Thing 18: Facebook and MySpace

I am enjoying my Facebook account because it allows me to network with many friends and acquaintances simultaneously. I have reconnected with old friends and am networking with new. I think that Facebook may be quite useful as a tool to promote library programs. I know of several people who use it to promote their work.

I experimented with Myspace several years ago and have recently inherited a Myspace page for my branch. I am ready to drop it because I do not like the feel of the Myspace layout and I also do not feel that it is as useful for networking.

I will be exploring ways to promote our library using Facebook.

Thing 17: Podcasts

I have enjoyed listening to podcasts of my favorite NPR radio programs for a couple of years. The beauty of podcasts is the ability to select the portion of the program you are interested in. I have also managed to transfer a podcast from my PC to my MP3 player. The potential applications of podcast for library use include book and program reviews.

Thing 16: YouTube

YouTube is amazing. YouTube is my first stop when I need instructional aid. Just yesterday, I watched a YouTube video describing how to upholster a chair.

I have posted a few videos on YouTube. Here is a video I posted this winter using our new water proof camera:

Thing 15: Rollyo

I am stumped, I really do not see how I could use this tool. As far as the library using this, we already use a federated search tool called power search which searches all our databases as well as the catalog. I just now took a look at our website and found the powersearch tool missing????

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

I enjoyed creating an 'igoogle' page, it's all so easy and fun. I can imagine using this as my homepage at home. I could create one for work but it would look vastly different with the library homepage, our intranet, wikipedia and worldcat links. As far as adding the sticky-notes or 'Remember the Milk' goes, these tools would be more useful if they had the ability to integrate all our other calendars. I have both an outlook and a yahoo calendar which do not integrate and one of the problems I run into is double booking. Calendar Hub appeared to be the tools which could integrate my existing calendars and to-do lists, yet it would not add on-to my igoogle page.

Zamzar is helpful and should probably be added to patron desktops to help with conversion form one format to another.

Thing 13- Library Thing

Last year when i was exploring the 23 or 43 things, I came across Library Thing and created an account. I thought is was quite clever yet i have not maintained my account. I think this cool could be quite handy if linked somehow to our catalog or to a patrons record allow patrons to automatically have a record of what they checked out. This tool, like so many others can fall by the wayside because it requires that we log into one more of our many e-accounts. Because of the additional hassle, this tool has for me, fallen by the wayside. There are many patrons who could benefit from such a tool but it needs to be streamlined into their records.

Thingy 11

Social Media
Last year I explored social media when dabbling in the 23 things. I found the rating system amusing yet I resist these mechanisms because they appear to create a layer of censorship through popularity. I resist the popular options as a rule therefore this tool is not effective for me. That said, I do see the value in gauging what is currently popular as guaged by the general public if only to allow library staff to direct programming and other services geared to public intrests and concerns. One of my favorite news aggregates is The Daily Beast which is an aggregation plus commentator blog. Another interesting news aggregate is The Drudge Report.. This site feeds AP reports as well as provide links to many popular columnists.

Thing 12: Wikis

I created a wiki for a branch I worked at a year ago. The purpose was to create an online version of our reference notebook. I also wanted to maintain a record for staff to monitor the hot topics of the day or week between staff rotations. I used PBWIKI which is a free wiki resource. What I liked is that the wiki was available from any computer. What I didn't like is that staff did not want to learn a new technology, there were ads of the wiki on the wiki AND there was no ability to edit the layout of the page.

What I learned is that for this type of social networking tool to work, there must be buy-in. Staff need to be willing to experiment and offer feedback as well as feel that there is a strong need for the tool. Evidently, none of these criteria were present.

In conclusion, I find that I like wiki's. I personally use Wikipedia for many of my reference needs. Otherwise, I find many other wiki's a bit superfluous. These are good tools to stay informed about an organization. For example, NEFLIN's wiki is useful for posting recent information but I cannot help but wonder whether simply posting the information on the homepage would better serve the purpose. I believe that we have an excess of electronic tools at this time to serve our experimental needs.

Thing 10: Tagging and Delicious

Delicious...been there done that. I like using delicious as mentioned in Thing 9. Although these tools are not extensively used in the library setting, I see the possibilities. For example; our libraries "cool links" can be bookmarked and available through our library webpage. I think that delicious is a great way to store links because tagging makes cataloging and rating these bookmarks possible.

Thing 9: Sharing - slides, photos, databases

I began sharing bookmarks with a Delicious account over a year ago. I found the ability to store bookmarks online quite useful, especially when trying to access a difficult to remember sites from remote locations. One aspect I enjoy is the ability to share bookmarks and browse through other bookmark collections. I find that shared bookmarks are entertaining and educational. I also link from others who also saved the same links to explore their interests. It is important to remember that you can choose to share or keep private any of your saved favorites.

Flikr was the next tool I used to share images which I found helpful when sharing work related images. I recently decided that Flikr is not as user friendly, deciding instead to save and share my images through Facebook. Recent proprietary concerns regarding Facebook have come up which leads me to re-evaluate photo sharing.

Youtube was introduced to me by a friend who played around with video production and I have since found that it is a superb resource for any how-to situation. Being a visually oriented learner, I find that Youtube tutorials are a great help to my understanding of how things work. For example, I recently looked up how to dance cajun style and how to build a chicken tractor, both activities which require the added dimension of visual demonstration.

I tried Twitter last month but dropped it after experiencing the multidimensional aspects of Facebook. Through facebook one can chat, email, post on a board, share images and link with other circle of friends. Facebook is both easy to use and expands one's network of friends.

Thing 8: Communication - Web 2.0 Style

Online communication is one of my favorite web tools.
IM, instant messaging can be distracting when the message box pops up when you are in the middle of something. Nevertheless I can see the advantage of this tool for the reference staff for receiving queries. Ask a librarian is very much like instant messaging because in occurs in real time though the Ask a Librarian toolbox is enhanced with all the bells and whistles that enhance our refernce services such as links to the patrons home library and databases and the ability to 'push' a screen to the patron. I also see the value of IM for discreet communications with staff. For example, you may find yourself with a problem patron and need to communicate to staff to call 911 and locate the PIC immediately. An IM would be broadcast to all the staff computers communicating the need and the level of response.

Text messaging
I find text messaging is a useful tool, especially when it is enabled to communicate between a PC and a cell phone. I imagine that we could text patrons' cell phones who are interested in a program for which they are registered.

Web Conferencing
We conferencing is the ideal tool for group projects to be carried out when participants are in remote locations. I imagine that our library district will be able to save thousands in fuel cost once we enable this function. Of course each branch will need a camera and mike mounted to a PC and I know that the interaction between participants will lack the synergy of having everyone in the same room, nevertheless, this tool can aleviate the hundreds of repeated trips made by those dedicated to serve on comittees.

Twitter
I have tried twitter and found it too unidimensional. I prefer using facebook to chat because it provides a more interesting communication between a group of people using multiple formats such as instant messaging, posting on a board, private emailing, image sharing and the ability to network through our diverse groups of friends.

Thingy 7- online generators

Oh me, oh my, sounds scarry. I made a badge using a photo I took, uploading the photo to bighugelabs.com. I saved the image to my desktop and here it is. This kind of tool could be fun to use during the summer program, highlighting patrons' participation.

Thing 6- mash-ups

I like the word mash. It sounds mushy, warm and gooey. I am not certain that anything flicker would qualify as mushy. Flicker just is not very user friendly as far as I am concerned.

For the mash-up exersize I decided I wanted to create a puzzle from an image.
I uploaded an image that I took of Snake Key off of Ceday Key and mashed it into a puzzle. I will now attempt to post it on this page:

Okay, my first attempt using the URL failed. Ooops, gotta deal with confliger virus, gotta go....
Okay, thank you William for the

This time I will attempt to save the mash up to the desk top.
Okay, the upload from the desktop worked but the puzzle doesn't work the way I had hoped it would.

Thats all I want to mash today.
TTFN

Thing 5b- Flicker continued

Sometimes I can only do these things in small increments. This image was taken this weekend at the medieval fair. My son is dressed as a warrior in armor similar to that worn in 900 AD, so said the SCA folks who were tending the booth where this armor was kept. Pretty cool.

I have uploaded the image several times from the flickr URL and it has not worked, will keep on trying. I had the most difficult time loading this image from Flickr. The directions did not help me and if it wasn't for the help of a colleague, I would have resorted to posting from my desktop. Instead, I used the source code to find the line with the "farm4.static" language, copied the line and added it to the URL line for upload.

We already use Flickr at the library and I do use it for my personal photos.

Thing 5- Flicker

I finally made it to Flicker. I recently opened a Flicker account to post pictures of the library's participation in the homecoming parade.

Thing 4- RSS world

I began subscribing to RSS readers a couple of years ago through my Yahoo mail. I have environmental, science, library NPR and post secret updates that feed on my email homepage regularly though I rarely read them. I created an RSS reader for staff at the last branch I worked at and populated it with library related blogs. I found that these would help fill in the the slow times and help keep staff interested in what was going on at other libraries rather than browsing electronic news and outlet sites. What I observed was that staff were generally uninterested in these feeds unless I pointed out a particular one for them to read.

Thing 3

I found technocrati a bit of a bear to maneuver. Searching for hometown blogs on technocrati was futile whereas google blog search returned some interesting results. I generally do not care to read blogs unless I am bored and have nothing better to do. In the past, I searched blogs through my RSS feed account in order to populate the reader with blogs I might find interesting such as librarian blogs. I did not find either Technocrati or Google blog search as helpful as a search performed through the RSS reader.

future of technology

In today's gainesville Sun was an article titled $200 laptops which explored the ways our economic crash is restructuring technology. One of the items mentioned was "software services (called cloud computing) and virtualization, which lets companies run more software on each physical server, are on the rise." Okay...what the heck is all that about?

ruminations on 2.0

Thingy Two:

My favorite explanation about the nature of 2.0 came from a Emerging Technology workshop workshop I attended in 2007 which defined 2.0 as:

The dynamic version of the web, servers apply continual uploads. Google earth used to load a static page but now provides AJAX or asynchronous uploads keeping the pages dynamic and freshly loaded.

Note that today’s phones, laptops and other web-ready devices have ISP and GPS making them ‘presence-aware’ recognizing user location and history, pushing user/location specific products/services

examples of 2.0 tools are:
* Wiki's, contributions of users are intrinsic to it's functionality, useful for reference
* Blogs promote discourse
* Web Syndication, alternate forms of requesting information, ex. RSS feeds
*Web Service API, provides the ability to in-bed a program with an electronic document/website to add functionality such as weather.com's uses of google-earth
* Bookmark tagging: delicious.com helps tag favorites, clustering them for further retrieval.
* RSS an informational pushing and 'feed' tool helps provide news feeds from select sources. Tow has google reader RSS account feeding library information
* Mashups blend of several types of software, creating aggregates that go beyond the intended use of the original software. SEE Yahoo pipes at: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/
* flikr and delicious other social software potentially useful to promote library
* Spywarewarrior.com > spyware rogue lists of sites that PRETEND to be spyware yet are in fact TROUBLE.
* Mashup’s are blends of software used in unintended purpose. For example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

Why Webe

It rhymes with 23
It's also a play on the words 'we be'
The message is that 'we be' learning the 2.0 tools

Thingy One

I want to be more creative with my blog. I want color, pizzazz and entertaining content. So far I have not had much time to play and I need to play catch up with my co-workers. It's great to see their blogs and all their creativity out there. I am really proud of them all, some are avowed technophobes yet they are participating.

I must admit to feeling a bit tired with blogging and these tools. I was trying them out two years ago. Nevertheless, I see there are new ways to experiment with these tools so I must make an effort.

Getting started

I wanted to get a jump on the 23 things project because I want to be able to help other staff with this project. Right off the bat I discovered something that I do not like about this blogging tool. Blogger requires that we have a gmail account. Fortunately I have one but I do not like that this is a requirement to sign up with Blogger.