week 9, #23

Comments

I did the Blog comments, 1 to a CCPL person, 1 to a librarian outside of our system.

Thoughts on the learning journey -
It is very necessary for info people especially to know that these Things exist and have a basic knowledge of what they are. These Things and others like them will become more and more inportant to future librarians.
I do not like putting any personal information on the web. I do not want to share my personal thoughts, pictures, books that I am reading with millions of strangers, some of whom may be very undesirable.
Many Things presumed a level of expertise that I do not have. Many instructions said 'just' do this and 15 min. later I still had not figured it out. Frustrating and a time waster. Please have better instruction.
I am glad I stuck to it until the end and glad to be somewhat familiar with the wave of the future for libraries.

week 9, #22

overdrive, netlibrary, project Gutenberg

Such long-drawn-out and confusing directions for overdrive! I never did find the overdrive media console icon. I have access to these ebooks from CCPL web site. Do I not need to set up an account? This is one more example of my frustration with so many instructions and tutorials in these 23Things. It is such a pain to try to wade through them, it hardly seems worth the effort.
I have been familiar with Project Gutenberg, so further explored this site. There is a title I may download, "The Tiger" by William Blake. I haven't read/heard this in quite a while. This is the human-read version.

week 9, # 21

Locating podcasts
I looked at podcast.net and Merlin. None of the podcasts that I really wanted to add had rss feeds. I finally added LibVibe, a library news podcast to the Bloglines.
Most helpful was reviewing the Bloglines tutorial to refresh myself on how to add rss feeds.
This was a very frustrating Thing because the Merlin podcasts I liked had no rss.
Especially interesting to me was the "History in the Movies" podcast - how movies affect our perception of history, and how to evaluate history in a movie. This would give great information for doing a 'movie talk' instead of a 'book talk'. Could be great fun and up movie circs.

week 9, # 20

Utube
I watched 15 videos on Utube. Most were OK, generally funny. None too objectionable like many on Google. Yahoo was similar to Utube. The video I choose is "My Favorite Commercial". This is the Budweiser one where the foal tries to pull the Budweiser wagon, not knowing that Mom and Pop Clydesdales are pushing from behind. It is a feel good video, imaginative and beautifully filmed. And, of course, it has horses.
Videos could be used to enhance library programs and provide background for research projects.

week 8, # 19

Web 2.0 awards site.
I chose Library Thing. This site has multiple ways to play with books - uses tags to sort by type, wish list, genre, etc. One can see who else shares interest in a book. There is a list of authors who use Library Thing. I liked the option to be private, ease of entering books, list of groups to see who has similar interests. The Suggestions tab lead me to titles and authors new to me, lots of which sound interesting. (Oh dear, more books I want to read!)
The charges for entering a large library and sales items were a bit off-putting, but maybe necessary to maintain the site.
Library applications could be for book discussion clubs for patrons or CARRT or Great Books committee. With this there could be on-line discussion supplementing in person meetings.
It would also be good to compile lists for projects.
An altogether fun and useful site.

test run

test run

 

This is a simple document to learn about ZoHo postings.

week 8, #18

I set up a ZoHo account. Explored ZoHo features. Created a test document and published it to my blog. ZoHo has lots of features useful in library situations - spreadsheets, presentation planner, Wiki. ZoHo is a neat thing to know about.

week 7, # 17

I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page and posted some favorite things to the Main Page.
Wikis can be fun!

week 7, # 16

Wikis
Wikis are handy tools to get people together. Because they are easier to use than some other applications, people are more apt to post their comments.
I looked at - SJCPL Subject Guides - handy info on all sorts of local venues, Farmers Markets, Genealogy, Cooking. If we had one for Carroll Co. it would be good to refer patrons to who are new in the area.
- Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day. A self tutorial for 23 Things. This will be good to come back to when we need a refresher.
- Book Lovers Wiki. Great. Applications in Readers Advisory, and for personal use. Also, how about for CARRT?
- Library Success-Best Practices. I can always use new ideas for better customer service.
-ALA '06. Local info so participants can get the most of their conference experience. Would be great if we host a conference.
- Merlin. Looked at this before. It mentions CCPL's Project Forum which we have used for awhile.

week 6, #15

2.0 and the future of libraries

I read all of the perspectives and the other items.

Comments on "Away from Icebergs". Rick Anderson presents 3 concerns for libraries.
1 - Getting away from the 'just in case' collection. This is not thinking first of the print collection, but of all the other ways of getting knowledge. For many patrons, especially the younger ones, this comes easily. But there are a significant number of other patrons, generally older ones, who need to be convinced of how much more accurate and easy to use the new options are. This will be one-on-one help. See change as an opportunity, not an 'iceberg'.
2 - Not relying on user education. If there is a problem, fix the service, not the patron. I am all in favor of that.
3 - Don't try to make the patron come to us, find a way to get the service to the patron. Libraries will need to do this to move forward.

Week 6, #14

Technorati -
I had explored this in #13 and didn't think much of it. So I gave it another chance here - and think even less of it. Cannot think why I would want to keep track of 5.1 million personal opinions. Found 28,482 Blog posts, 524 Blogs about Learning 2.0. Never could find the Blog directory.
Looked at Top Favorited and TopBlogs which featured BoingBoing - why would I want to learn how to piss in Germany? In the list of Top Searches there was nothing I wanted to spend time on.
On to the next thing.

week 6, #13

tagging

Technorati had very recent pictures of the Mississippi river bridge collapse today. But similar ones are on all the major news sites. I tried several searches and most of the posts were very personal ramblings of people who need to get a real life, not a virtual substitute. I have many other things to do with my time.
Watched the alternate tutorial for del.icio.us. Explored the site and liked BookFinder. I would think del.icio.us to be valuable for research projects.
Looked at several of the listed libraries d pages. Could not find how to access them except from the links in 23 things. I don't see that this is so valuable. A catalog search would be quicker and less cumbersome.
Clicked on several popular bookmarks and saw the comments and other possible tag names.
del.icio.us could be very useful in doing research, especially where one may need to use various computers.

week 5, # 12

Rollyo could be very useful in certain situations, as when doing a project.
I checked out the 4 sites listed and was not able to find much on eBooks or Rare Books. What is the definition of a rare book? A list of rare books, divided into catagories or dates would be nice. Maybe I am doing something wrong.
Free photos was good - lots of photos and user friendly.
Quick quotes was very good. I looked successfully for the person who made the quote, first lines of poems and poem titles. This will be very useful when helping patrons.

I set up a Rollyo account and made a search box on Health.
http://www.rollyo.com/editroll.html?sid=305405