Monday, August 18, 2008

Thing Twenty-three!!!

I did it!
I really enjoyed trying all these "things". I already knew about half of them, and am not afraid to learn more. The hardest part for me is finding time for it all. Working full time and being mom to 3 teen/preteens and living 30 miles out of town pretty much takes up all my time. However, my kids also help keep me current with what's new and how to do it.

I think I will be able to utilize what I've learned, and continue to learn, as projects come up with web 2.0 needs. I've learned new ways to communicate and connect with others who are working on similar things.

I would be interested in learning about more "things" like language acquisition/translation, music, travel, organization, file conversion, etc.

Thing Twenty-Two!!

I'm almost there, I can't believe it.

I can't promise I'll maintain my blog; Writing is not my strongest form of communication. But I will use much of the Web 2.0 tools I have learned.

What did I learn today? I think I'll be able to find time to learn a bit/try something new/experiment with new "things" every day. I'm comfortable with learning new things and happy to try them out.

I have enjoyed doing these things, especially the more creative ones (flickr, youtube, facebook for sharing photos with family and friends). It's fun to watch my daughter make movies and post them on her website. I'm sure following my children, watching what they do, will keep me current on things, too.

I like the idea of using as much of these things in the library as we can come up with ways to do so

Thing Twenty-One!

I read the articles. I was particularly interested in the one that talked about the whole library social website - promoting the author's visit, linking the books to the catalog, making a podcast of the visit, posting photos of the visit on site. That is a terrific library use of web 2.0 technology!

I joined ning and added the badge. I can see it would be a good way to "socialize" if you have the time or need for that. I have neither.

I looked through quite a few other social networks - Open Source Foods was great - I love to cook, and I love to sort through recipes with pictures, so I can quickly determine if its something the kids will eat and Doug can eat. Craftster is pretty cool. When I have a moment (which is rare), I make things. This is a great source of inspiration and fun for me. Flixster looked pretty cool, too. And although I love movies and watch quite a lot, I don't think I'd make the time to chat about them with strangers

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Thing 20 -Facebook

I did this one a while ago. I'll move on to the other social networks...

Thing 19 - Podcasts

I wish I had more time for podcasts. I like to hear about public radio stuff - new music on the current, words, crafts like knitting and bookbinding. It's a terrific invention to be able to put off listening to something until it's convenient for you. I like that you can search and find a topic so easily.

I doubt that I would ever podcast something unless it were work-related. I'm not a talker.

Our library is starting to podcast its programs. I like that even though I live a half hour out of town and can't make it to hear an author, I can go to the website and listen to the podcast. It's the next best thing to being there.

Friday, August 1, 2008

OK, stop me now. Just one more. I love Ladysmith Black Mombazo

My favorite Sesame Street from my kids' era:

Just try and watch the whole thing

Thing 18: YouTube!

Oh how I love youtube! I started exploring a year or two ago. When one of my student workers brought in his ukulele, I asked him if he could play "Tiptoe through the Tulips" for me. He said, "Why?" I, of course said, "Well, you, Tiny Tim." Being a literatured college student he said, "You mean from Dickens?" And I said, no, you young puppy, here, let me show you this youtube video of what I mean.

I tortured my husband with William Shatner at a 70 star trek convention, powder blue tux and all "singing" Rocket Man with himself and a cigarette.

What a great resource for both home and libraries. Our library uses it for several purposes. You can post training procedures, emergency procedure, etc.

Thing 17: EBSCO things

I created a search alert for my latest music research, the Bakersfield Sound. It was really great - I set up a web page which included a cool picture of Buck Owens, and articles about him and the sound. I have never used these tools personally, I'm too old and/or wasn't working in the right kind of librarianship that needed them. But I really like them. How handy that would be when writing a paper - all your citations, notes, photos in one place.

I decided to continue the search in Proquest, very easy to do, and also a great way to gather a lot of research information in a short time. Again, I wished I'd had this when I was in school.

NetLibrary, also terrific. I really liked this assignment, but I like to research things. Never liked writing the papers, but my research was extensive.

Like the student 2.0 tools, these tools are obviously geared more towards students. I will use them again, and show my kids how to use them as they have school projects.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Thing 16: Student 2.0 Tools

For a procrastinator by nature, I think these tools would have been helpful for me in college.

The U of M Assignment Calculator would be great for students there, it has many helpful links and I like how it is well connected to resources on campus, and even to professors.

The Research Project Calculator seemed easy to use, I liked the additional materials and teacher helps. It would be great for secondary and post secondary students working on projects.

I think a college library would make the most use of these tools. Our public library patrons would not make much use of the tools. I can see using them as a librarian on occasion if I had a big project, or had to keep myself on task for something with an upcoming due date.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Thing 15: Online Games

Ugh. That 2nd life video tour was really annoying. I might be too old for games. I played a bit on Pirates but I have little patience for it. I feel like I'm totally wasting my time. And, of course, while I was playing, I was interrupted by several people with legitimate work-related questions who, I'm sure, were wondering why I was spending work time playing a game.

I watched a hospital training demo in 2nd life that seemed somewhat useful. I guess I don't quite get a library use, other than displaying all the info we have on our website in a virtual format.

Thing 14: Library Thing

I grudgingly opened my Library Thing account, being grumpy about yet another sign-in, and thinking - ok here's another tool that looks cool, but I don't have time for.

However, now that I've added a few things and added my account to my blog, I am actually hoping to use this tool. I can see many uses for it at our library in Readers Services. I often get patrons coming in with long handwritten lists of books they have read or want to read, and I will show them this tool. We can also use it to keep reading lists by topic or readalike. It would be a nice way to do more unusual groupings like YA vampire books, as opposed to Janet Evanovich readalikes.

I like it, I'll recommend it, I hope we can use it in Readers Services.

Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

I tried out a lot of these things, thinking "there's got to be a better way for me to be organized." What I concluded is that most of these tools reminded me of the lo-tech tools I used to read about in parenting magazines when my kids were little. (If you make up this chart, and your child brushes her teeth and puts her toys away, you give her a star. When she has 25 stars, she'll be trained and you buy her a toy...) Ugh. I just don't have the personality to follow up on all these little tools. Our Groupwise at work is useful and ever-present.

I tried out iGoogle, because I already have a google acct. The page just gets too bloated with options, I have a hard time focusing in on what I should be doing. Also, my computer seems to slow down with all the added bells and whistles. I thought the countdown wizard was fun and perhaps useful for counting down for a library event. ta da I don't think would be useful in a library setting, but personally it was convenient for my hubby and I to share a list of things we were both working on (daughter's birthday list, groceries). A shared calendar between Doug and I seemed convenient in spurts, but not something I'd bother checking every day.

I wasn't greatly impressed with Backpack
I liked Zamzar for converting files - that's a great tool.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Thing 12: Social Media

I don't quite see the library use (or even a personal use for me) of these tools. They seem like they gather stories by popularity within your "news" preference. I don't like that they say the articles are "news", when often they are purely entertainment. I don't like that they limit the stories you might want to read according to some preferences I clicked on. It seems very limiting and like I'm being lumped into a group. And subscribing to them clutters up my toolbar.

I can see using them for, say, looking at fresh knitting patterns, but I'll keep using NYTimes for my news. I'll also keep checking my favorite websites for my own favorite info.

In my book, these are a dud.

Thing 11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

At first I thought del.icio.us just seemed like a glorified "Bookmarks". But now I've used it some and looked at how other people and librarians (not that those two groups are exclusive) use them collaboratively - they seem really useful. I love that you can have access to those bookmarks from any computer. I love that you can follow a trail of tags and see what other people are tagging for the same topics.

I know it's not very librarian-like, but I like that the way people tag is not standardized format, but random and vague and the terms they use can be so varied and inconsistent.

I will make much use of this, I'm always researching something, so I'll be able to group my researches. Cool

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Thing 10 - Wikis

Our library has a really great wiki. I'm supposed to be my dept's "caretaker" of our portion of it, so I had to learn fast with help from Brian, my favorite wiki guru. We use the wiki in many ways, from making impromptu sign-up calendars to posting training manuals, to what to say for the closing announcements, find our epac, and "who's who in Circulation", etc, etc. Our wiki works well, I use it every day.

Thing 9 Online Collaboration Tools

Very fun assignment, editing the Declaration. My kids are big fans of original documents since watching National Treasure.

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with signing up for this and that, I'm no longer using original user ids.

I thought Google docs was more straightforward and easier to use than Zoho. I can see that these could be useful, for example, if you are collaborating with another librarian on a conference and you both need to be tweaking a document.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Thing 8 Share Your Creations

I love sharing photos. I come from a fairly large extended family who don't live near me, so we have found various methods for "seeing" each other. Some started with MySpace, showcasing music they've written and performed, some use snapfish so we can order prints of family events, most recently we have been updating our own facebook accounts and looking at each others' albums and tagging each other. It's fun until your niece takes a photo of your butt and not only posts it, but tags it as mine for all to see!

I used PictureTrail to do a little collage of 2 of my kids staging a car accident. It was easy to use and post to my blog. There were lots of options for displaying your photos in a fun way.

There are plenty of library uses for sharing photos. Show an event held at the library. Show people enjoying the library. Show upcoming features at the library. Show parts of the library on the main website. Show new books, featured authors, blah, blah.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Thing 7: Communication Tools

OK, so I've re-registered and plan to finish this time!



Email


I had never used email with an integrated calendaring system (Groupwise) before I started working here this winter. Email, I get; folders, I get; address books, junk mail, all standard. I am still getting used to the work calendar where we send and receive not only appointments, but tasks and reminder notes. I can see the need and the usefulness of these tools (although I still like actual sticky notes for reminders): for instance, you can invite people to a mtg and book the mtg room at the same time. Its nice to have so many options for communicating and calendaring, but sometimes it gets confusing when people use it in different ways.



IM


I haven't personally used IMing much, but have watched my kids do it. It was especially fun one day when each of my 3 kids was on a big iMac in the same room, they were all on with iSight. On each of their screens was streaming video of each other and 2 more friends. My niece and I were using Facebook's version of IMing, we happened to see that we were both on facebook looking at photos - a fun way to say "hey".

I can see that it could be a useful reference tool. It would be a nice quick way to get an immediate answer to something. However, I can also see that it might get in the way of actual face-to-face reference work if you have an im query at the same time.

Text Messaging

I'll be doing more of this this summer when we get a phone for our kids. I know a bit of the lingo, and I'm sure we'll make some up amongst my family.

Library use: It would be cool to send reminder and reserves notices by Text Messaging.

Web Conferencing

I've looked at a prerecorded web conference and have a couple of them planned. I think web conferences can be a good way to "attend" on a specific topic, but I've also experienced the frustration with the technical aspects.




Friday, April 18, 2008

No Thing in particular

I'm going to finish the 23 things randomly...

Thing Twenty - Libraries and Social Networks

I have both MySpace and Facebook accounts. Myspace seems a bit young for me, can hardly stand to look at it anymore. Facebook has become, for my extended family, a fun way of keeping in touch and sharing (and tagging each other in) photos. It's obvious who has spare time and who doesn't because you could waste, um, enjoy hours and hours joining groups, poking each other, blah, blah.

As far as library uses, I can see having a library account, adding friends, updating with recent activities, add photos of recent events, current events, linking book and authors, etc. My church recently started a facebook account and is adding members. The young kids are especially drawn to it as a format for acquiring info, because they're on facebook with their friends anyway.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Thing Six - online image generators

More fun, fun, fun. These are so easy and so cool to do. We can do lots of postings on library walls, computers and websites that would make programs more exciting and eye-catching.
I especially love the card catalog card and the featured Carleton College trading cards! I worked at Carleton and was amused by the trading cards - they actually have them printed and students grab them by the handsful (one reference librarian is particularly coveted). I am going to make a special card for the head of technical services, who doesn't get (but who deserves) much public attention.

Thing Five - more Flickr!

Oh, I could spend lots of time with this fun eye candy! The color wheel is stunning, Flickrball (or another version of the "6 Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon" is hilarious. I can think of a few uses in the library - posters, for one. You could use clockr for a screen saver on computers.
I love Spell with Flickr. Flickr is a creative way to share photos, and find photos. You could use it for training - showing pictures of what the reserves on the reserves shelf should look like, for example.
I'll have to stop now...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Thing 4 - Flickr

I love Flickr, I have visited many sites in the last year, mostly crafty things. I was able to open an account and add pictures easily and with no problems at all. I'll want to bring in my own pictures (besides my bookmobile ones) to load up and organize.

However, I did have problems adding another person's picture from flickr to my blog. I got a message saying I didn't have enough storage. It was a really great picture of an artist's space, featuring a card catalog for storage. I'll work on it again, but I feel like if I spend too much time right now, I'll never get around to other Things that I could do more quickly.

I'll definitely do more on my flickr account, and can't wait to poke around and see more of others' pictures!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008



I have a card catalog at home, too. It's filled with fabulous crafting supplies and strange collections. I would love to have a room just for my supplies, and to have it look as tidy and sweet as this.

Thing One-again

I supervise a small group of "pages" (shelvers) who are usually at the library when I am not. They don't all have email address, and I was feeling disconnected from them. I didn't feel like I could "catch" all of them when I had a new task or alternate directions, so I created a blog that is posted on the computer where they sign in and out for each shift. It's only been up a few weeks, but they are reading it, and I've had some responses back. It seems to be working for us as a way of communicating remotely!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thing Three - RSS Feeds

Google Reader was very easy to set up. It's great to sort my feeds into categories. I have my 23 friends blogs, food blogs, crafty blogs, news and music blogs. If I weren't working full time, I could spend all day searching through blogs for things that interest me. The RSS feeds let me get a little thrill for a short amount of time.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Thing Two - Web 2.0

I think our 23 Things will take more than 15 minutes a day. But I think that many of these things are worthwhile, fun, and necessary to keep libraries one step ahead of the patrons.

Having worked at a college, I have become familiar with YouTube (I dare you to try to watch William Shatner "singing" Rocketman), file and photo sharing, and music transfer. I have an ipod, MySpace and Facebook accounts, and use wikis and RSS feeds. I am looking forward to learning Flickr, which is something I was about to do anyway. I think the 23 Things is a nice introduction and overview to all things 2.0, and I like that it is focused on why and how this is important to libraries.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Thing One - set up a blog

Thing one went pretty well. It was fun choosing and setting up things. I might do more tweaking on it as I go. I'm very excited about the 23 things! I don't particularly like having an avatar, but my daughter helped "dress" me.

Puellabiblio: puella (poo-EL-ah) is Latin for girl; biblio is book. The word for librarian is too long. (I was a Latin major in college) I've used Puella Press as a business name for my book preservation and repair for many years, so it seemed a logical extension.