Thing 22 Staying Current

"It really doesn’t take that much time." mmmmm I didn't feel that way. But it was absolutely worth it. I'd like to have a refresher about every 9 months of maybe the next 6 things! I bookmarked another library's Things that I thought looked interesting.

Going back to the beginning, blogs--I like blogs. I see blogs as a way to have real communication among people--the "among" is what makes blogs better than email or IM. You can post when you want and multiple people can read it and respond if they want. I think people take them more seriously than Facebook--or at least there seems to be more substance.

Blog search tools--don't see these as helpful personally or professionally. I can't believe I would be searching for a blog out of the blue.

RSS feeds and blog aggregators--I'm a fan and see use in the library and personally to keep up with all this stuff. Definitely like Google Reader over Bloglines since I can never seem to log in correctly with Bloglines (and that's the frustrating and time-consuming part of a lot of this--stupid stuff happening).

Flickr and Flickr mashups--yea! I use Flickr personally and professionally.
Online Image Generators--not a fan
Sharing--I'm using Slideshare in our new website
Delicious--the best "Thing"
Social Media--Digg, Reddit--don't get it
Wikis--I want to explore and use them more. I think they could be a good internal tool for information gathering and organizaton.
Library Thing--becoming too commercial (i've been stalked by one of their salesman) GoodReads and Shelfari are just as good.
Online Productivity Tools--I'll continue to keep current in this area. I know there are tons of these but I like to wait for the Top Ten lists to get ones that have been time-tested and are sustainable.
Rollyo--don't think it's particularly stable and too trendy
YouTube and podcasts--kind of the grandaddys in this group--definitely useful on library websites
Facebook&MySpace--still really uneasy about these for library use or for personal use. Think we should have left them for the kids.
The rest--some good some useless--all very time consuming

I'm going to think about how to stay current but I have a few tools now in my toolbox to remind me, alert me, keep me organized and motivate me.

Thanks Neflin....

Thing 21 Student 2.0 Tools

I realize the getting students organized is a huge challenge so if these tools help even one student I'm all for it. But generally I think that assignments have so many variables that this automated organizer has limited value. Could be wrong about this. Maybe the last thing just finally wore me out on anything 2.0.

The education experience should involve some part of personal responsibility which includes thinking through the organization timeframe needed to complete a task.

Thing 20 Books 2.0

Read Fiction Reading Increases for Adults in the NYTimes--surveys they can tell you anything--proven by the fact that the same survey had reading on the decline the year before. In Online RU Really Reading? I like the quote: "What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” I have three children in their 20s and as for reading as a past-time--one is a voracious reader (both on the internet and books, one reads sporadically and the other never reads. Yet I don't see much difference in their achievements or success so I am quite conflicted on this. "Experts on reading difficulties suggest that for struggling readers, the Web may be a better way to glean information." Having been a school media specialist I do believe that for a lot of kids with learning disabilities and just plain kids that are visual learners, the internet can be a more inviting place to learn. How Libraries Can Survive...: I like the new literacies--although I don't think they're new. Graphic literacy--visual learners have the upperhand but I think the majority of people use graphics for understanding. Navigation Literacy: having just launched a new website I can tell you this literacy is not achieved by many. Focus Literacy ?? okay this is a really oblique reference to actually thinking. Skepticism Literacy--great!

Daily Lit--if one has the time to join in group discussions this seems somewhat valuable. The rest if more a learnawordaday concept.

Reading Trails--facebook on book steroids--who has time to do this? Book Lamp--I registered just because it referred to itself as the Pandora for books and I love Pandora. But it was way too heavy into scifi. What Should I Read Next, What Next, and Which Book... I've used on the reference desk but not as good as What Do I Read Next or Novelist. Overbooked--ok. Readerville--too esteric Booktalk--looks like it actually discusses nonfiction books which is rare.

I've been in many book clubs over the years so I've used Reading Group Choices and Reading Group Guides but I was not aware of LitLovers and I'm in love...for one thing it led me to a 23things for an Auckland, Australia library that looks great except they only did 12 things and I've bookmarked it on my delicious tags because someday soon I want to go back and really look at the different things they did. I've used BookBrowse many times--great resource for book lovers and book clubs. Looking at MetaCritic, I may use that one now too.

Book Rentals? uh, gee..how about a library? Book Swaps: I have friends who do this--usually ones big into particular genres.

Thing 19 Other Social Networks

Just how many does one person need?? I've used Web Junction for its training webinars--never really considered it a social network. Guess I ignored that part of it. Still don't know if I'd return to it for that aspect. Ning: i signed up but just don't think it's for me. I see that it might be a good one for certain professional networking. Gather: I may be overdosing on signup fatigue but again how much of this stuff do you need? If your sphere of friends is narrow, the chances you can participate in new, rigorous discussion seems to be limited. Looked at the cooking ones and the film ones, both of which I'm interested in. I like Epicurious which is not just a great place to find recipes but is a social network for recipes because readers can add their rating, reviews, and alterations to the recipes--great idea. I'll stick with IMDB for film trivia and some chat. I played around with Yelp. I could play around all day on stuff like this. I do think there's a place for Yelp as a resource for patrons. I'll even go back to it myself for restaurant reviews. I'm sure one could spend days just on this one thing so looking at the endless arry of social networking systems: 50 minutes Application to libraries--it's a big side world out there.

Thing 18 Facebook and MySpace

I've got to admit I'm doing this one kicking and screaming. As my friends will tell you I can't even use a phone or write an email, so the expectation that I would randomly write stuff on Facebook or Myspace is pretty funny.

I've helped create the Myspace page for our Adult Services Department (which hasn't been updated in about two years). So I thought I'd learn more by creating a Facebook page. The first thing I saw were the potential "friends" I could have and yes, there were 3 people from my high school I haven't seen in almost 40 years. wow...didn't excite me enough to "friend" them but still. But I did ask several outofstate friends to be my friend again. I heard from one immediately who told me to get a picture on it. So I put a picture of myself on it--relunctantly. I also joined a group--Library 2.0 Interest Group, maybe it will give me professional food for thought.

Now let's see who responds and if I find I'm using it 3 months from now. Library application?? just don't see it

Thing 17 Podcasts

Thanks to iTunes, people are familiar with podcasts. But also thanks to iTunes they may not know what a "podcast" actually is. I click on podcasts to listen to my favorite radio shows on NPR when it's convenient for me or watch a Charlie Rose interview. I think NPR was groundbreaking and is cutting edge about podcasts. They have this great tool that lets you mix your own podcasts from the list of all their programs.

Podcast Alley is a much better directory than Podcast.com, in substance, ease of use and display. I searched "library" in both of them and Podcast Alley gave me much more relevant results faster and in a easy to read format. The library podcast, Didgiknow, appealed to me. Michigan State Library produces them. I would love to see how they compare with Orange County's great library of patron education podcasts but alas, downloading a podcast aggregator on our present library network would take a few hours. I was just interrupted with our new website crashing so I'm kind of sensitive to overloading the system.

I haven't done a podcast but we just had Paul Alford from the Citrus County Library System come and teach us about Audacity so I hope to soon.

Thing 16 YouTube

I'm pretty familiar with YouTube so I'll cut to the chase here. A few weeks ago I was on vacation in New Smyrna with friends and from the condo we were staying at we watched the shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. I filmed it and posted it to YouTube and here it is.



Incidentally the YouTube video on the book--hilarious. I feel exactly the same way after launching our new website this week!

Thing 15 Rollyo

Quick Quotes! a real find. Put in libraries and a whole new world comes at me. I'm bookmarking this one.

Rollyo is very interesting but I've been trying to share or copy for the past 20 minutes and that isn't so easy. I put together a new search "engine" about book reviews, using some of my favorite sites.

So here it is:

Select...Book ReviewsSearch The Web

Thing 14 Online Productivity Tools

I've used My.Yahoo as my homepage for years. It's familiar and comfortable to me. I created an iGoogle homepage months ago but other than the cool banner you can put on it--it just doesn't feel like home. I just experimented with Pageflakes. Some of their widgets do seem to work better than iGoogle (which is spotty at best). But I think I'll stick with My.Yahoo homepage. Now to their functionality. I love my homepage. I have my todo tasks at the top with my email, weather, nytimes, cnn and all the funky pop culture links I want. I go to it several times a day so I guess you could say it's a very useful productivity tool!

We used a countdown tool on our ebranch blog to countdown to our new webpage (it's still there). I use Microsoft Outlook and have for years. I have tried other calendars over the years including google's new one but it seems like such a waste of time to transfer and start a new one. I do think an online calendar is one of best online productivity tools. I've tried online todo lists before. Don't get me wrong I'm an avid todo list maker--I just love making that checkmark to cross off something. Yes, I'm one of those that actually starts a todo list with something I'm probably almost finished with. The best online tool I use is a word document--I know that seems very 1.0 but I'm sticking to it. I did set up an account on Remember the Milk and put tomorrow's tasks in--let's see if I actually use it.

I used the pdf converter which I think would be very useful. Oh, and it works!!!




This may be one of the most helpful things so far.

Thing 13 Library Thing

Here's what I've been waiting for---It's been my Snickers bar at the end of all these other things. I'm not a good example of a Library Thing user. I created an account, oh I don't know, seemingly years ago. I can't even access it anymore. I now have a new one. I like the idea of Library Thing. This is one "free" 2.0 thing that knows how to become commercial. We will soon have tags and reviews through AquaBrowser's MyDiscoveries that come from Library Thing. I wonder whose tags and reviews they are using and if the originators knew that their reviews may someday be in library catalogs. Well I guess if you put this stuff up on the internet, you have no basis for copyright.

I like the cataloging aspect of Library Thing as compared to Shelfari (where I do maintain an account). I put my Shelfari shelf on the bottom of this blog. Library Thing certainly has a faster and easier interface than Shelfari. and now so many widgets, tshirts, and cool stuff!

Thing 12 Wikis

I've had experience with wikis, participating in building a reference wiki here at the library and have a personal wiki which was used to plan a trip. These experiences have left me with the feeling that the potential of wikis is great. The examples 23Things provided are useful, timely and the wiki was the right format. But the problem with wikis is well--they are dependent on groups of people to participate and they are only as strong as each individual's participation.

In viewing Library Success and the library staff wiki, I wished that our own ready reference wiki was being kept up-to-date. Any department that does one must have it part of the process and have people dedicated and assigned to maintaining its accuracy and timeliness.

I do think that this library could use wikis to a much better advantage if the process and staff time were committed. I use Wikipedia for ready reference--like Google it's a great starting point. Depending on the reference interview, it may be all you need and as they say "wiki-wiki"--fast. I've also used wikis to get to information. Library are using wikis to make lists of libraries that are "the best..." or that "use...." It is a perfect example of the cautionary tale of wikis---if you are allowed to put your name up on a best list yourself, who's judgment is that?

I also created an OpenID account thanks to Neflin's Wiki. well I thought I did but once again the technology takes longer than the action. But I did leave a little note on Neflin's 23 Things Wiki.

This all makes me want more time.......

Thing 11 Social Media

I'm a self-confessed news junkie but honestly I've avoided these little icons when I read news articles. DIGG never seems to work the way I think it should. REDDIT isn't used by many of my news sources. NEWSVINE seems to cover the sources I want but really--why? So we can vote on the stories like news is a new reality show? I'm particularly impressed that under Entertainment they have a subcategory for Porn.

I signed up for an account on Newsvine but I doubt that I will ever use it. Rating news stories?? I do recommend and send news stories to friends and families but I can do that much easier directly than using any of these services.

Seed Newsvine

Thing 10 - Tagging & Delicious

I love Delicious and have been using it since it was del.ic.ous or whatever they started with that was oh so clever. Since I use 3-4 computers in my life I'm their perfect customer. My favorites are always a delicious tag away.

Professionally it helped me immensely during the past 5 months as I was researching other library sites and tagging them in categories that I kept referring to [blogs, evanced, aquabrowser, great home pages, navigation, favoritewebsites]. Plus I was able to share those sites with staff.

I tried furl last year and returned to delicious.

Thing 9 - Sharing

See slideshare below which I talked about in the previous post. I created a flickr badge earlier of my trip to Monterey in October where I attended the Internet Librarian Conference. See that on the left.

These 2.0 features are both great things to use on library websites. The slideshare is a great tool for online training.

Quick Tour Of Library Website

View more presentations from Alachua county Library district.

Using these things

Working on the new ACLD website has left me with no discretionary time to do any Things lately--kind of ironic. But this weekend in working on the site I have actually used some of these things. I uploaded the new website presentation I've been using to tour all our branches and departments. First I uploaded to Slideshare and then used a Slideshare widget to post it to the website itself on our new Library Tips & Tools page. I also posted the Common Craft video of RSS in Plain English because we couldn't explain it better.

I put a Meebo widget here but nobody seems to IM anymore. I also was updating my Shelfari account which I've had for quite awhile and put that widget at the bottom of this blog. Granted these two didn't have anything to do with the new website but they were easy to do and I needed to accomplish something in 10 minutes or less!!

Thing 8 Communication - Web 2.0 Style

Libraries eventually adjust to serving patrons in formats and spaces that meets the needs of the patrons. Today most libraries are playing catch up. The reasons are twofold. First, the communication landscape is changing rapidly. Just when you set up MySpace, we're told it's passe and Facebook is where we need to be. More on social networking on another Thing. Second, as can be evidenced by just reading many 23 Things blogs (if you didn't know this already), as a profession we seem to resist technology as a crusade. Granted technology can be a pain. And at the most base levels. For instance, our phone system needs to be replaced by one that has the 21st century options. Ours offers neither the capability of conference calling to two outside people nor can it be a guaranteed tool for web conferencing. Not to mention the capability of our servers to provide quick access to the internet.

1. Instant Messaging is one 2.0 tool I was using at the onset. But in reality I haven't used it for personal communication in years. I do think it can be credited (along with AOL) in bringing 2.0 to a broad population. But as a weekly participant in the statewide AskaLibrarian service, I can attest to the advance of technology propelling instant messaging.

I did sign up with Yahoo Messenger, mainly to activate the Meebo interface because I am curious in its usefulness in libraries as an aggregate im tool. I'm doing this at home today and asking a friend who uses AIM to place a Meebo on her computer. For years we watched the Oscars together. Since moving to Florida 3 years ago we usually phone each other a couple of times during the telecast. But I thought we'd try Meeboing (is that a word?--of course it is--everything's a word these days!) tomorrow night.

Instant messaging gets the award so far for easy set up. Setting up both Yahoo Messenger and Meebo took no more than 5 minutes with no need to read any help screens!

2. Since my children are in their 20s, I'm conversant with text messaging. I still don't get why they would rather thumb themselves to death rather than pressing my phone number and talking--yea, yea--I do know why.

aamof afaic i think txting instead of f2f communication is a sad societal change imho. Using it in libraries? not 4 me

3. Web conferencing in general is an excellent tool for libraries (and all businesses and organizations). With budget cuts and travel decreasing, it's a welcome addition for communication. However, I've experienced complete failures with the technology and it's almost uniformly a boring way to attend trainings so I'm not sure it's the best way just an expedient way for training and meetings.

I went to OPAL training in the fall and was very impressed. Of course, I'm ashamed to say in spite of my enthusiasm when I left Neflin, I haven't used it. It's on my list of good tools, though.

ttfn

Thing 7.1 Online Image Generators

I did have some fun with these but like most of these "homegrown" online magic tools their functionality is spotty. I must say that Toondoo has a loyal following. Within hours of posting my cartoon I had 4 comments on it. The best one was: NICE BUT I DONT GET IT--obviously a user of the web and not a philosopher of it. I was surprised when I pasted in the html code for the cartoon that it didn't post it as a static 2-frame cartoon but that you had to mouseover to see the second frame. But it gives more movement to my blog.

Thing 7: Online Image Generators

by littlepage | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

Warm Fuscia wall - Greece
Originally uploaded by mnadi

Captured this door from Colr Pickr, a Flickr mashup. This mashup uses 11 prechosen photos from Flickr in several categories. This category was Doors & Windows. Then a color wheel is displayed in the middle and you can choose another prominent color and it will change the photos to represent that color. 11 orange doors; 11 pink doors; 11 blue doors--a different set of photos for each color. Now who in the world had the time to set this all up is beyond me. And the practical use of it is fleeting but it's fun for a quick entertaining mashup. If you find a photo and color you want to capture you click on the photo and it takes you to the original Flickr account where you can click Blog This and it sets a posting in your own blog with the picture embedded and you're able to write your own text with it--as I am doing, voila. This door is from nice back alley near the marina at Matsouki, Kefalonia, Greece.

I went through several of these types of mashups--they are mildly entertaining, barely usable and huge time wasters. Some of them are not working correctly. The eBranch could use them in adding pictures to the website for promoting a program (for instance Spell with Flickr) or within the site to add color and eye appeal.

Thing 5: Flickr

I have had a Flickr account and used it to share pictures with friends. Since I had a set of pictures that I wanted as a flickr badge (another cool widget) I thought this would be easy. Now it really is but as with most things on the web the first time it gave me indigestion. So here are a few tips. 1. Make sure your photos are for public viewing. You can mark them for public viewing by set or by individual picture. 2. Use the HTML gadget in Blogger when you're copying the code from flickr.

Angela has set up an ACLD Flickr account with several sets of pictures. She tells me that the whole account has received 600 hits--pretty good. I think that this is one 2.0 feature that libraries can use in marketing. It's another access point for library events and publicity. Internally, any of us can now grab a picture when we need it. The Library of Congress project of tagging pictures has opened up the ability for anyone to find a picture of a subject and use it or comment on it.

Flickr is a good thing.

Thing 4: RSS and Newsreaders

I do know and actually use RSS feeds and aggregators. I thought the Common Craft podcast “RSS in Plain English” was excellent. I have used Google Reader so I decided to set up a Bloglines to compare the two. Both are simple to use and the only trouble I had with Bloglines was remembering my account passwords, etc to set it up. That is becoming more of an issue and I need to get more organized and simplified as I sign up for more of these things. I put a Blogline extension (notifier) for Firefox on my browser but I’m not sure why. I also put a Blogline button on my bookmark toolbar. After adding library blogs (different ones) to both and putting them in folders, I stopped (this was Friday). Today I went back to see if there were any major differences in presentation, organization or functionality between Google Reader and Bloglines. Both are quite user friends but I find Google Reader more intuitive for me. That’s probably because it looks like Google and that’s become a comfort. Although Google Reader did get a facelift last month that improved its look and functionality

I looked at some of the suggested “interesting reading” list and have added a couple to my blog list. Speaking of blog lists—I did create one on my blog at the beginning and if you’re really using your blog that tool is just as handy as an outside aggregator.

If you use these tools for your professional reading, you really have little excuse not to stay up-to-date. Pick 3 or 4 major library news sources and/or blogs in your field and it saves you reading 5 month old journals.

As with many others, this is truly addictive….

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

After reading Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, my eyes hurt. Not sure I needed all those statistics about blogging. Statistics can be used to prove anything so I guess the conclusion the world is blogging but what percentage of the world? Seems to me that those that blog are do a lot of it which skews the statistics of how many people actually blog.

And blog--what a word! who thought that would be appealing?

I tried searching on all four blog search engines. I now know there's a person with my name that invented the Dump-A-Matic, a device that turns any pick-up truck into a dump truck in a matter of minutes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that information but he's very popular on the blog scene.
Google gave me the most hits (of course), Technorati's list seems more relevant; BlogPulse gave a scarce half dozen and nothing about Mr. Dump-a-Matic; and Bloglines had 4 results. In looking at them all: Google--there's nothing to look at; Technorati--obviously wants to be the leader in everything about blogs; BlogPulse has some cool tools and is coming from a business analysis perspective; and Bloglines is pushing its blog aggregator (I'm going to return to that feature later and use it).

Thing 2 What is Web 2.0?

To all those who just can't see why we're doing this:

"No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves. At this point in time, our profession is far closer to the latter type of disaster than it is to the former. We need to shift direction, and we can’t wait for the big ship of our profession to change course first. It’s going to have to happen one library—one little boat—at a time." Rick Anderson, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries

Thing 1.5

I've enhanced my blog today and yes indeedy I am learning things. I delved into adding more gadgets. Gadgets, widgets--real time wasters but very fun.
1. I added my picture--I know it kind of blows the whole anonymous thing--but I'm not concerned. It's always good to practice cropping, resizing (wish it would resize me), etc. I find adding pictures whether using flickr, camera software, downloading from the web, etc to be one thing I have confidence in doing.
2. I added a blog list--decided to make it halfandhalf, personal interest and librarianship. Obviously my personal interests include politics so I won't make that list right now.
3. Added a text widget to explain my blog title
The functionality of the blogger gadgets makes enhancing a blog a simple process. I have noticed that gadgets that aren't "Blogger" gadgets can be troublesome.

Wordle

I just added a really cool 2.0 feature from Wordle. Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. If you decide to play with Wordle you'll need to sign up and can use your same username as you used for the 23Things blog. Wordle is like flickr in that anything you create on it is posted on the net and to use or import those images you grab them on that site. Wordle is a bit cumbersome because you cannot just copy and past what you create. You either have to post it through html on your blog or use a screenshot and save it through as a jpeg through Photoshop. The latter option is way too complicated for me today but I'm going to try doing it soon.

Thing 1 is a snap

The hardest thing about Thing 1 is deciding what name to call the blog. Blogger is indeed a simple process. I have just used Blogger for another blog we started at the library so it wasn't my first time. But I found it intuitive then and so similar to Microsoft Office functions that it's instantly friendly. It will be interesting to add cool things to this one and then use that knowledge on the library blog.