Week 9 Thing 23

My favorite exercises on this journey were the Library Thing website and looking at the Web 2.0 awards. I look forward to revisiting these and some other favorites. So, in answer to the question about lifelong learning goals, I have added a few goals to my list. My confidence has increased as a direct result of doing all these exercises.

One thing that surprised me was that I really enjoyed reading the other blogs, and that some were hysterically funny. Because I'm usually serious most of the time, (although I love to laugh), my blog wasn't that humorous. But some of them were quite amusing, and had really creative names, too.

I have only a couple of suggestions for improvement. I would have liked to learn about chat rooms and instant messaging. I know the teens use them, but I have no idea what to do. In addition, some of the assignments were NOT self-explanatory. I remember going on Technorati and thought it was a big MESS. I had no idea what it was and I still have no idea how to do a good search on it.

I would definitely participate in another discovery program like this. I would also recommend this to others. The activities are mostly hands-on (although there's some theory) and there really is something for everyone. You can find fun, playful things as well as academic, educational things. I know for sure I am a better librarian now that I've participated in 23 things.

Week 9 Thing 22

OVERDRIVE. I checked out a children's e-book from Overdrive. (or was it an audio book? I don't know the exact difference between the two). At first, it was a little confusing so I called Jim D. at Info Services and he was a big help. Basically, I was trying to find a way to "sign up" for an account until Jim explained to me that I had to pick a title first, and then check it out with my library card number. That's how you "sign up." When I went back to the overdrive home page three days later to review my account, I had no idea where to start! There was nothing on the home page about checking your account. So I had click on several links before I found a link for My Account. Way too complicated. I think Overdrive needs to restructure their homepage and make it more user-friendly, especially for new users.

Week 9 Thing 21

I found a podcast that I liked through podcast.net: The Book of Life: Jewish People and the Books we Read. It is sponsored through B'nai Israel Synagogue in Boca Raton, Florida and features author interviews. It was easy to subscribe to through Bloglines. I clicked Add under my bloglines menu and cut and pasted the url. The podcast itself was interesting and the books they reviewed were good ones. It would be fun to listen to this podcast or any other podcast while on a long car ride. Otherwise, I'd prefer to read but I can't read in the car due to motion sickness. So podcasts or music would be my entertainment of choice in the car.

I also subscribed to The Osgood File a few weeks ago when we learned about feeds. At the time, I didn't realize I was subscribing to a podcast. Anyways, when I checked my i-tunes directory, I had received podcasts from the Osgood file all the way back to March of 2007. I don't know why they sent so many. Also, I don't have an i-pod but I'm assuming ipods can download these podcasts, unlike e-books. (especially since podcasts are downloaded through Apple's i-tunes).

Where's the Beef

Week 9 Thing 20

Whew! That took a while to post the You Tube video to my blog! Creating an account with Youtube was quite a hassle. Every user name I picked was unavailable. Finally, I found one. Then I had to add my blog name to Youtube. That was easy. It was fun watching Youtube videos. I thought the site was very user friendly. Not only can you do a word search, but you can look at the videos by categories too. The only thing I did not like (and there was recently an article in the Sun about it) was that some teens are doing nasty pranks just to be on You-tube, like throwing soda onto a fast food drive-through cashier or going to Walmart and saying crazy things over the store's loudspeaker.

I chose an old commercial that people my age would remember: Where's the Beef? We always liked that commercial and would repeat the Where's the Beef "mantra" every now and then and it would always get a laugh. When I was a kid, we used to imitate all the commercials, so that's why I chose a commercial. I tried finding a specific Burger King commercial with the song "Hold the pickles hold the lettuce, etc.." but couldn't find it. I found newer versions of it but not that specific one.

Week 8 Thing 19

Web 2.0 Awards list. I tried all the music websites listed on the "short" list and was very impressed. Pandora and last.fm were very similar. They ask you to type in the name of a singer who you like and then they play songs by that singer and others who have similar music. I liked everything I heard even though I had never heard of some of the artists. It was great -- just like listening to my favorite radio station but with no commercials. Last.fm goes one step further by giving you a bio about that musician.
Patrons in the library can easily use this. They can actually listen to music and do their computer work at the same time. That's what I did. I explored other sites while listening to the songs.

Week 8 Thing 18

Tried Zoho writer. Typed a short document. Found it to be very similar to Microsoft word; however I couldn't find the shortcut that changes words from lower to upper case. I also tried the resume template. It would be helpful to our patrons, to create resumes on Zoho. My only complaint about the templates (including Word) is that it's hard to get rid of parts of the format that you don't like (for example bars and other highlighted features). I'd like to see more simple resume templates in addition to the fancy ones.
I don't think these online applications will REPLACE Word; however I think it's good competition -- maybe it'll help keep the prices down. It's nice that Zoho is compatible with so many other word processing applications -- that's a real plus in my eyes. Too much technology is noncompatible nowadays -- for example Sony and Ninendo games cannot use the same game box.
In regard to Google Docs, I remember when Monty Phair wrote about Writely.com in Branching Out in his "Treasures" column. I tried it back then and uploaded a document from my hard drive onto it because I was afraid my hard drive would crash (it did once) and I'd lose the document. That's another wonderful thing about these web-based applications. You can't lose them as easily as a flash drive or a floppy! And they're free. At least for now.

Week 7 Thing 17

I added a wiki to the PB (peanut butter) wiki of the Maryland Libraries Sandbox. It was VERY user-friendly. The only trouble I had when adding "My Favorite Jokes" was that I added the joke while I was naming my new page. I should have waited until the new page was already in place, then clicked "Edit page." Adding my blog was easy too. The only thing is, that if someone else is editing the page, you have to wait your turn. (5 minutes). This was one of the easiest of the 23 things. I'm ready to move on.

Week 7 Thing 16

Wiki means short in Hawaain. I had no idea that anyone could edit Wikipedia and that it shouldn't be used as a reference on a term paper. My son, 14, even knew that. Still, the concept of wikis is a good one. I especially liked the one about Library Success. I looked at some of the programming ideas and they are very helpful. I wouldn't hesitate to turn to this wiki for programming ideas. The other wiki I liked was bookloverswiki. I try to contribute to things like this because I really appreciate when others do the same. Everybody can benefit from a wiki. It's easy to imagine how much SPAM these wikis get and I don't totally understand how they stop all the spammers. I realize that only certain people get the password - that's probably one way. What I'd LOVE to see for BCPL is a storytime wiki that's really well organized and we could all contribute our storytime ideas to it.

Week 6 Thing 15

Library 2.0. It's hard to believe a simple term like this is surrounded by so much controversy. Some say it's a bunch of crap; others say it's significant. Some say it's theory; others say it's real. Personally, I think it's quite simple. A simple definition of Library 2.0 is a virtual library. A modern definition of library must therefore include the Internet. Makes sense to me. I use the Internet constantly for information. Need the lyrics to a song? Google it. Need directions? Go to Mapquest. Nowadays, almost everyone turns to the Internet for their information needs. That's the direction this society is heading. Sure, I believe we'll always have physical libraries in actual buildings. But, as the Crawford article says, the future will bring a "significant paradigm shift in the way we view library services." The author lists 62 views of Library 2.0. My favorite is "Library 2.0 puts the librarian anywhere a user’s heart takes them." Put this way, the library is anywhere someone turns to for information. I don't know if I'd quite go that far but the point is this: Libraries are much more than just a building.