week 9, thing 23 ~ summary!

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
My absolute favorite discovery was the animated poetry by Billy Collins on YouTube. So amazing. In general I just enjoyed learning about new programs and services that I was not previously aware of.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I want to continue to remain as savvy as possible in terms of my awareness and familiarity with the Internet and Web 2.0. This program definitely helped me out with that goal. It would be nice to do this sort of thing perhaps as often as once a year in order to keep up with that ever-changing world.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
When I first heard that we would be participating in this program, I thought that it would be really easy. However, several of the 23 Things were totally unfamiliar to me and I ended up having difficulties with several of them. I quickly realized that it really takes effort to stay informed about new programs and services on the Internet.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
The only thing I would suggest is to consolidate the instructions so that there aren't so many links and places to look for information. When I began the program I was a bit disoriented because it seemed like the instructions were very spread out.

And last but not least… If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
yes!

week 9, thing 22 ~ Overdrive, Project Gutenburg, and downloadable audiobooks

I've explained how to download audio books to customers but I had never downloaded one on my own. I went into Overdrive and found it easy to navigate and understand. You can search for a specific title or browse fiction or nonfiction by subject. I downloaded an ebook but I'm going to return it because I don't actually like reading ebooks, I just wanted to go the whole way through the process. I was surprised to note OverDrive will allow you to burn most of its audio books to to CDs. The ability to listen to an excerpt is also a nice feature.

One thing I've always wondered about these audio books though is why there aren't unlimited virtual copies of them. In other words, why is it necessary to place holds on some titles? Since they're not physical copies, shouldn't there be an unlimited supply?

week 9, thing 21 ~ podcasts

I wanted to explore the "podcast services" winners of the Web 2.0 Awards. Odeo was the 1st place winner but I just didn't enjoy the site. I just couldn't navigate it easily and didn't quite get it to be quite honest. I must be missing something because it did win the award and all, but I want to finish my blog before the 30th so I decided to move on to another podcasting service.

Unfortunately, the 2nd place winner PodShow requires a Quicktime download so I couldn't access anything on that site.

podOmatic was easy to navigate and use and didn't require a download as far as I could tell - I think it uses RealPlayer. One thing I didn't like was that you couldn't narrow down the subject categories very much. For example, after clicking on "Games and Hobbies" the only narrower options were "Automotive", "Aviation", "Hobbies", "Other Games", and "Video Games". Also, it would be nice be able to see links to podcasts similar to the one you are listening to.

Since that was completely unproductive, I moved on to the three services listed in the 23 Things website.

Unfortunately, Yahoo! Podcasts is closing their site on September 30 so I didn't bother exploring there.

I liked Podcast Alley because it seemed easy enough to navigate, and if you click on the title of a podcast it gives you a brief description to help you decide if you want to listen to it. I picked the Childrensbookradio podcast at random and added it to my Bloglines feeds. Unfortunately, it's still buffering after about 5 minutes so I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet...

Out of all of the podcast directories I looked at I thought that Podcast.net was the easiest to navigate. It was easy to use and gave very useful breakdowns of its subject categories (i.e. Home > Arts > Books & Poetry). However, I may be wrong, but it appears that the podcasts are really old, with the newest in the Books & Poetry section being from December 2006. Also, I attempted to listen to a podcast from the Charlotte, NC library system but the whole thing crashed and Internet Explorer shut down.

All in all, I didn't have the greatest podcast experience. I think Thing #21 would have gone more smoothly on a faster computer with iTunes or at least the latest version of QuickTime. No offense to our good old library computers, of course.

week 9, thing 20 ~ YouTube

...beautifully animated poetry by Billy Collins. I thought the one above especially appropriate since it begins:

"The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones."

Something like this might be a neat feature on a library website during National Poetry Month.

I've visited YouTube in the past, usually just to view an amusing video that a friend told me about. I always get distracted by the junk that is one the first page and forget that there are actually worthwhile videos hiding in the site. I loved the animated Billy Collins poetry, to the point where I signed up for a free YouTube account and added it to my favorites so I wouldn't lose it. I explored the poetry offerings a little bit more and linked to this and that before I realized that I was getting COMPLETELY sucked into the black hole of time that is YouTube. I finally had to tear myself away from someone's compilation of their favorite "Scrubs" moments.

The YouTube negatives are all of the self-involved, terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad videos. And the comments. I never read them because 9 times out of 10 they are completely ridiculous and/or offensive.

week 8, thing 19 ~ Web 2.0 Awards

I could spend hours exploring all of the winners of the Web 2.0 Awards.

I first clicked on Lulu, which I had never heard of before. It seems like a fantastic site where you can self-publish your work and put it up for sale. There is a lot more to the service than that, like a whole Lulu community who keep in touch via Lulu's blog, newsletter and through various Lulu groups. The site helps self-publishers acquire an ISBN for their work "so you can make your masterpiece available in retail stores, libraries and schools around the world - online and off." In addition, Lulu offers "live help" that includes assistance with press release writing, creating web banners, self-promo kits and optimization services. There is also an entire section dedicated to helping users "Catch the eye of librarians all over the U.S." (i.e. a how-to on acquiring a Pre-Assigned Control number). I wonder if BCPL has any self-published masterpieces made possible by this service?

Lulu is definitely a website I will revisit, and I might even take advantage of their wedding photo books. (My first anniversary is almost here and I haven't done anything with my wedding pictures yet.)

I explored a few other sites but there weren't any that I was interested in as much as Lulu....except in the retail category where I found that my favorite t-shirt website, Threadless, won 1st place and another website I love, Etsy, won 2nd place. Yay!

week 8, thing 18 ~ online productivity tools

The following was posted directly from Zoho Writer: 

These web-based productivity applications are great to know about, not only so I can use them myself, but so I can recommend them to customers who may not have MS Office or other pay-for programs.

 

I love Google but I am becoming a little wary of it as I believe it is becoming the Starbucks of the Internet. But I keep falling in deep like with every product Google puts out, much like I used to fall in love with new Starbucks drinks. So I'm very happy to report that I enjoyed Zoho Writer more than Google Docs! I felt like Zoho Writer was even more fun to use than Microsoft Word with lots of nifty word processing features.

week 7, thing 17 ~ sandbox wiki

I found the MD Libraries Sandbox to be a bit unwieldy. Like many of the other wikis I've visited I was immediately thrown by the amount of information that seems to be a bit haphazardly placed on the pages. Once I looked around a bit I felt more at ease and I managed to add my blog (although it appeared all by its lonesome at the very end of the blog list with a space between it and the other blogs). I also posted a list of some of my favorite novels.

As I wrote in my earlier post about wikis, since they are so accessible to anyone and everyone (and I realize that's the whole point of them), they really need to be kept as neat and organized as possible so that they don't scare users away.

week 7, thing 16 ~ wikis

I am thoroughly enjoying the SJCPL Subject Guides . This is a fantastic way for a library to reach out to its community using a current, popular technology. So many of our users come in for reader's advisory and it would be wonderful to be able to give them a link to the library wiki that includes staff recommendations, items on the new shelf, best sellers, award winners, and classics organized by subject. The SJCPL wiki also includes lots of additional goodies like library events, tips on locating and using library resources, and tons of links to relevant online information. Of course, some users wouldn't like receiving information in this sort of format, but I think there is a growing user base that would enjoy it.

On the down side, I think that wikis can be overwhelming, the awesome St. Joseph County wiki included, simply because of the enormous amount of information that they can contain. It is important to keep library wikis organized so that they can be easily navigated by the public who may not be familiar with this type of technology.

The Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki is a great resource for librarians. It contains information, thoughts and ideas on just about every aspect of the profession and I would imagine it is a very useful tool - an online library community even.

Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki was also a fun wiki to explore.

I'd like to spend more time looking around these library wikis...

week 6, thing 15 ~ Web 2.0, Library 2.0

In nearly every class in library school the professor would want to discuss the future of libraries. Many of the accounts we studied were very grim, and I admit that its possible I stayed away from employment in a public library for years partly because I began to believe some of the doomsday accounts of physical library spaces becoming things of the past as users increasingly turn to sources of virtual information. Now that I am happily employed in a thriving public library I feel much more hopeful that libraries will continue to have a strong presence in the future. We do need to progress, using technological advances to our benefit and adapting our services to fit the new generations of tech savvy users. This MD 23 Things project is a perfect example of how librarians are familiarizing ourselves with popular technologies and considering ways that libraries can use them to make things more accessible for our users.

In reading some of the perspectives on Library 2.0, I copied the ideas that really stood out to me:

"The active and empowered library user is a significant component of Library 2.0." ~Wikipedia

"The key principles of Library 2.0 are not just about access to books and information. It is about innovation, about people, and about community building, enabled through the participation that social computing brings. It achieves this through trust and encouraging users to share ideas through writing, rating, and commenting against everything in the library's collection. It even makes the collection open to developers to use, re-use and improve!" ~Wikipedia

"As a Web 2.0 reality continues to emerge and develop, our patrons will expect access to everything – digital collections of journals, books, blogs, podcasts, etc. You think they can’t have everything? Think again. This may be our great opportunity." ~Rick Anderson, "Away from the "'icebergs'"

"Adopt Web features The features of Amazon and Google of interest to students and scholars ought to be incorporated into the services libraries make available. Libraries should welcome the submission of reviews, assignment of keywords (“tagging”), addition of scholarly commentary, and other forms of user participation." ~John Reimer, "To better bibliographic services"

week 6, thing 14 ~ Technorati

I searched Technorati for blog posts containg "Learning 2.0" and the vast majority of the results I received were from library blogs - participants in the 23 Things program.

When I searched for blog posts tagged "Learning 2.0" the results were nearly identical, although they included videos and photos as well as blogs.

A search for "Learning 2.0" in the Blog Directory, however, returns a completely different set of results because these are entire blogs dedicated to the topic, not just individual posts.

Boing Boing and Techcrunch currently appear in both the 5 most favorited blogs and in the 5 top blogs on Technorati. These consistently appear in the top 5s and then there are other blogs that change depending on current events.

Technorati taught me that Boing Boing is a superpopular blog and perhaps I should take the time to figure out why. A lot of the other popular and most favorited blogs appear to be for gadget lovers and "techies."

week 6, thing 13 ~ del.icio.us

It took me a little while to get del.icio.us simply because it seems like such a multi-faceted website. I do think that it is an enormously convenient way to bookmark favorite websites and links. However, I also think that it could easily suck hours of my life away as I explore the favorite websites of other users, clicking and clicking from tag to delicious tag.

I added a network badge to the growing list of items on the right side of the page.

what book are you?

found this nifty quiz through Information Wants to Be Free. This, apparently, is me:

You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

week 5, thing 12 ~ rollyo

I think I like Rollyo. I think it's pretty cool. At first Rollyo didn't click with me (sometimes it takes a while for my brain to grasp certain concepts) but when it did I realized that there are a lot of useful searches that can be created with it. I created a custom search titled "recommended reading," compiling some of the main websites I use to find book reviews - NY Times, Booksense, etc. The results page is a little busy with all of the ads, but it's still pretty easy to navigate and understand. I added the search tool this blog - it's over on the right side below my "blog archive."

tagged

I was tagged a while back and I'm finally getting around to answering the questions. I'm not going to tag anyone else, but here are the rules and my responses.

These are the rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

So here it goes:

1. I love love love to take pictures.

2. I got married in November and went to a tiny island in Fiji for my honeymoon. I don't think a day goes by in which I don't think about that beautiful place.

3. My husband and I are hoping to travel to Guadalajara for our 1 year anniversary.

4. I have 3 cats and hope to add a puppy to our family when we get a larger house.

5. I used to work in Washington, DC and rode the MARC train to work every day for about three years - an hour an a half commute each way!!

6. I'm brand new to public librarianship and I'm loving (almost) every minute of it!

7. I grew up in southern Delaware and only moved to MD about 5 years ago. I miss being so close to the beach!

8. I have a couple of guilty pleasure TV shows, including America's Next Top Model and The Girls Next Door. I also watch and love So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef, Heroes, The Closer, and Project Runway.

week 5, thing 11 ~ Library Thing

During several long winter months when I was between jobs and fed up with painting my dining room, I discovered LibraryThing. I proceeded to catalog all of the books on my shelves and haven't logged in again since. Unfortunately, I have forgotten my username and/or password and LT has an annoying feature that automatically signs you up for a new account if you happen to enter in a username that is not in use, and a password. So as I tried to figure out what name and password I had previously used, I think I signed up for about four new accounts. In the end, I gave up and decided to start all over. *7-18 update: thanks to Miriam's creative suggestion, I was able to find my old LibraryThing account and linked it to my blog!*

I do enjoy LibraryThing immensely but I don't think it is the easiest service to navigate. For example, there is no way to get away from the "Edit Titles" page without hitting the back button.

In exploring Library Thing, I stumbled upon the faq, "How Can Libraries Use LibraryThing?" This is what the LT creators suggest:

"Fully integrate LibraryThing's social data into your catalog using LibraryThing for Libraries. LTFL lets you add tag-based browsing, book recommendations, ratings, reviews and more to your OPAC, by integrating with LibraryThing and its high-quality book data.

Use a LibraryThing widget to display new books or featured books on your library's website. You'll have to create a LibraryThing account, and add the books to it. Then use one of our widgets to generate code that you can just copy and paste into your website. ..."

I like the idea of the LibraryThing widget on a library website to feature new books, popular titles, etc. I also like the idea of a LibraryThing community where people are reviewing and discussing books in their collections.

week 5, thing 10 ~ online image generators

This is a sketch of a picture I took at Longwood Gardens back in the spring, courtesy of Dumpr. In addition to the photos that this site converts to sketches for free, you can also pay to have other photos turned into sketches and it looks like they have much more detail. I tried to explore Letter James, but it wouldn't accept me because I'm from the United States :-( I had the most fun with the Avatars! I made a Yahoo Avatar but our computers wouldn't let me complete a Meez without downloading Java. It looked like the Meezes were pretty neat - maybe even a little better than the Yahoo Avatars. I may have to create one at home...a girl can never have too many virtual personalities, right?

Even though these tasks were so much fun, their importance was not lost on me. As librarians, we are expected to be more and more tech savvy with every passing year. Familiarizing ourselves with the technologies in the 23 Things program not only boosts our confidence, but it further dispels all of those outdated librarian stereotypes. In addition, it helps us relate to younger generations - I mean, what kid/teenager wouldn't have instant respect for a librarian that not only knows what a Meez is, but also has one posted on her/his blog?

week 4, thing 9 ~ merlin

let me preface this post by saying that I am having way too much fun. With Flickr and RSS feeds and Avatars, oh my!

I believe that Merlin has possibilities. At the moment I think it needs to be a little more descriptive on the homepage so that all of its different offerings are clearly outlined. It took me a while to click around and really get a feel for what the site has to offer. I found some interesting library blogs like Information Should Be Free where I thoroughly enjoyed Meredith's post about the recent NY Times article titled "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers" so I subscribed to her blog.

In addition, Merlin's brief blurbs on "Gaming, Avatars, Virtual Worlds" and the links to longer articles elsewhere were helpful since those are definitely technologies that I have not explored yet. I had a customer ask for books on geocaching a few weeks ago and I made a mental note to go back and read about it. Now I know what it is!

I also explored the different feed searchers, which are good to know about but I probably won't be using them again anytime soon. My current blog-finding strategy is to go to a blog I enjoy and then click through that person's list of favorite blogs. I have spent/wasted hours of my life doing this. I'm not proud.

week 4, thing 8 ~ rss feeds

In a former life I was addicted to reading other people's blogs. Now I find that I just don't have the time. A few months ago I customized my Google homepage and subscribed to my favorite blogs thinking that I'd be able to catch up on them since they would all be listed there, but no such luck. I rarely use any of the features I added to my iGoogle page so I'm not sure I'm going to be using Bloglines after today. We'll see, but I'm not too hopeful.

Setting up the Bloglines account was easy, subscribing to the feeds was easy, but sharing my blogroll on my blog was definitely not easy. Bloglines is not the most intuitive service. For example, it requires you to sign up using your email address and never asks you to register a username. However, in order to share your blogroll you need to type in your username. It took three librarians and I don't even know how much time to figure out how to obtain a username on Bloglines (go to Account, then Blog Settings, and be sure to mark the circle next to "Yes, publish my Blogroll"). From there it was easy sailing again for me. Back on Blogger I added a new page element, selected HTML/JavaScript, and pasted in the HTML from Bloglines. Now my blogroll is sitting pretty on the right side of my blog.

week 3, thing 7 ~ technology post

Pretty much everything about technology fascinates and astounds me...and I don't pretend to understand the inner workings of any of it. My husband loves to try to explain various aspects of technology to me, but inevitably my eyes glaze over and my mind wanders far far away.

My favorite pieces of technology include Tivo, my iPod (with home speakers and a car adapter!), my computer, and my two digital cameras. I don't understand how they do what they do and I don't ever hope to, but I appreciate them for the fun and convenience they provide.

On a much broader scale, technology also terrifies me. I admit to a nagging fear that one day someone's superweapon will cause mass destruction, the likes of which have never been seen before, and I wish the peace-seekers and earth-preservers outnumbered and outranked those who would use technology for less noble pursuits.

week 3, thing 6 ~ flickr fun

fiji
Originally uploaded by skm122

Custom framed with the "brushed" look by fd's Flickr Toys.

And now, unfortunately, I must move on...

week 3, thing 6 ~ flickr fun

warhol_domino
Originally uploaded by skm122

This is my cat Domino after having been Warholized by fd's Flickr Toy, the "Warholizer." Other intriguing toys by "fd" include "Photo Fortune" (mine was "Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts avoiding you." from The Old Farmer's Almanac), "Mosaic Maker", "Trading Card Maker", "Movie Poster" ...the possibilities are endless! I had to tear myself away from the Flickr toys, but not before custom framing the image in my next post...

week 3, thing 5 ~ explore flickr

unfurling
Originally uploaded by camenae79

I love Flickr and have been using it for several years now to organize and share some of my photos. I should probably shell out the $24.95 for the pro account so that all of my pictures can be displayed (200 is the limit), but I just haven't been able to justify that purchase quite yet.

So since I'm already pretty familiar with Flickr, I decided to explore one of its options that I've never used before: the ability to blog directly from Flickr and have the post appear on my Blogger blog. I linked my MD 23 Things blog to Flickr, selected a photo, clicked "blog this" and I am now writing this post from within Flickr. Neato.

(Now I'm back on my blog and I'm able to edit this "Flickr post" just like all the rest!)

week 2, thing 4 ~ register blog

I think my blog is all registered, just waiting for it to appear on the list.

week 2, thing 3 ~ set up blog

hmm...

well, obviously I was able set up my blog and I've already added three posts so I guess I'll check Thing 3 off the list.

week 1, thing 2 ~ 7 1/2 habits

thoughts on the 7 1/2 Habits podcast...

I enjoy solving problems so I think that Habit #3 - viewing problems as challenges - is fairly easy for me (although some of the people who know me well may disagree). I'm also fairly good at Habit #6 - using new technologies to my advantage.

On the other hand, Habit #4 - having confidence in myself as a competent effective learner - is often difficult. Fortunately, it's becoming easier with age.

week 1, thing 1 ~ read about MD 23 Things

done and done.