Getting Started with Audacity!

I am in love with Audacity! Why? Well, in this screencast I created, I show some of the basic features of this powerful audio recorder that gives you a lot of control over almost any aspect of the audio recording process. And it's free and open-source! If you're a librarian or student that needs to make a recording for a podcast or a project, this just might be the tool for you. If you need to record yourself with your smartphone, you can export the audio into Audacity and do all sorts of things to it like amplify, speed up, slow down, raise an octave, remove noise, or other edits to tweak your sound with the use of filters and controls. This will work with a USB mic or USB audio interface (I use the Scarlett 2i4) on a Mac, PC, or Linux computer. If you use another audio recording software like Garageband, Reaper, Logic, Ableton, or other tool, Audacity complements these by being able to edit individual tracks from these with no loss of quality. I can't encourage folks enough to give this app a try (desktop only) and see what they can do with this fab audio recorder. Visit http://www.audacityteam.org/ and also http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features to download and see features. Looks like the updated version (2.2.0) even has support for MIDI! Great!

Screencast by Fernando Herranz. 

Some great tools for teaching TECH!

Below you will find links to an interesting EdTech blogger (Eric Curts) who discusses some handy tools for screencasting and world language fluency using several online apps, several of which are free. If you are a school librarian, these may be of special interest to you as a way to enhance your collaborative efforts with your colleagues and their students. These screencasting tools can also be used for demos in explaining search strategies, among other applications. Enjoy!

Great links:

http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/05/world-language-fluency-tools.html

http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2017/01/screencasting-activities.html

Brief Introduction to using Zotero Reference Manager

Zotero is one of those great reference managers that happens to be free and contains a lot of great features that will help you keep those resources organized. For a full list of features, compatible systems, and to download, visit https://www.zotero.org/. Just in case you wondering, Mendeley offers very similar features, but has a mobile app and a more robust online academic community. However, it's owned by Elsevier which is a private company (to my understanding) which to some people may not be a great thing. You know, privacy of information and data in the hands of the giant companies we all use but maybe fear. Elsevier also has a big hand in the academic publishing world, to the apprehension of Open Access advocates who feel academic publishing needs to be more accessible and free to as many people as possible. Zotero, for those of us who are fans of Open Source and Open Access, may be a better fit for you...

"Zotero is a project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, and was initially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "

Screencast by Fernando Herranz.

Using the Exposure adjustment layer in Photoshop CC 2017

As I said in previous posts from this series, this screen-cast is for those students, teachers, and librarians looking to adjust their images and make improvements like exposure, color, brightness and contrast, etc. Adjustment layers are pretty easy to do and make your life simpler when you need to make quick adjustments yet want to maintain control of your images. Hope this video helps! Good luck!

Screencast by Fernando Herranz. 

How to use Adjustment Layers in Adobe Photoshop

This video will show you how to create adjustment layers in Adobe Photoshop CC 2017. Adjustment layers are very handy in helping us change things about an image like exposure, brightness, contrast, color, etc. The video is meant as a supplement to the previous video on creating Contact Sheets. This screencast was created on a Mac but the steps are very similar on the PC platform. Enjoy!

Screencast by Fernando Herranz. 

How to create a Contact Sheet using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop 2017

This video is for those students, teachers, and librarians that need to create a contact sheet of images to see a series of photos for a project, a yearbook, or an event and be able to compare them to each other. Like the good old days of film cameras, contact sheets were handy to be able to see your film negative exposures and be able to get an idea of what you did over several images at a glance. Now in the digital age, they're handy as well for the same reason and are MUCH easier to create!

Although this screencast was created on a Mac, the steps are very similar to what they would be on a PC. Also, even though I'm using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CC 2017, the steps haven't changed much since possibly Adobe CS3 at the earliest. Enjoy!

Screencast by Fernando Herranz. 

Coming soon: the Librem 5 open source smart phone!

So why am I talking about a smart phone? Well, I must admit that I do have a soft spot for cutting edge tech when it relates to open source anything, so here it is. Purism is the Social Purpose Corporation behind the development of the Librem 5 Linux-driven smart phone. They even have a funding campaign that has so far surpassed everybody's expectations. Although the phone isn't quite ready to ship, it will be soon by the look of things. What fascinates me about this in relation to libraries is that these phones may bring with them a whole set of benefits (and maybe problems) to people accessing information within the library. Their focus on privacy and security (they won't be tracing our location with these) is a very appealing draw. Hopefully they'll be able to run the apps that we've come to use like Mendeley and Zotero, among many others.

My NU and UIC Practicum Document

To view my slide show, click here.

More info to come shortly!

Mendeley and Zotero Resource Managers

I'll be doing some exploring of these 2 freely available reference managers very soon. In the meantime, check out the links below that compare Mendeley and Zotero, among a few other reference managers.

Helpful links:
http://libguides.wustl.edu/choose
http://www.docear.org/2014/01/15/comprehensive-comparison-of-reference-managers-mendeley-vs-zotero-vs-docear/
https://www.library.yorku.ca/web/research-learn/citations/zotero-vs-mendeley-comparison/
https://library.barnard.edu/find-books/guides/which-citation-tool

Have fun!

A little something I found on Bibliometrics...

 

I've been very intrigued by Bibliometrics and have been seeking out interesting articles and slide presentations that can shed some light on this new field that focuses on research impact. There are some details that I was surprised about, notably that it seems to be more relevant in the sciences where there is a great deal of article publishing. The Arts or Humanities don't have quite as much, so research impact is harder to measure. More great tidbits in this slide show from Ciarán Quinn, Research Support Librarian at Maynooth University, Ireland.
Enjoy! (You can click here to watch.)

The Public Library of Science (PLOS)

 

 

 

Q: What is PLOS? What does PLOS stand for?

"The Public Library of Science (PLOS) was founded in 2001 as a nonprofit organization to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. We strive to bring scientists together and to share their work as rapidly and as widely as possible, to advance science and to benefit society as a whole. We are constantly looking for ways to use emerging technology and new ideas to open up scientific communication—to make it faster, more efficient, more connected and more useful.
Learn more about PLOS."

PLOS promotes itself as a leader in Open Access (OA) publishing, a large trend that is transforming academic publishing globally.

Here is a Wikipedia article about PLOS One, their journal.

After some time away...

Yes, I have returned to Library in the City! It's been a while, and a lot has happened since I last posted, but I must admit that I am excited to be back and share public, academic, and K-12 library resources and stories.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy these resources as much as I do!

Sincerely,

Fernando