24 Week 9, Thing 23: Time for me to celebrate!

2007-08-31T18:31:00.000-04:00

I did enjoy and learn through 23 Things. The only complaint that I have is the timing. Summer is tough - vacations (my own and co-workers which means more work for those left behind) and kids out of school (mine are 11, 13 and 14) which leaves no person time at home for me. I would definitely like to participate in something like this again. Perhaps it would be nice to have different starting periods (for someone else, summer might be perfect) since we all have different situations. Some of these things I have used or been exposed to though educational opportunities at FCPL (NetLibrary and Overdrive) or through work (Blue Crab Committee used Zoho Writer).

The biggest and best of the learning that I did was to become more comfortable with experimenting and learning on the computer. It is an easy tool. All the new technology can seem overwhelming and it all comes so fast. Also, everyone around you seems to know all about these new tools so it's intimidating to admit that you've missed something. But that's really what learning is about - staying open to ideas and opportunities and not being afraid to jump in and try them out.

I was glad to learn about Merlin, a place that I hope can help me stay in touch with the new technology and tools. I also learned through this experience that there are a lot of technologies out there that I will probably never use again but that it was fun checking them out. Before I worked for the library, I thought of libraries as a great place to get books and enjoy literature. Of course, the library is a lot more including a place of knowledge, fresh ideas, different perspectives and a stepping stone to future knowledge and technology. I have come to realize over the time that I have worked for the library that my learning and staying current helps me better facilitate the library's offerings to our patrons and public. I have a long ways to go but I'll keep learning and getting better at what I do.

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

2007-08-31T18:24:00.000-04:00

Another easy to use computer technology that can help folks stay in touch with current info. I continue to be amazed that these technologies that I have heard about, wondered about but lacked the confidence to try are so easy. As directed, I added this feed to my RSS feeds in my Bloglines account. This voice in "Book Hook" sounded oddly familiar. I think that this reader was the voice on at least one of our tutorials.

Week 3, Thing 5: flickr - La Jolla Cove

2007-08-31T16:21:00.001-04:00

La Jolla Cove
Originally uploaded by aprilbaby

What an awesome place to swim! This was my favorite thing about my recent trip to San Diego. At home, I swim back and forth at Hood College for a mile or two. Here, folks come before and after work and do an open water swim. The first time, I went by myself but chickened out when a sea lion swam under me. On our return trip a few days later, I hooked up with some other swimmers. My next swim at Hood was a big disappointment!

Week 3, Thing 7: Technology Post

2007-08-31T09:26:00.000-04:00

This, of course, is the problem with jumping around. Did I do this already? I guess at this point, yes, I have done this many times. But I'll add something about technology, just in case. I liked You Tube. It was easy, funny, good for a few laughs. Yes, technology is fun and, yes, for the most part easy. If you don't get something, look for directions. Me, I like to jump right in and have to remind myself about the directions part cause it does make things easier.

Week 7, Thing 17: Sandbox - Proceed with Caution

2007-08-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

This site is what worries me about wikis! I see on our instructions to add our blog URL to this page. O.k., easy enough. Ummm, where are some of the blogs from the FCPL staff? I see some I recognize, some I don't. And here's a note from somebody from another county saying she moved some stuff around and she'll try to fix it "tomorrow" (has that day come and gone). So anyhow, I really did put my URL there as did, I'm sure, many of my unsuspecting co-workers. Will we be there "tomorrow"?

Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

2007-08-31T08:49:00.000-04:00

Yet again, something I didn't know about (except, of course, Wikipedia). My prior exposure to Wikipedia tells me some of the downfalls. I, for the most part, don't like the idea of wikis for the general population including kids, teens. Too much potential info. and too much potential misinfo. However, I really liked the link to Princeton Public Library's Book Lover's Wiki. The site looked good (as opposed to the ALA 2006 site; I don't like that Wikipedia look). I also do like the idea of sharing and accessing different perspectives on books through a wiki. I would love to see something like that through FCPL though again, having little experience here, I don't know what happens with an inappropriate post and how long it takes to deal with that.

On the other hand, one thing positive about the Wikipedia look is it screams "Work in Progress!" and "First Draft - Don't believe everything here". I guess with a wiki you need to keep that idea in mind. A site like the Book Lover's Wiki looks professional and if I stumbled upon something questionable it would throw me a little because I may initially miss that it's a wiki.

Week 6, Thing 13: Del.icio.us

2007-08-31T08:34:00.000-04:00

I don't know why but del.icio.us scared me away the first time. I hadn't looked at the tutorial, just a brief reading of the assignment, and hadn't talked to my fellow librarians (one of whom, I think, was using this before 23 Things). I do see how this could be helpful and a great way to organize computer resources. Our "favorites" at work is tough - way too many entries. It has gotten to be a lot of work to find things. I can see how del.icio.us could help me get my personal resources organized and easier to access. I did not set-up an account but this is something that I plan to get to later.

Week 9, Thing 22: Downloadable Books

2007-08-31T07:40:00.000-04:00

Downloadable Audiobooks are a hit with patrons and something that we should all know about. At Brunswick, we get questions about this option very infrequently - meaning each time we address the subject there is a little re-learning going on by the librarians at the circ desk! As always, we need to be on the look-out for folks who may be interested in these sites and offer up the information. FCPL has so many available resources that patrons miss so much unless we recognize a potential interest and made the information available. When I see a patron checking out audiobooks, I mention these resources and frequently find that the patron is not aware of the downloadable books. Always, there is much interest, but sometimes the patron doesn't have the necessary portable technology (most patrons seem to have Ipods if anything) and I really don't see a lot of interest in accessing these products from a computer.

I looked around Project Gutenberg because this is the site of which I am least familiar. Most surprising to me is the top 100 downloads. After sitting at the circ desk and checking out materials to patrons, many of these titles I would have never expected on a list like this. I suppose this is a reflection more of the available collection - possibly also a reflection of the population that would be interested in downloadable books.

Week 9, Thing 20: You Tube

2007-08-31T06:29:00.000-04:00

If you like Christopher Walken, you may enjoy his reading of The Three Little Pigs or for a dramatic reading, The Raven. A little comedy taken from You Tube:

It's easy to see why You Tube gets the attention that it gets! It is a very entertaining site. Until reading this assignment, I didn't think of it in terms as being used as an educational or informative tool because that wasn't the motivation for the videos that my teens have shown me. I did, however, look to see if there were any non-comedy education videos and found some. This would be an interesting application to our website or perhaps a feature on our Opacs explaining or walking patrons through high-interest library or computer features. Probably the only downside to You Tube, for me, is it is such a fun,easy to use, interesting site that it attracts a wide audience. Some of the teaser clips or "now being viewed" clips looked like an easy place for a young kid to get some info. that a parent might not like them viewing. As always, parents need to monitor what their kids are doing on the computer but that doesn't seem to happen in many circumstances.

Week 8, Thing 19: Web 2.0 Awards

2007-08-30T20:30:00.000-04:00

My household has used Craigslist to buy and sell items. The only other site similar to this that I've used is Freecycle. I was interested in the other sites listed for classified items and tried out Oodle. I liked the display that came up for my initial search in the site. Photos were displayed for most of the items. In Craigslist a list comes up. The list notates when a picture is available for the item. Unfortunately, when pictures were not available in Oodle, it was a little distracting so I later decided that I did not like this feature. I tried a search for "free" in Oodle. I have done this at times in Craigslist and seen some interesting and sometimes, great finds. In Oodle, events came up - rallies, dances, etc. An interesting list of things, though not really what I had in mind.

These on-line classified ads don't have a work purpose for me personally (though I have seen free things that I considered getting for storytime useage) but these sites are good to be aware of and to know how to navigate for our patrons. We are at times called upon for help in accessing info. about selling or buying items. As an informational resource to the community, these tools can help us to get the information that is needed into the hands of our patrons.

Week 8, Thing 18: Zoho Writer

2007-08-30T14:07:00.001-04:00

I participated in a statewide group that used Zoho Writer. I liked that each member of our group could access and contribute to the document. The use of a tool like this makes it easy for individuals in different locations to collaborate easily as opposed to other resources that are controlled by one person. This is a helpful tool and I'm glad to see that 23 Things is exposing this to its participants.

This was written in Zoho Writer and posted on my blog.

Week 6, Thing 15: Library 2.0

2007-08-22T20:44:00.000-04:00

I read a couple of these articles. Of the ones that I read, I enjoyed "Away from Icebergs" finding it easy to read (after a full day of work) and with some interesting thoughts. His second point - "Reliance on User Education"- brought to mind the patrons that we see on a daily basis. Several of these die-hards spend a lot of time on our computers. Surely they know what they are doing? Nope. Their lack of knowledge is very surprising. My experience with 23 Things is helping to keep me current (probably not - what new came out today?) with some of the available technology. My patron who needs help doesn't know how to minimize his page. My mother was a librarian very, very long ago. She was proud that libraries were quick to make computers available to anyone in the public, that they have always worked to stay up-to-date with technology and get it in the hands of patrons. I'm glad to be continuing in the tradition of working in a field that values providing the most up to date services to all for free. I'm just happy that I only need to show folks how to open more than one screen at a time.

Week 6, Thing 14: Technorati

2007-08-22T18:56:00.000-04:00

Ewww! I put in "Food" and "Vegetarian" for a keywork search and I'm afraid the porn police are going to walk in the library at anytime!

As far as the search options, each search brought up different results and displayed the results differently. The Directory was the one that I preferred because it gave an overview of the blogs.

Top searchs didn't surprise me. This seemed to reflect the current trends for the population that would be reading blogs. The Hot sites? Some of the sites displayed deal with current issues. As for the rest, some folks, I guess have too much time on their hands.

Hmmm, well. I just, to be honest, don't get who wants to spend time on a site like this. Sorry. I want to learn about all this so I'm not sorry to be checking it out but . . . . . . . Actually wanting to read unknown people's blogs? I feel like I'm peeking at somebody's personal diary that for some reason they don't want to keep personal. There isn't enough time, at least in my life, to interact with the people that I care about who are around me and I have no interest in giving up that time to people on a computer.

Week 5, Thing 12 - Rollyo

2007-08-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

This is my Rollyo that I (quickly) created for some local resources.

http://rollyo.com/coconnell/local/

Rollyo may have a place and could be a helpful tool, I suppose, but I wasn't very impressed. I found it slow and would rather just click into my favorites.

Week 5, Thing 11 - Library Thing

2007-08-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

Some of my favorites that I could think of at the moment that I investigated Library Thing. Adding the titles to my library was an easy process (though, admittedly, I didn't figure out how to line them up in the manner that I would have preferred!).

Week 3, Thing 6: Trading Card

2007-08-21T10:33:00.000-04:00

Andre, Andre! Where are you? I added a trading card of the amazing Andre to my mashup posting. Well, that didn't go well. My whole old posting disappeared! So now I'll try it again and hope to jazz this up a little (and learn what happened here).

Week 5, Thing 10 - 3D Generator

2007-08-21T09:39:00.000-04:00

My 3D image above describes today's weather. I found this 3D tool very easy to use. My challenge was in learning how to post it to my blog site. My 14 year old, as usual, blew through it, put it on my site and walked away when I complained that I hadn't learned anything. I erased his work and was able to piece together how he did it. I was kinda amazed that I figured it out!

Week 4, Things 8 and 9

2007-08-20T17:10:00.000-04:00

I'm still a paper person - a pot of coffee and 2 papers in the morning and I'm ready to go. For some quick up-to-date info., I know the internet's the place to go. Still, I've always wondered how folks have time to keep up with their favorite sites and how some people find the time to stay up with so many blogs, etc. Bloglines makes a lot of sense to me though I really would only want to keep up with some traditional news sites (NPR, Wash. Post, etc.) and not really blogs. For this short duration of time left to complete 23 things, I have added some of my co-workers to my Blogline account so I can see their progress. I also added Merlin. One thing that I'm learning from 23 Things is that, yes, the computer does continue, through all these different exercises, to be a tool that it easy to use. I also continue to find that though I may prefer to ask my co-worker to show me quickly how something works, the directions are always available and are usually quite easy to follow. But I have wondered, how to know what's new? One answer is just to listen. You hear the new technology being discussed. A trip to the computer can quickly introduce you to the technology that the buzz is all about. Merlin appears to be a place that I should also keep an eye on to stay in touch and see how this technology affects me and the library.

I like copy/paste and find this always works. I added a site to my Blogline, walked away and kind of forgot how I added the site. Copy and paste takes no thought so for now, that's the way I'll go.

Week 2, Thing 3: First Post

2007-07-04T17:16:00.000-04:00

I guess that I have been enjoying my summer with my 3 liberated-from-school kids and my husband too much. I just returned from a vacation and am going on one next week so I am trying to catch up before that happens.

Obviously, my hardest of those 7.5 things is using technology to my advantage. That's no surprise since I have only now created my blog. My easiest is in viewing problems as a challenge. I am one of those folks who can see those broken shards on the ground and step on them and see the glass as half full (wait a minute - it's more than half full!). My attitude can drive my kids completely crazy!