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.