this problem using XML, I need a relevant DTD doctype to define the structure, elements and attributes for each lesson. Below is the basic DTD and a basic XML document that I have written to incorporate what is needed:

This shows the doctype as ‘lesson’ and then each of the five elements which make up one lesson; aims, notes, slides, activity & extension. There are currently five information literacy sessions available.

I have checked my code against the XML validator on the w3 schools website and it tells me that I have made no errors, success!

Session 04 – Graphical Information

Raster graphics and vector graphics are the two fundamental structures for digital images

Raster images (also called bitmaps) are made up of pixels, stored and displayed in a rectangular grid. Each pixel can be a different colour. All images acquired by digital cameras and camcorders, scanners and screen capture programs are bitmapped images. Programmes such as Photoshop and MS Paint create and edit raster images.

Vector graphics are made up of “paths”. They use mathematical relationships between points on a page and the points that connect them. They can be scaled/resized without any loss of quality. They are used for line art, illustration, logo design before being converted to a web graphic format. Programmes such as CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator are used to create and edit them.

File Formats

Some of the most common picture file formats are GIF, JPEG and PNG, (which are all raster graphic formats).
GIF – 256 colours, supports transparency and animation and has a lossless compression. Used for diagrams
JPEG – 16 million colours, suited to photos and graphics. Uses a lossy compression so line drawings/type looks distorted. Good for compression
PNG – developed to supersede GIF and a vast improvement.

Embedding graphics on my webpage

My graphics are embedded onto this page about my holiday. The first is an example of a remote file, hosted on the tripadvisor website and the other two are relative files, hosted on my local file space. The disadvantage of using the remote image is that the picture won’t display if it is moved or removed from the tripadvisor website. The relative link to my files is also dependent on me not deleting/moving them, but this is within my control.

A practical use in the library environment

When you search the online OPAC using our Library Management System (Heritage), the results include a picture of the book jacket alongside the record. These pictures are remote links to the .jpg image on the Amazon website using the ISBN data.

This makes it easier for our students to find books in the catalogue, as they are often unsure of the title, but will recognise the cover. It is also good for Amazon, because if a student wants a book and finds its not in the library, they can buy it from Amazon instead.

This is a specific record showing the record and the cover image:

Obviously this doesn’t work if our record doesn’t have an ISBN number or if the book is unavailable on Amazon, but it is a good example of the application of graphics in our library IT systems.