Unit 13: PHP

When the course started I was at a superficial level, mainly because it had been years since I put any of this into practice. Like they say of you don’t use it, you’ll loose it. I think this could not be more true when it comes to technology, especially because there is tons to be on top of in terms of change and understanding. In the curriculum for my Computer Information Systems degree, a lot of these topics were covered and topics such as programming were covered more in depth, but again, I had not put them into practice so this was a good refresher for me.

I can honestly say that when I was earning my CIS degree at no time did I ever really associate it with a library setting. Through this course I can see that technology is in every realm of businesses and organizations and that people with this know-how are needed to bring their entity’s forward, or they will stay behind and in a sense be useless because people are demanding everything digitized, electronic and more importantly…fast and now!

As a result of this being a technology course that applies to libraries, I have most defiantly heightened my understanding of the role technology plays in libraries carrying out essential functions in today’s’ world. More than anything, I am almost scared that there are not enough individuals with a strong technology foundation in librarianship. In order for us to remain vital and survive, we need to able to support and fight for such technologies that the public is expecting now, we have no choice if we want to remain relevant as an information institution.

Unit 12 - Review of Articles

The main point I interpreted from the article was immense need for project management using a specific style. It was interesting to have the message and examples brought out about how an academic library was piloting such management technique to not only smaller scale projects but to larger ones as well. The testimony at the end that this was the best way they could have gone and this is the way that they will go when implementing projects is very powerful coming from a person that did not use it before, used it and loved it. It’s kind of like a before and after. All the articles relayed pretty much the same message, project management is necessary and library projects are not exception, it no longer just applies to corporate projects or only to large scale projects.

I particularly enjoyed reading the article about why you should not use project management. It is catchy and you are able to discern the necessity of implementing different technique and following and adapting to style to reach success. Otherwise it easy to see how many components can effect you project and even cause its failure. I like the point by point, it made it easier and more interesting to read. All in all I also understand the responsibility and complexity of being a project manager, don’t know that I envy that responsibility.

Assignment 13 – SQL

When I am doing the video tutorials, everything seems to make sense, They always seem to be a great supplement with the readings. From last weeks assignment when we had to create the ERD, I noticed that when I get tot the point of conceptualizing a database, I seem to be over thinking it and making it more complicated than it should be. What has been more of a challenge for me is remembering that designated SQL keywords associated with a specific action. It is obvious when I see it done, but because I do not have tons of practice, at the moment when I sometimes try to think of unique scenarios I find it difficult to remember the syntax and what word/phrase goes where in the query. I can see how SQL is very powerful to a company because you can’t keep a separate database for each type of information you want to provide, instead creating a maintaining a good database will provide you with more useful information because the type of information needed may constantly change especially as the data changes also.

Remembering the syntax and being able to apply keywords to more complicated queries is where I need to take more time and practice. In particular, the SQL GUI user interface, like Webmin, are obviously more comfortable to me because GUI’s are what I am used to, but the conceptualization whether I am using a GUI or not is the underlying foundation for a good database.

Unit 10: Thoughts on DB's

There are some items that I find a bit confusing, I am sure that with more practice it will make more sense. I am thinking that the image collection I created which is of my family is a “is a” type. I am still a bit confused about the attributes for the daughter, sin and husband tables, in the sense of if they are supposed to incorporate the Person_ID, considering that they are all a “person”. I am going to have to further study this type of relationship through readings to see how this is explained so that I can apply. I am going to go through one additional tutorial to get a better grasp.

Unit 9 Assignment 2: Article Analysis

The reading I will focus on is from the library Journal, “Technoplans vs. Technolust”

I could definitely see the points of both the “technoplans” and the “technolust”. This is because I am part of a big library system that has groups of people that want to push technology initiatives in a timely and fairly efficient manner. Then there are some decision making individuals that are the ones that seem to bottleneck the process due to fears, not understanding the benefit, not knowing how to deal with inquiries from the public or because they do not know how to market such technology the key decision-making individuals in the City government.

One great point made in the article is that those individuals that are technology hungry need to understand that not all technology fits in every organizations and its purpose and/or mission. Many factors need to be considered like how and who will benefit, will the technology provide a service that will benefit the community? Many such questions need to be asked and answered in order to have a good fit between the technology and the community. It is a benefit to have such individuals in out organizations, especially libraries, because they will bring issues and technologies forth that may otherwise go unnoticed and in the long run be a detriment because we did not serve our communities needs.

The above was just one good point made. Several other points were made because smaller libraries may not take many of the factors discussed into account because they are just trying to survive with the technologies that they can afford and maybe their community needs and demands are not as great as those of a larger city.

In my overall opinion I enjoyed this particular reading because I can identify the “technoplans” and the “technolust” at my library systems that are at both sides of this spectrum. The article clearly outlined concrete aspects to consider and offered food for thought. The concepts were important but presented in a very real manner. I get more from articles that are straight to the point and do not need to tell a long story to drive the point home. This reading was straightforward and I was able to understand the mission of t

Unit 8: Assignement 6 (XML)

Learning XML was pretty cool. In my opinion it was funner learning this than it was HTML, I understand there are differences in their purpose but it the rules are much easier and logical to abide by. The tutorials from w3schools are very good. I had previously used these and I think they are very direct and are made to be easily understood while being very effective. The video was also helpful, but I was able to understand the w3schools tutorials so the video tutorial was an enhancement in a sense a review. As of today I have not yet explored the advanced modules, but there is no question that I will make time to do this.

As far as the installation of my demo system, things seems to being good, although late last night I ran into some difficulties when executing some commands that were required for the homework. I have posted to the activity section and am sure this will help.

Unit 7 - Assignment 8

Well, this week was quite fun. It had been a good while since I did anything with using HTML. I was glad that we got into it. I used the tutorials that were suggested on the assignment. I also found myself going out to the Internet to see how to do other things like setting the background and changing the size of the text. I also looked at the tutorial for CSS. I wish I would have a little more time to do this for this page we posted. I know it is incredibly useful for formatting. I will make an effort to find time to fit it in so that I can review it and create some CSS's. I hope that we get a chance to do more with HTML. I think actually coding instead of using a software product is much more of an experience. Though Dreamweaver and Frontpage easily allow for a more eye-pleasing page, especially if you did not do a lot with the HTML for this site that we just created.

As far as the progress on the installation of my demo system, I am happy with how things are going (I better go knock on wood). There have been some bumps but fortunately with the help of the professor and other students, I have been able to resolve them in a fairly quick amount of time.