#23 Summary

Although I have griped throughout, I really enjoyed this project. I would use this method of learning again as long as the expectations were a little more reasonable. The amount of time to finish was too short and created undue pressure (especially since it was summer and vacations get in the way). The expectation that each week's actities would only take a half an hour was totally unrealistic and again created undue stress.
As usual for BCPL, everything is a team effort. If it weren't for other staff, I would not have been able to figure out some of the lessons. Similarly I actually was able to help co-workers when they got stuck(even younger more savvy co-workers). It's a wonderful feeling to know that we can always count on each other to get us through things.
My favorites were Flickr and Wikis. Flickr is more social and Wikis will be great for work.
I really appreciated the weekly e-mails and would have loved more comments, but understand that the numbers were overwhelming.

#22 Audiobooks

I went to Overdrive and searched for a number of authors, Jan Karon, Joe Flynn and they didn't have anything. However, they did have a Margaret Maron so I checked it out. I have no intention of downloading it because I don't like to listen to things. I always lose track of the story when I am distracted by something else. Looked also at Project Gutenburg. I had actually looked at it when it was in its infancy. It's much nicer now with a whole lot more titles. Did listen to the tutorial on NetLibrary, but we no longer have it.

#21 Podcasts

I am amazed that the current generation is willing to just listen like old time radio. Had trouble at Podcast.net so moved onto podcastalley.com. Found the Three Wine Guys which is okay even if their language gets a little rough. I will try get a RSS of their show to my blog. Here goes. Well s usual I cannot get it to work. I even subscribed and can find a place that mentions RSS, but when I copy the code and post it to my blog it says it's invaild. Please help me out here or give a place for easy copying to RSS.

#20 YouTube

I had hoped to add a video of cats naturally, but I found them to be offensive. I don't like to see animals in situations that could be dangerous. So I switched to music and after looking at a Pink Floyd video typed in Jethro Tull. I like history and this is from my past. Hope you enjoy "Living in the Past".

#19 Web 2.0 Award List

I checked out two of the listings. The first one was under books at biblio.com. I could probablely get lost in there. I searched for childhood titles that I would love to own only to find out that Mr. Apple's Family cost $86. I also looked at the games sight Acraplay.com. Afterward the popups would not go away, so I will avoid that sight.

#18 Zoho Writer

Zoho Writer
So far this is an easy exercise. I have started going through the tools arranged above the document that I am creating. The special character tool is easy to use. What is an anchor? When do you use it? I also don't know when I would use superscript or subscript. I am now trying to figure out how to post this to my blog. So far, my attempts have not been successful. This is where the frustration experienced through out the project starts to take it's toll. I have tried going to "publish" and "blog", but that seems to require yet another blog account. So I tried "export" but cannot figure out how to get to my blog.

Well now that I have copied it as a word document and pasted it it is here, but not in the format I typed it. So much for easy use.

#17 Sandbox Wiki

Was moving right along until it came time to add my blog to the Maryland Libraries Sandbox. With a little help from Chickensamuck, I created a space for my title on the BCPL part of the Wiki and the rest was easy. However, I had no clue that I needed to place it in order to get it there. I like the idea of Wikis. Most of the other things we have looked at have been more social oriented, but this has lots of work related applications. In discussing the Collection Blog today in a Librarians' meeting I realized that a Wiki would be better for its purposes. Until this program, I would never have known the difference or made the connection.

# 16 Wikis

Now this I can see using. Teams and workplans are my first thought for using Wiki technology for the librarians. It might also be a neat thing for customers, though I think our webpage gives them easy access to most information they would need about the library or information resources. I had trouble getting back to the wiki part of the St. Joseph County Public Library wiki after going to their homepage. Realized it was the subject guides that got you there. Why not just call it a wiki? The Bull Run Library wiki was neat and even linked to Merlin as a good site. Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day appears to be a Maryland 23 things and then some. The idea of 15 minutes a day is probably a joke, but I will probablely come back to this one after Marylnad 23 is over and I am not on a deadline. BookLovers Wiki is wonderful. I think we should have something like this for our staff and customers! Library Success is a great place for sharing librarian things, but I doubt I would really end up using it. I think administration and Dept. heads would find it more useful. The ALA 2006 New Orleans Wiki was neat to see after having read about it. Actually I think each City should have one to keep residents and tourists informed of the best things do, places to go or whatever. The Academic Library Wiki I am sure is useful to them, but blah to me. At Merlin, I explored Project Forum, Wet paint and Wikispaces. Liked the tour of Wikispaces. It looks easy enough for me to do.

#14 Technorati

Having been "spammed" in my blog, the last thing I would want to do is "claim" my blog to put it out there even more. I really don't think that what I care about is of interest to the world at large. I went to Boing Boing which is one of the top favorite blogs. I think it is quite stupid, amusing, but stupid.

#13 del.icio.us

I cannot get too excited about the idea of tagging and del.icio.us. I really do not want technology to consume my life. I don't mind using it to help me at work and at home, but not to the degree I feel this requires. If I do open a del.icio.us account, it would probably be from home. I read two links from del.icio.us. The one Private: The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.is Users by Slacker Manager was very good. 1) Make many marks 2) Sir Tag-A-Lot 3) use the in box 4) Mix'n match 5) Stalk other users 6) Get it to go 7) Move it around and 8) Explore more. The other was someone talking about presentations she had seen about flickr and del.icio.us. I printed them to refer back to if I need them.

#15 Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0

I read all five of the perspectives listed and the Wikipedia article too. These articles were a lot of fun. Rick Anderson's "Icebergs" really brings it home that we need to change they way we think of ourselves, our services and our modes of delivery. Due to Charles Robinson BCPL has long not held the idea of "just in case" collections. I agree that we need to be sure that our services need to be usable without educating the user. It should be foremost in our thinking whenever we purchase databases, consider ILS systems and redesign our webpage/interface. The challenge to "integrate our services into the user's daily patterns of work, study and play" by providing services where they want them will require us to be constantly looking forward. BCPL has always tried to be at the BETA edge of things so I have great hopes that we will continue to do so.
I also really like Wendy Schultz's scenarios of Library 1.0, Library 2.0, Library 3.0 and Library 4.0. The idea of librarian "superstars" was really neat.
The Wikipedia article was a nice overview. The user as participant, co-creator, builder and consultant will take a little getting used to, as we are loath to give up control. I liked that fact that they pointed out that companies wanting to do business with public or academic libraries should not be creating "Proprietary" software, that Beta is forever and that rigidity breeds failure.
The one thing that none of these people addressed was the fact that there are portions of the population who do not have and there will always be portions of the population who will not have the educational knowledge or access to technology. We will still need to have services that they can use as well.

Rollyo

In keeping with my theme I have created a cat themed Rollyo. It's called Cats Galore. I hope these will be helpful. As usual I had trouble finding out how to get it into my blog, but with the help of Ellen and Chickens Amuck I finally did it.

Library Thing

This is a pretty neat site if all you have to pay is $25 for a lifetime subscrption. I strangely don't put my own books in order at home. I do my CD's and my Spices, but not my books. I think I will go back to the site and try it with Library of Congress because I really don't like the Amazon.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/eliza.french

Generators

I went to the Generatorblog and first tried the Egyptian Name Generator. It was neat, but I couldn't figure out how to transport it to my blog. So then I went to the License Plate generator. Created what I wanted but was told you had to export it as a jpeg file. Surprised myself by "saving as", but then couldn't figure out where I had saved it. Once my co-worker showed me it was in MY PICTURES, we were able to load it. Letter James is not anything I am likely to use. FD Toys was okay. I have seen other palette generators that work better than theirs. However, if I had photos I would likely use the Slide Show Generator. I had already created an avatar for my blog earlier at Yahoo.

My License Plate When I Retire

Merlin

I went to Merlin and looked around. I likedSecond Life. However, the best part was at Feedster I put in "Maryland Library" and up popped an article from the Western Maryland Libraries about their having "SanbornMaps" of Maryland, Virginia and I can't remember the third place. I e-mailed Eileen Kuhl the article in the hopes that we could get them for BCPL.
All in all I doubt I will spend much time exploring for more feeds or I will never read them all.

Week 4 RSS

Well I have successfully registered on bloglines. I have 12 different feeds coming in and I had to copy and paste to get the Unshelved Librarian. I found it very confusing that initially I had clicked on the right side from the most popular list and some from the left by subject, but only the subject ones showed up. I then had to go into the Directory to pick up those I thought I already should have. There seems to be no order to the directory. I find that a tool that is supposed to shorten the amount of time it takes you to get information should have a better organization/access to their links.

Technology Ramblings

Our house is now the proud owner of a new computer that has a touch screen. It has Vista on it. However, until it's connected to the Internet, I can't see what really neat things it can do. I like the fact that the keyboard and the mouse a not connected to the computer by lines. Next week we will enter the 21st century and get wireless DSL for the house. I'll let you know how it works. It's called seeing is believing.

CATLADY

Mash-ups & Third Party Sites

At Mappr I saw pictures attached to Route 66. Don't ask me how I got it, but I did. The Flickr Color Pickr was a fun toy, but not something I would probably use. Couldn't make out how to work Montagr. Not having any photo to upload I couldn't do the trading card or the badge maker but I really like the possibilites. They also seemed pretty easy to do.

Tessa

Tessa
Originally uploaded by Dave Horne

This looks similar to my 14 year old, "Jubal"

Flickr Exercise

At last I have a picture. Now I would like to find another for my other child. On to finding out what a mashup is.

White cat

White cat
Originally uploaded by koster79

This looks very similar to my youngest child, "Belle".

Have been trying to figure flickr out. Had trouble creating my Yahoo account as it told me that 21204 was not a U.S. postal code. Called 3000 and Joanne said to try 21212 and it worked. I do not like having so many accounts I have to keep track of (sorry for the poor grammar). I just spent time in flikr trying to figure out how to put picture that is not my own on my blog. There do not seem to be any instructions that are obvious to me. So I have spent over an hour accomplishing little.

Also cannot remember how to put a title for a new posting as clicking in the title bar does not work. So newest posts will be titleless.

Listened to the podcasts before creating this blog. Finding that having been too busy with other library work I have fogotten everything. Will try to do the next assignment now.
Did not pay close enough attention to the homework. The hardest learning habit for me is the confidence to get through the problems. I tend to think I should be able to see things immediately and figure them out. The easiet learning habit for me is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I want to learn so I will take the necessary steps to learn.

I am up and running!

I did activity 1. I have created my blog! I have no idea what I am doing, but with the grace and help of my co-workers I'll make it.