Thing 23: Survey

I did it!!!!!

Thing 22: Staying Current

Life Long Learning.

I am truly grateful to have learned about these tools which I can use to continue learning and keeping up with world, life, technology, and library changes. However, I do need to say that 15 minutes a day is not enough time. Now I admit the RSS feeds make sorting through news of changes a little more accessible, but even though I am only subscribed to 4 feeds it takes time to go through all the "headlines" without reading the content. My account overflows......

Asking myself every day "What did I learn today" is the best idea! Adding this to my routine will definitely help my life long learning. I'm psyched to keep exploring.........

Thing 21: Student 2.0 Things

I love both these tools. I think library staff as well as teachers and even parents are all aware of the last minute "I need to research topic X for a paper due tomorrow........

Providing links to these tools and promoting them is a great service library's can provide for students. The Teach Guide provides great tips for teaching the tool. Let's create a presentation introducing the use of these tools and take it on the road: !st to a Teacher's meeting so the Teachers are aware of it and then into the classroom to introduce it directly to the students.......

Thing 20: Books 2.0

Wow is this a lot to cover! Why does it have to be paper books vs e books? I think the future holds both and that what is important is that reading, culture, literature, etc continue. The format is not so important: a love of learning, of reading, and of life long learning is what is important (no matter what format we do it in).

I enjoyed my quick tour of many of these book 2.0 ways for sharing the love of books and reading. Books on my phone is a category that I will not be using personally, but will continue to be aware of in order to serve those for whom this is style of connectivity is important. (If we all have different learning styles, I suppose that we all have different communicating styles too: so it is important to be familiar with this technology.) I looked at DailyLit and at Twitterlit. I'm still not a Twitterer, but this Book 2.0 phone game is fun! It reminds me of the podcast "Who Said Literature Game" that I loved so much in the podcasting thing. Getting daily literature sent directly to an individual's phone can be great for those on the go -- if a book's not handy but your phone is this is a great way to keep reading.....

In the Reader's Advisory section, I already use What Do I Read Next (as well as Novelist). So I looked at Reading Trails. I liked it, but it needs to grow: The idea is cool and if anyone had read anything I read to get me started down trails, I would probably never stop. However, too few people (so far) are participating and they don't the same types of things I read (despite my very eclectic reading tastes). I'll keep checking back, who knows, maybe I'll start my own trail -- I like the idea of being a trail blazer.....

I looked at several of the online book communities and am glad to be aware of them but personally will stick with LibraryThing and Goodreads.com.

Book group resources was a wonderful selection of resources. I glanced at each of them and thought that they were very helpful and informative. My absolute favorite, however, was Open Culture. It includes lists (plural lists) of FREE online courses! Oh I will be using this site the rest of my life........

The Book Reviews selection I was less enthused with. I already use several book review sites that were not included in this list. I like the ones I'm using better. Of course I get to them through my bookmarks on my computer at work and I am currently at home so what are the sites I use? Powell's is the only one I remember. But I also just do a google search with the book title in quotes followed by the word review and often find the odd gem that way.

Thing 19: Other social Networks

Love this!!!!!!

Thing 18: Social Networking

Well, this proves it: I'm officially old . For this Thing I signed up for Facebook. Sign up was easy but tedious: All that friend searching and not one person from either of my high schools is on Facebook. Only one of my email contacts has a Facebook page (of course we already stay in touch by email...). I must be antiquated.......

I created a Myspace account a while back getting ready for Teen Tech Week. I learned to create skins, friend people, etc. I don't see the point for myself personally, but professionally I'm glad to know about this so I can help patrons be aware of Internet safety practices as well as be of some technical assistance if needed.

I do think it is important to have a Library presence on social networks because this is where many people do lots of communicating and networking. Having a library presence in the social networks is another important way for us to reach out and serve our worldwide communities.

Thing 17 Podcasting

I tried the Educational Podcast directory first. It was an easy to browse directory and I immediately found this incredible podcast: "Who Said A Literature Game Delivered as a Podcast." It's great fun to listen to the passage and guess the character speaking, the novel, and the author. Each Podcast begins with the answer to the previous passage and a listing of participants who guessed correctly. I love it.....

http://www.whosaid.org/cast/podcast.php

I then tried Podcast.com. Browsing was a little confusing at first as I did not immediately understand the "Channels." I did find a directory in the lower right quadrant that I found easier to navigate, but was having a hard time finding an interesting (to me) topic to listen to. So I tried the search feature. Bingo! I tried PBS and got lots of interesting choices and then tried NPR and got more. NPR's Florida Stories podcast is great!

http://podcast.com/show/7270/Florida-Stories-Podcast/

Podcastalley.com was easy to browse. I didn't find anything new and exciting, but that could be because its getting late and I'm tired. I went back and found some great podcasts here as well and still find the browsing and searching very intuitive.

However, I give up: I cannot figure out how to put the great podcasts i found onto this blog. So I will insert links to the podcast sites so you all can try them out from the podcast home pages. Sorry I can't get a click and go version inserted into my blog.

Thing 16: YouTube

Wow, I have always wanted to see the Auroraa Borealis!! Great video!!!!

It was fun searching YouTube for something that would be both visually and audibly stunning. I wasn't sure what I was looking for so I searched keywords such as caves, whalesong, space, and then found videos on the Northern Lights and had to share one. This is my favorite of the ones I viewed because I enjoy both the music and the pictures.

Interms of using YouTube for the library, anything that inspires creativity is wonderful as far as I'm conscerned. I would love to have teen challenges allowing teens to submit thier own youtube creations to be placed on our branch web page. And wouldn't it be great for local history projects to create YouTube shorts of local seniors sharing a favorite memory of our local heritage?

Thing 15: Rollyo

Well this is truely cool! I created a search engine of my favorite Arthurian Legend sites titles Arthuriana. This could be a great tool for us to coordinate with school projects -- if the teacher let us know what is being assigned we could set up a rollyo search engine for that class to use! We couls also use it with our teen advisory board for special projects. I love this!

Select...ArthurianaSearch The Web

thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

I already have an I-google page that I set up back in Nov 2008. Not sure how it relates to productivity but maybe I missed the point: I have several game widgets like hangman and several weather watch cities. I never use it at work, but it is nice to log in using my laptop while at the airport waiting.....

RSS feeds are great because I am finding news that I would have missed without the feeds, however, does this actually increase my productivity? While finding out about these tidbits is enriching my life, only one has related directly to work (so far).

I am thrilled to have found ZAMZAR!!!!
We often have patrons come to use our computers because their printer or computer crashed and they bring in their .wps or .docz document and our computers don't read those files. Now with ZAMZAR I will o longer have to search for converting sites, I'll just know where to get it done without searching each time!!!! Productivity Yeah!!!!

Thing 13: Library Thing

Well, this was easy, since I discovered GoodReads for Thing 12 and already set things up there. I added several more books in Library Thing than I did Goodreads and within 2 days someone marked on of my reviews as being very helpful. I started out with 7 books and then added 5 more 2 days later. I like both sites.

We could use Library Thing Or Good Reads with our Teen Advisory Board for them to post book reviews and link back to the branch website or the teen blog (once it gets going). I am going to recommend both sites to the Reading Circle and maybe we can set up our own online group....

Thing 12: Wiki

While I already knew what a Wiki is and held some opinions about them before starting this thing, I confess I like them a little better now that I have explored them more thoroughly. Before I was leery of wiki content because I could not fathom how authority could be verified and how anyone could know the information found was legit. (For example the big Wikipedia headlines recently about fake quotes making it into the mainstream news.) I realize using the World Wide Web could also be chancy if you do not use critical thinking skills and check out the authority, currency, etc of a website. However, at least this kind of checking is doable, if you take the time.

I still don't like getting my information based on popularity or from the unnamed masses, but I can now see some uses for wikis even big popular ones. Big ones that allow individuals to review & recommend books, or movies, etc might be fun. Small ones within an organization could be useful for sharing ideas, for working specific projects, or for building communication within an organization.

I signed up to Goodreads.com a social networking wiki site that allows individuals to review and recommend books, link to friends, and discuss all things books. I posted one review about John Connelly's The Book of Lost Things. After one day, no one has commented back, but I think I will continue to use this site so eventually things will get moving!

Thing 11: Social Media

I looked at all 4 suggested sites and found Mixx to be the most intuitive to use. Diggit was also pretty easy to navigate. I searched each site using keywords like "Welsh Corgi" "Arthurian Legend" "web 2.0" and "Everquest." Then I tried more obvious keywords like "Obama" and "economy." I then went on to "Library" as a key word.

In none of my searching did I find an article of interest that I hadn't already found using my RSS (Google Reader) or my regular news searching. I'm afraid I just do not get the point of these sites. I do not see how I could use them for home or work. Sorry.

And then I tried looking at the comments. Since no 2 people are going to agree 100 % of the time on 100% everything, I expected to see discussion and perhaps some disagreement. I saw some limited foul language and disrespect. I also noticed a lot of people expressing their own opinions, but noticed little of people thoughtfully "listening" to differing opinions before voicing what they thought. I was not comfortable with the quality of the "discussions" taking place via comment. I guess maybe I don't trust "popularity" to tell me what's important. Maybe it's that road less traveled thing.....

I guess if you're looking for what's popular, trendy, or outlandish these are the places to search. I can't say that I'll be using these tools, though.

Thing 10: Tags & Delicious

I practiced tagging a couple of my blogger blogs and it was very easy. If I were to blog several times a day or over a long period of time tagging my entries would be necessary for keeping up. While Blogger's methodology is a little different from Flickr's methodology, both are intuitive and useful.

Before exploring Delicious, I wasn't too sure it would be useful to me, since I don't bother to use the bookmark function of my browser. However, exploring other people's bookmarks by tag is fascinating and can be useful in finding sites that I might have otherwise overlooked. I like using Delicious as a research tool, although I don't see myself signing up and creating my own tagged bookmarks.

Learning about tag clouds was also very useful. Until now, I always found those spaces of words of varying size rather blinding, annoying, and in the way. Now that I understand that the size and boldness of a word is an indication of the popularity of that tag, the usefulness & organization is suddenly apparent. 3 cheers for NEFLIN's 23 Things: transforming the annoying into the useful one lesson at a time!

Thing 9

Thing 9 has lots of options for library use. These tools would go great with Teens and Tweens, allowing website display of teen accomplishments in various teen programs, attractive ways of advertising teen programs on the local branch page, and even for Teens to use on the Teen Advisory Board blog or newsletter, etc. Since I used Big Huge Labs in previous Things, I wanted to try something different. I first tried to use Lazybase to create my personal database of books to read since I collect books I want to read faster than I can actually read them and since there are so many books and so little time. I followed the link easily, read up on the Lazybase site itself and tried to use it. Unfortunately, while it is easy to navigate and use, it must not have been working the 3 times I tried. I meant to try from home , but ran out of time. So I moved on to Picture trail with the above results. Lots of fun, easy to navigate, very intuitive to use. I highly reccommend it!

Thing 8

Oh boy where do I start....

I treid ICQ chat with family when it first came out and was not impressed (remember I can't spell). After 3 or 4 tries we all gave up on it. Later, I used AOL IM with a friend in another state. We ended up using plain old email too.

I have not tried texting before because it appears even worse: I have to learn a whole new language. I know, you'd think the lack of spelling rules would make this great but it doesn't -- it confuses me because I don't know what all the abbreviations mean. (I feel like Bones "What's that mean?")

Yes, I confess I am not a native to the online environment, I am an Immigrant. This gets me debating with myself, however. While I realize that languare is fluid and evolves(we don't speak Shakespearean english anymore), I still worry about the loss of spelling and grammer (and manners). Have you ever tried to read a letter or document written before spelling and grammer were standardized? No punctuation, the words and sentences running together and idiosyncratic spelling make it almost impossible. The speed at which technology has language (& us) evloving is getting faster and faster (remember Futureshock?). If the new evolution of writing is texting and chat then I am being left behind. Not a happy thought.

Manners is another thing -- is it really necessary to text someone else while you are attending a presentation, play, or whatever? How much can you possibly be taking in from the event you are supposed to be participating in if you are texting someone? (Of course I can't figure out why anyone would want screen on screen TV -- how on earth can you watch two or more shows at the same time?) I went to lunch the other day and saw two people sitting in a booth, each talking on their cell phones. They were not interacting with each other so why were they even bothering to have lunch "together?" If I am texting while (theoretically) doing something else, then I am not expericing the present moment of that something else and I not doing either task well.

I accept that texting and chat are very real and essential tools in our constantly evolving world and I am doing my best to Immigrate into this world to continue serving the people of my worldwide community well. Ask-A-Librarian is a fantastic and wonderful and important part of serving our community. I'll do my best.....

Webinars are wonderful tools for meetings and education, etc. I love these and use them as often as I can for continuing education. i have no reservations on this great invention!

Thing 7( again)

Thing 7

Online image generators are great and lots of fun! I explored ImageChef and LetterJames for Thing 7 and had a great time. I tried playing with image size, with multiple ways of putting an image into my blog, and even went online to search for other image generators. The resources listed in our 23 things were great. The ones I found were good too, but not quite a s easy to use. I will definitely be using these for fun, work, church, just about every part of my life..... Thanks for introducing me to these tools!

Thing 6

Flickr Mashups are amazing and so much FUN!!!! I created a photo mosaic which was fun and easy except one of my pictures does not fit the frame so it ended up with the head cut off. So I moved on and tried the FX tool on the Big Huge Labs page. First I used Radial Blur which turned out beautifully. Then, still using the FX tool, I tried Painting. By changing the brush stroke size I got a really pretty rendition. I'll be happily playing with these tools for the rest of my life! While uploading these mashups to my blog, I discovered sizing of the uploads. I think I will try correcting the mosaic by uploading a smaller size of the picture to see if I can get the whole picture in the frame. If it works, I'll upload the mosaic too.

Thing 5

I took this picture of a pictograph at the Honanki Ruins near Sedona Arizona on 11-3-2007. This is the first picture I have ever uploaded to Flickr. And then I uploaded it to my blog (another first)! :-)

Exploring Flickr is fun and I appreciate the sharing aspect of getting photos out there where family and friends can see them even if living continents apart! This is wonderful for staying in touch, and keeping up with what's going on in the lives of those important to us.

It would also be pretty cool for sharing what's new and what's happening at the library. Sharing Flickr images on the branch page is very fun and inviting idea.

I enjoyed exploring Flickr by tag. Picking non-concrete keywords leads to the most wonderful finds: keywords like freedom, ancient, Gaea, peaceful, eternity, etc.

I tried exploring by Geography, but found it overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. Perhaps it was not functioning properly when I was trying to use it, but many map places I tried to click on had no photos at all. And when I did find some with photos, the photos included were not necessarily of things/sites of the region, but of kitchens, backyards, pets, and people who happen to live or visit the region. While this is ok, I would prefer seeing at least something indicative of the region in the background instead of just a kid's birthday party shot around a kitchen table (Even if the kitchen and party are in Alice Springs Australia).

Thing 4: RSS

Wow, these are very informative readings and now that I understand what RSS is I can hardly wait to start using it. I disliked the old subscription "feeds" all going to my email and clogging it up, interspersed with real email and spam. Just by reading I can see I will use RSS. I will have one RSS aggregater per subject (unless further reading and practice show me a way to subdivide better than my home email sending things to separate folders). That way when looking for a specific topic update, I can go directly to my specific reader for that topic. Yeah!!!!!

I could not get the YouTube RSS video to play (perhaps it was the slowness of my wireless link), so I will go back to that on another computer. Until then, I am going to start setting up my first RSS Aggregater!!!! more later.......

I got signed up with Google Reader and it automatically brought in the blogs I am following with this blog for 23 things. In doing so, my home reader page has a left sidebar that lists my folders and a right window (large) that shows the entries I have subscribed to. Very similar to my email set up. I'm going with it for now.

I subscribed to several new feeds using the feed search tool provided and organized the subscriptions into 3 separate folders: 23 Things(for the 8 blogs I follow automatically downloaded), Computer Tech (for my 2 C-Net feeds about tech news and tech reviews), and Library Feeds (for the several Library related news and blogs subscriptions). I will continue to play with my settings in hopes of setting it up so the list of subscriptions is larger maybe with icons that I can click on to open another window with only the selections within that folder for perusal. Hopefully I'll find something. I just don't like opening to a large junky window of information and perusing a smaller pane for navigating......

I did find a really cool feature, though: Google Reader has some topical feed bundled together so that you can subscribe to several in a topic all at once. Topics actually included Dr. Who!! (But not Star Trek, can you imagine.) There is a Geneology bundle, a Vegan bundle, lots of interesting topical bundles. if you haven't looked at this featrue check it out....

Although truthfully I will not be subscribing by bundle; being a road less traveled type of person I like making my own choices instead of taking the easy, already prepared way. I will, however, look at each individual feed winthin the topical bundles that interest me to see which if any of those feeds I might like to add.....I just want to know what I'm signing up for and want to be able to opt out of some of their choices

Thing 3: Talkdigger

Boy is this one a gold mine!!!! Platinum even :)

http://websearch.about.com/od/enginesanddirectories/a/talkdigger.htm

TalkDigger lets you enter a URL and then searches a variety of search engines to see what sites are linking to it. Sort like the database Web of Science allowing you to search for articles that cite a specific seed article of your choice.

I started out randomly putting in URLs like www.aclib.us; www.ufl.edu; www.utk.edu and got a few hits that were OK but not spectacular. But then, I put in as a seed URL www.arthurian-legend.com (an authoritative website I have used before) and got some great results. I found other authoritative websites that I was already aware of as well as some new ones. I also discovered some fun website discussion sites (not particularly authoritative, but interesting) as well as some art sites with great fantasy art related to the Arthurian Legend that I had completely missed until now.

TalkDigger and a good seed URL opens up worlds of on topic sites. I loved it!

Thing 3: other Blog Search Engines

I found a link (http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/newsblog.htm) to some other blog search engines. One mentioned is Opinmind, which sounds really cool! It puts search results into two columns one green for pro and one blue for con. I really want to try this one out. However, I am having difficulties: I go to the site, but cannot find a search bar, search screen, search field, search page....

I am moving on to another search engine, but will come back to this one because it looks very interesting, if I can just figure out how to use it........

Maybe you have to join.....I just found a join button. If anybody figures this out, please let me know! I'm, feeling kind of dense........

Thing 3: Explore Technorati

So now I've read a lot about the Blogosphere and searching blogs. My biggest "worry" about blogs as sources is proving authoritative content. (From my reading/studying it doesn't look like I'm alone.)

I searched for "Arthurian Legend" because I fell in love with King Arthur around 4 years of age and every major research project (for which I could choose the topic) I have ever done in my life has centered around the Arthurian Legend in some way. So I looked at the results and the first thing I noticed about my search results in Technorati is that it lists an authority ranking.

I found two great blogs that I plan to continue visiting but they had authority rankings of 20 something. Even worse (I thought) the ones I rejected as not pertinent had authority rankings of 180 something.

Next step: explore Technorati's use of the term authority. Good news, the lower the authority ranking number the higher the authority of a particular blog. This means that the numbers correlate with my opinion (as far as I could gather one quickly). However, Technorati creates their authority ranking by using the number of other blogs that link to a rated blog within the last 6 months. So now I'm back to how authoritative can this be? Just because it's popular does that mean it's accurate?

At least Technorati does mention including source material in its discussion of authority ranking: "The best way to increase your Technorati Authority is to write things that are interesting to other bloggers so they'll link to you. Linking to source material when you blog is also a great way to engage in conversation and help others find what you find interesting." [Bold text my emphasis not Technorati's.]

So while I trust my judgement to find relevant and good discussion material on the Arthurian Legend in blogs, how do I know I'm getting good information on Asian Folklore concerning the Rabbit on the Moon? I read a story as a child about the Rabbit on the Moon, but have little recall of its content. I used this search term and got very few hits only one of which even mentioned the Asian Story. So no comparative data yet. I'll pick another topic I know little about and see what I can discover about my comfort in finding usable material.

more later........

Thing 2

Lots to cover in Thing 2:

I think of myself as a library 2.0 full speed ahead kind of person and am excited by all the possibilities out there. This comes naturally to me because when I was in Library School, ALA's Planning for Results (version 1.0) was one important topic. Library as a community commons was a big concept requiring us to rethink ourselves (like we are no longer the SHHHH! people anymore [within reason]; rock concerts in the library? etc.). Outreach to our communities became even more important and creating multi layered engagement between the library and its community a focus.

Well, our community is no longer the 5-15 miles surrounding our buildings -- it's our whole ever shrinking world! Which I think is wonderful!!!! I have a friend in New Zealand because we both play Runescape online. Web 2.0 applications are tools we can use to create engagement linking ourselves and our libraries with our world wide community.

What Web 2.0 tools do I already use? This brings me to another view I have of myself: as an oxymoron. Philosophically, I love web 2.0. My actual usage so far is minimal to reluctant (I'm sorry to admit). While I regularly use IMDB and other databases as well as play Runescape online, my attempts to use other applications like chat rooms, IM, etc were not successful. Partially because of bad luck: I tried lurking in a few chat rooms that I thought would be interesting only to find the foul language and attitudes disheartening. One was a chat room related to a popular ladies DIY magazine and another was a chat room related to a popular gardening magazine. I thought they would be safe first attempts. They weren't and I gave up on chat rooms. (I also found it difficult to distinguish who was talking to whom in these 2 chat rooms since more than one conversation was going on at a time. How do you follow a conversation when other partial conversations pop up in between conversation bites?)

My IM experience was actually OK because I was IMing family and they already know I can't spell and forgive me, even if they laugh at me. Before personal computers, I once wrote a letter to a friend about a horseback riding trip that I took. Unfortunately, I accidentally left the s out of one (and only one) of the times I wrote the word "horSeback riding." Still have not lived it down. Even though I appreciate the humor in the above incident, I am still quite neurotic about my spelling. This brings me to Ask-A-Librarian. I love the concept, I whole heartily believe that this is a great new service and the best thing since sliced bread. I am just not comfortable staffing the Ask-A-Librarian service desk. (This is where the embarrassing reluctance I mentioned above comes in.) I know that the people I have helped appreciated it because they have all without fail graciously thanked me for helping them. I just can't shake the fear (no matter how hard I practice) that I will eventually embarrass myself, my library district, and the whole Ask-A-Librarian project with my bad spelling. I feel unprofessional while using live chat features, because there is no spell check. I realize that the pressure is all inside me and not out there. I know that texting requires misspelling (often wondering if we are not returning to the days before Webster, before grammar, before "correct" spelling and sometimes feel that this might be going backwards and instead of forward). However I have no doubt that if I could just get with the program my spelling inadequacies would not necessarily hinder the flow of information. I know that I can do Ask-A -Librarian and I have successfully helped people while staffing Ask-A-Librarian; I just can't do it comfortably.

Blogging (with a spell checker) has been a complete joy and I am looking forward to more exciting applications to learn about, and share. I still love this 23 Things Program!!

Thing 1 Continued

I followed two blogs quite easily when setting up my blog, but when I tried to add a third I kept getting an error message about something being wrong with the page. The way I was adding was by exploring blogs and clicking on follow this blog within the other person's blog. As I say, started out working like a charm.

I really wanted to follow the third blog but had to give up. So I logged in and went to my blog to review it before starting Thing 2. I discovered there is a way to follow another person's blog by starting in my blog, I just had to have their blog's URL. Under the "blogs I'm following" tab, there is an add button. I clicked that and followed the directions quite easily. I got the third blog added even those method one did not work!

Having "redundant" pathways for doing the same thing is awesome! More than one way to accomplish the same thing lets people with different working styles have a comfortable way for them to accomplish the task as well as provides a back-up for when one way glitches out.

Thing 1: Blogging

Being a Road-Less-Traveled sort of person, I had to explore several blogging host sites before choosing the one I would use. I figured using one not recommended might expand the learning experience of 23 Things by bringing an expansion of methodologies to the sharing table. While exploring I truly appreciated it when a host site allowed me to browse samples of other people's blogs for an idea of how mine could look using their software right from the sign up page. (I was disappointed that I could not find this feature easily from the Blogger sign up page and became more determined to use something else.)

Well...... I guess I over did it because I got tired and the other hosting sites, while easier to find samples, were a tad more complicated and I ended up using Blogger as recommended for its simplicity. And because I already had a Google account so there was one less step for signing up to create my blog.

All the host sites I looked at were fairly simple, so if I choose to move to another site later the skills I am learning here will transfer quite well. And exploring was a lot of fun!

I promise to myself and to you all that I will not let laziness win and that I will journey out to "other" possibilities just so we can compare and keep learning........

http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fichter.shtml has some cool ideas about libraries and blogs; links to some library blogs, etc. I have not finished exploring this site and its links, but have gotten ideas for enhancing my blog eventually....... more to come