Thing 23: The End?

I loved this entire exercise! It was soo much fun discovering new things. My favorite was screencasting. Although I didn't post anything (Jing ain't friendly that way), I know that I will be working with more software to get some videos made. There will be many things I will keep working on.

Thing 22: Podcasts

I Luuuvvvvv Podcasts! Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! Case Closed! What a great way to get entertainment and information without being trapped by a schedule. Our library did create some podcasts. We had a wonderful staff member who sang in a chorus. She had a great voice.

Thing 21: Mashups

Hmmm, I think I'm going to have to re-read all the things on this page. Because some of the things I looked at made absolutely no sense. Stumble safe. What a unique app. It sure takes some creativity to come up with this kind of thing. Still, I need to look at this again. It's just not registering with me.

Thing Twenty: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

Delicious--This is one activity I know about! We use Delicious as a way to tag potential additions to our collection. As catalogs are no longer being published, we also use it to check on new and forcoming books from various publishing houses. I still use my bookmark/favorites list for the various computers at work but when I'm not at work or home, it's delicious!

Thing 19 multimedia

This one is so cute! There are so many creative and entertaining videos relating to the library. Love it! The "L-team" is fabulous too.



Still having one like that for our staff would be terrific. Although I'd use the Simon and Simon theme.



I'm having too much fun with You Tube. Time to get back to all seriousness. Much like everthing, there is so much out there fighting for attention, it can be a task to be certain what you want to find or the audience you are trying to reach. Surely the loudest and flashiest gets the most attention.

Thing 18 Audiobooks

I enjoyed Farrell's article. Listening to books has always been popular. My kids enjoy listening to CD books. However! I'm not into listening to books. Don't even own an MP3 or iPod device. Students have asked about the option of audio books but they seem to download or access Overdrive in private so I've not seen what it can do. They are sooo sneaky, those students.

Thing 17: Social Cataloging

I am not a cataloger at heart. Alphabetical by title suits me just fine. For a librarian I do not own a huge collections of books, but that's because I use my public library. The big collection at my house is movies and music. I can't tell you how many CD but they've all been downloaded into iTunes. But what about my movies? I'm going to be looking for something like LibraryThing...MovieThing maybe? Sorry I have no links to share but my library uses it to promote new books, so here's the link to that:

http://www.nvcc.edu/annandale/library/newbooks.htm

Thing 16: E-Books

Love e-books! At my previous job, e-books made up the bulk of the collection. New material could be made accessible quicker than having to handle a hard copy. Searching was easier, multiple users, all that good stuff. I think it has a place in any good vibrant collection.

That being said--I am not a fan of APA books. It's a very busy search screen and somethings that should be there are not. Does anyone see how you limit your search to full text? Some may call that feature "lazy" but I prefer "efficient". And the "Narrow Result" column? Wow! To me, this database seems overdesigned. I suppose I will get used to it but right now it's a chore.

E-books are growing in popularity especially as the catalog lists and links to these books. It's nice that they are not sequestered off some place.

I do not own a dedicated e-book reader and I do not wish to. The footprint of a Kindle is too large. I just have no interest in such a device. Every time I see that ad showing two people relaxing on a beach with their readers, I think "You better not drop those suckers in the sand or the water!"

Thing 15: Creative Commons

Is this 10 years too late? Wasn't this the entire idea behind the web? I love the idea that there is an easy way for people to identify things they can use in projects or in artwork. But that's assuming the symbols are understandable. After staring at them and viewing all the you tube videos, I'm not sure I could identify or define the symbol. Would I put my stuff up on Creative Commons like photos? Probably not.

Thing Eight Screencasting

Because of security settings, I can not download Jing or Screencast-o-matic. I plan to do a casting at home. Not sure about my topic but maybe I'll do one on using Ask a Librarian. Or maybe on setting up a NetLibrary account. On the positive side, I love bitly! I use it quite often now. Next step is to get used to using Google Docs!

Update: I did get Jing and practiced a bit with it. Quite easy to use! I've not recorded any audio yet mostly because I don't have a script. My first "official" video will be using the e-journal finder.

Week 13--Online Surveys

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PDTQ2NP

I wonder if this will work. My previous job used Survey Monkey all the time to collect statistics. It seemed pretty easy to open and close the survey and collect the statistics.


Click here to take survey

Will this work? I had trouble following the instructions on posting a Google Doc to the blog.

Week 11--shortening a url

I see this working when you need to push pages to a person via e-mail. If the url is too long, it may not get copied correctly. Is it one step too many? There are some things I find myself willing to do but others that seem like too much bother.

Week 12: Document sharing

Although it wasn't necessary to post a blog on cloud computing, I have some thoughts...I love it. It's a great tool to allow small businesses flexibility, even allowing individuals who travel access to information without lugging around files, computers-heck even flash drives can get lost! I use delicious to keep track of all my "favorite" websites so no matter where I go and what computer I use, I will have all my links.

Docuemnt sharing--I love Dropbox and the Google docs as well.

Here's what I envision--librarians as Johnny Appleseeds, but instead of planting fruit trees, we plant information literacy skills. Imagine if ALA sponsered a kind of "peace corp" project where librarians traveled around the US to offer help and teach info literacy classes. It may not require a great deal of travel, perhaps just to another part of a state or into a different neighborhood. All a librarian would need is a room, a computer, internet access and a projector. A bit push effort to show the world how important we really are.

Week 11 Tweeting

I did create a twitter account and I don't really post to it. There may be a mental block with this because I really do not like Tweety Bird and the twitter jargon reminds me of him. Still!! I will swallow my animated character discrimination and wallow forth and when I mean wallow...WOW! Finding something on Twitter to follow ain't easy. I went outside of twitter to find something. When I went back in and tried to find what I wanted--error message. A few more tries and I was successful. Now I need to figure out how to read all these posts.

Week 8 Generators

This stuff is fun! I can see using these in displays, marketing material, etc. The image I chose was a random one but I will be doing some things for the home and showing the kids. They will get a kick out of it!

Metro Graffitist, Green Line.

Metro Graffitist, Green Line.
Originally uploaded by Don Feduardo

This person suffers what I call "Special Snowflake Syndrom". He obviously thinks nothing he does is wrong; that rules, mores don't apply to him and all his actions are consequence free.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Week 7: Sharing slide presentations

My kids always enjoy it when Daddy makes a paper airplane. Wasn't sure I would find a presentation on the topic. What a pleasent surprise!! Since I'm not too confident in my own slides, I don't know if I will publish them. But maybe I will.

How To Build A Paper Airplane

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

How To Build A Paper Airplane

View more presentations from OECS 110.

Chat; or communication without grammar

The article about the controversy over providing chat reference was very interesting. To chat or not to chat. That was the question. Not so much anymore but I do see consequences of chatting. A question with horrible grammar, spelling, etc just gets right under my skin. As does the all-caps chatters. I perceive that they are yelling at me. Awful! Chatting is also missing the non verbal clues that you get by doing a in-person or verbal conversation. The "instant answer" expectation is another problem. I have scripts asking patrons to "hang on, this may take time". My skin will get thicker to all the errors, I'm sure.

Wikis, wikis, wikis

Now this is technology that I like! To me, wikis mimic the most common way people like to get their information. They ask someone: a cubemate, a friend, teacher, librarian, etc. What could be more natural than to take that concept and formalize in a format that is becoming jsut as natural as speaking. Wikipedia is a favorite resource of mine. Library Success is something I've not seen before, but I'm already enamored. What a great resource! I will spend quite a bit of time looking this site over this summer.

Social networking

I do have a facebook page. I use it to keep up with friends but not for my career. Linkedln is one of those things that I've joined but do not use like most of the social networking. The ten ways article was very enlightening. I do have an opportunity to use one of the ways and I may do so. As far as the privacy, I have friends that send e-mails and post warnings about sites that can find all kinds of information about you. If you make that information public, then yes, people will find you. It's that simple. What I observe most is how uncaring most students are to their privacy. They walk away with chats, Facebook, etc still logged in. Maybe uncaring is the wrong term. It's not a priority.

ALA isn't updating their Ning page. Interesting endorsement right there.

Like most of the "things" in this exercise, I will resolve to see if I can find an application to my career and life.

Setting up RSS feeds part two

Success! I did manage to figure out how to add other subscriptions. Along with Eonline!, I'll be reading the Washington Post coverage of Virginia, NPR stories, Marketplace and a feed devoted to Hong Kong cinema.

Like I said, an RSS feed is a great thing for keeping up on the news but some of the sites I visit did not have a RSS button. Maybe I just didn't notice. As for adding subcriptions, like many Google users, I became fixated on that search box at the top of the screen. The other button "add a subscription" was not in my sight. Oh well, lesson learned. Now will I have the wherewithall to log into Google to check my reader? With Google being the base of this entire exercise, I'm thinking this is a 23 step program to become Googlized! ;->

Setting up RSS feeds part one

This will be a two part posting.

I have plenty of sites that I visit to read the news, gossip, etc. So an RSS feed would be perfect. I watch the video. I search for a feed and I add one. Eonline! Simple. Now I'm trying to use the search to find a second feed to add but it searches my terms in the Eonline feed. So I have 5 tabs open on IE trying to figure out how I add another feed. It's time for my reference desk shift so hopefully I will have figured it out. Otherwise, I may have to turn in my librarian badge!

Week 1: Getting started

I read the prompts but I'm going my own way. Although I would do some posting on My Space, I still am a bit of a luddite when it comes to web 2.0 I have a Second Life handle, a Facebook page, a My Space page, 2 webmail addresses, a Twitter account, and now this blog. But I don't have a cell phone, an iPod or MP3 player. Out of all of the Web 2.0 tools, what is going to endure the test of time? Which will prove to be the most applicable to the library situation? While I applaud all those willing and enthused to try out all this technology, I'm more skeptical. The issue of time and relevancy are ones I don't think have been addressed. How do you make your information relevant to your audience and how do you find the time to continually do so? Most of these tools require a huge committement. To me, web 2.0 is still more of an entertainment tool. I'm sure that will change because there are people who will bend the technology to make it change. So if people can bend the technology to suit their needs then surely, I can bend myself and find my use for Web 2.0. Right?!

My very first one!

This is like the spine of a book that goes "crack"--I wish I could sample that sound. This should be a very interesting journey! Hopefully like the ones you take when you get off the Interstate and drive on the state highways. You will always see more on the side roads.

Eliz.