Thing 13 : Document Sharing

I've used Google docs quite a bit for committee work. As the Common English clip stated, it eliminated the issue of having multiple copies of a document floating and being passed around, often with different versions of editing.

I've been trying to get the rest of the staff here to warm up to the idea of putting our operations manual into Google docs or into a wiki but so far only a couple people are on board. One question I still have is whether it's a good idea to have our policies and procedures manual publicly accessible. That wouldn't have been possible with the old hard copy version, but web versions make it easy.

I posted a document in my google account, one of my favorite Yeats poems. And shortened the url to boot.

http://bit.ly/a6DRO7

Things 10 & 11: Tweeting and Shortening a URL

I've had a twitter account for some time, though I don't really use it. I set it up to follow some of the threads at the ELUNA conference in Richmond last year, and have kept it, though all I really follow is the VCCS library and TNCC news threads (is "threads" the correct term to use here?)

I was interested to find out about the search engines and the twitterfall site, both could be potentially useful in doing research, or at least for gathering information. And I liked the scenarios that were presented describing how twitter could be used in professional collaborations. Although all these would take a good deal of tweaking to filter out the dross.

URL shortening - I've also been aware of these services but have never used them. And I suspect that if we shortened the links to our databases, for instance changing Academic Search Complete from
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/search?vid=1&hid=110&sid=7b6bd863-f795-4d4d-920d-9709528c2c3b%40sessionmgr110

to http://bit.ly/d9mmCU

that it wouldn't work from off campus. I'll have to try it from home. And just out of curiosity, I shortened the shortened link that we already have, this one:
http://library.vccs.edu/license-bin/linker.plx?ebscoa9h which takes users through the proxy server.

Shortened it looks like this: http://bit.ly/aFVU5o

Tried another, which doesn't have the proxy issues, this is the link to the listing for "The Secret Life of Bees" from our catalog, shortened from http://vccslinc.vccs.edu/F/QCU2RNSQ3UHHKYB8BDKI3K1B2ABGSLFSR6DUSAMMJQ3GA9VRYV-61032?func=full-set-set&set_number=005626&set_entry=000002&format=999

to http://bit.ly/aaXbxa

But again, the true test will be how these links work from off campus. Results to follow...