Nodak Book Girl

Thing 47: Finished!!

2009-05-21T14:47:00.002-05:00

I'm done and it's only a day late! I had a good experience with More Things on a Stick. I tend to shy away from new technology unless forced, so this program was really good for that. I know that some of the sites I discovered will be uber-helpful at the library, either for my personal use or that patrons can use for themselves.

Thing 46: WebJunction Minnesota

2009-05-21T13:43:00.001-05:00

I thought I had signed up for Webjunction during the first round, but I couldn't remember what e-mail address I used so I signed up for a new account. This looked completely new to me, so it's entirely possible that I never had an account before. I went through and added some friends and started a course on Reader's Advisory.

I liked the calender of events. It was easy to follow and it would be especially useful if I were going for MN Certification.

Thing 45: Cloud Computing

2009-05-20T18:32:00.004-05:00

I can see definite advantages to using some of the Web OS systems. If you were required to take a lot of business trips, it would be nice to be able to have access to your work computer and all the programs on it. For me, I don't really have anything on my computer at home that I would need anywhere else. I would only ever need access to documents and I save those to flash drives anyway.

Another thing to think about with Web OS is security. To me it seems like you're remotely hacking into your home computer. If you're able to do that, what's keeping others from doing the same?

I cannot ever see myself spending money to back up my hard drive remotely. Especially after spending time earlier today on the Economy Thing, even 50 bucks a year seems like a complete waste. I would rather run the risk of losing all my information, cause let's face it... it's not all that much. I could live without it.

Thing 44: The Economy

2009-05-20T15:41:00.002-05:00

I didn't really enjoy this thing. I'm really poor so the bad economy doesn't really affect me. I looked that the mymoney.gov site, and while I thought it was a good idea for the government to have a website to help people with basic budgeting issues, it was really hard to navigate the site.

I looked at some of the other sites and really liked mint.com. It seemed pretty simple to use, but I'm nervous about giving all my account information to some random website. Also, I like the garden idea to save money (or at least I would if I ate more than 2 servings of veggies a week), but raising your own animals is not all that economical. I know people who raise some animals, they've done it for 4H for years. It's expensive, especially at the beginning to get all the supplies. Plus once you've raised the animals, you have to butcher them yourself. I am a huge meat eater, but I also like that my meat comes in packages and no longer looks like a chicken or a cow.

Thing 43: Online TV and Video

2009-05-12T13:45:00.003-05:00

What can I say - its Hulu. I've used it occasionally to look up random videos, or to catch episodes of TV that I've missed. I don't have TV right now at my apartment, so if I don't mooch off other people (Kari) I have to find my television elsewhere. I've never used the queue thing, but I like it. If you find something, but don't have time to watch it right away, it'll wait for you. I have Fringe waiting for me because I missed last week's episode and the season finale is tonight! With Spock!

Thing 42: Music 2.0

2009-05-11T14:57:00.002-05:00

Pandora is awesome. Last.fm is awesome. I've used both before - Pandora for a few months and Last.fm for about a year. I've never used the social aspect on either, though. I've also used The Hype Machine, but it got to be too much. If I'm bored, I'll sign on and look around a bit. I think online music sites are huge and are only going to get bigger in the future. People may listen to the radio in their cars, but any other time - they'd use internet radio or sites such as Pandora, because it'll always be geared specifically towards them.

Thing 41: Mashup your Life

2009-05-11T14:26:00.002-05:00

I feel like I've heard of Lifestream.fm before, but I couldn't remember what it was all about. Now that I've looked a second time, it seems to be like an RSS aggregator, but specifically for social networking. I signed up, but the only thing showing up is my Facebook account. I signed up yesterday and checked back today, but still nothing. I did get an e-mail to activate the account that didn't work. That could be part of the problem. The link they sent me was a dud.

A few of my friends have linked their Twitterfeeds with their Facebook statuses, so that when they update one, it automatically updates the other. That's really not for me. Different people are on each service, so I would put different things up, or at least phrase them differently.

I'm gonna keep trying to get lifestream to work, but if it completely fails, I won't be all that disappointed.

Thing 40: Mashup the web

2009-05-10T15:33:00.002-05:00

I admit I'm a little confused about what exactly a mashup is. I agree with the definition at the top of the Thing page and with the video, but then when I look at some of the links, I don't understand what makes them mashups.

I love both Pandora and last.fm. I really liked this mashup. You can add tags while the songs are playing + the love/hate/recommend buttons are there. Fantastic! I'm also going to try out bkkeepr.com This may be a way to keep track of the books that I'm reading.

The Crimereports mashup would be really useful, but it isn't set up for our area. For now I'll just have to stick with the dispatch logs and the state registry site to keep up to date with crime where I live.

I didn't create my own mashup, because I'm still a little unsure of what it means. I did copy Janine however and created a map of the places I've been. Since I'm not a world traveler like she is, I made mine just of the United States. Notice how even then, it's a little clumpy. I need to leave North Dakota! I just love it so much :)

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Thing 39: Digital Storytelling

2009-05-10T14:18:00.003-05:00

Let me first say that I don't like scrapbooking. It takes a lot of time and if I wanted to save pictures, I'd just put them in a photo album. For this thing, I decided to try scrapblog.com. It seemed very pink which again made me a little nervous. Now, I realize scrapbooking is "girly" but couldn't they have tried to pick a more gender neutral color? Especially if they're going to call it digital storytelling?

That's getting off the point. After I got over the pinkness it seemed generally simple to use. I would've liked more "themes" to choose from but again, that's just me. As I was thinking of different applications to use digital scrapbooks, I thought of the fact that my youngest brother is graduating high school this spring. He was also the only senior on the swim team. During this past year, my mother has had to make so many different "books" for the team. For the banquet. For the parents. And now for his graduation. I stole some pictures of him off my mother's Facebook page (Yes, my mother has facebook) and tried to put together a page.

Most of them worked ok, but a few of them were really blurry when I tried to put them into the template. They were originally bigger and clearer, so I don't really know what happened there. When I was finished I noticed that scrapblog has an automatic publishing feature that will put it on your blog for you. I hit that button and wham! It worked!

2009-05-10T14:15:00.001-05:00

2009-05-08T16:48:00.001-05:00

awesome awesome awesome. it worked! I am amazing! awesome.

Thing 38: Screencasting

2009-05-08T16:40:00.002-05:00

I didn't have any idea what screencasting was before starting this Thing. If we did online tutorials at our library - this would be perfect. Right now, we just offer regular computer classes, but we'll have to keep this option in our minds in the future. One small thing - if we were to have them, someone else would have to do it. I have a bad habit of highlighting whatever I'm reading on the screen. People can always tell when I was the last one on any of our staff computers because whole paragraphs will be blue. :)

I watched a few different tutorials. The screencast-o-matic seemed pretty simple, but I didn't like the red dot. Jing's tutorial was entertaining, but the product itself seemed harder. I couldn't watch more than a minute of the skitch tutorial. Wow - that was a lot of pink.

I decided to try screencast-o-matic and it was easy! I didn't know what to use as an example for my screencast, so I just signed into my blog and went into the Edit Post option. I think it worked. And I think I embedded it into my blog correctly. (crosses fingers)

Thing 37: Photo Tales

2009-05-08T11:40:00.002-05:00

I think I signed up for a flickr account during the first round, but I don't own a camera and usually hide when other try to take pictures, so I didn't have anything to put up there. I went to flickr and searched through the Creative Commons pictures and found some that I could use to experiment with. I tried animoto and it seemed pretty easy to do. The only thing I had trouble with was adding music, but if I were using my computer at home with all my mp3s it would be a whole lot easier.

I can see us using this in the library to promote activites. We could have pictures of events and have them in a slide show. These sites would also work really well for montages at a wedding or graduation &c.

Thing 36: Comic Relief - Generate Some Fun

2009-05-07T14:33:00.002-05:00

Wow! After Thing 35, this seems extra dumb and a complete waste of time. I'll look through these, but I don't see how I'd be able to use them in the library. And I'm not touching the Tartan link. Too many of our computers are down with viruses to screw up any more.

I managed to find 3 that were useful. Turning web pages or word documents into PDF files is by far the most useful generator on this page. Also I really liked the Son of Citation machine and EasyBib. Easybib was awesome because you could just put in the ISBN and it would automatically put it into the right format.

My random names are:
username: Mechanical Princess
Fairy name: Columbine Elfwitch
Vampire name: Demon of Wraiths

Megan Richardson's Dewey Decimal Section:

581 Specific topics in natural history

Megan Richardson = 357148938184954 = 357+148+938+184+954 = 2581

Class:
500 Science

Contains:
Math, astronomy, prehistoric life, plants and animals.

What it says about you:
You are fascinated by the world around you, and see it as a puzzle worth exploring. You try to understand how things work and how you can make them better. You might be a nerd.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

And because I got this song in my head working with all these generators:
The Holloways - Generator

Thing 35: Books 2.0

2009-05-07T10:34:00.008-05:00

I warn you in advance. I really liked this Thing and looked at almost everything. This post is going to be long and rambling.

I haven't really seen a large change in our library regarding electronic books. We have e-audio books available for download through our library system, but no book books. I would be really excited to have a kindle for myself, but they're really expensive, so I don't see it happening anytime in the future. If anyone wants to buy me a present, I definitely wouldn't turn one down. I don't know of anyone who has a kindle, but a few of the people I follow on Twitter have them and really like them. They haven't caught on in this part of the country, but we're normally a little behind the times :)

I don't want to put anything on my phone. I have a cheapo phone without Internet capabilities. If I had an iPhone though...... too bad iPhones don't work in North Dakota. TwitterLit is a cool idea and you don't have to involve your phone. I signed up to follow them on Twitter, we'll have to wait and see if it pans out to anything fun.

The Reader's Advisory sites would be really useful in the library. We use the What's Next Database all the time when people can remember an author, but not the order of the books - or if they have 5 books checked out by they're all in different series. Our catalogue doesn't have an easy way to print out a list of the books in a certain series in order, either, so it helps. What should I read Next could be really helpful for Reader's Advisory as well, especially if it's a genre you personally don't read much. I also visited BookLamp. It's similar to Pandora (which I love and am listening to while typing this). I really hope it gets developed into something real.

For Online Book Communities, my favorite was Reader2. I read way too much and I'd like to have a record of it. I tried to register, but it was disabled because of spammers. I'm going to have to try to remember to go back and sign up at a later date.

I don't do much with Book Groups, but I liked the Reader Group Choices site. It would give your group a good jumping off point. The music aspect is interesting, this week it's for the book "The Soloist" which was a really good book even though the movie is horrible mis-cast, but I love Classical music and it had good suggestions to get you in the mood for the book. I wish they had an archive of searchable Music by the Book segments rather than just the feature of the month. It surprised me that they didn't, but if it was on the site anywhere, I couldn't find it.

Like I said earlier, our library does subscribe to Netlibrary for audiobooks. I personally don't like people reading to me, so unless it's Neil Gaiman - I don't listen to audio books (I can't help but listen to him) but I really liked the idea of Podiobooks. I hate that name. It's all free, which is good, and there was a wide range of books. It gives participants an opportunity to listen/read things that they otherwise may not see in the audio book collection in their library.

I had iRead on Facebook, but I had a hard time keeping it up to date. Plus I usually had too many books at once. Never mind, I just checked and I had the plain books application because I had looked at iRead and didn't like the setup. I like a little more anonymity with the books I read and with Facebook it would pop up on everyone's Newsfeed whenever I started a new book. I still think I'm going to try Reader2.

When I looked through the Book Review websites, the only one that seemed like it would be better than the reviews that pop up on Novelist was Book Browse. You have to subscribe to it, and it's not cheap which pretty much puts it out of my mind.

Thing 34: Is this our Competition?

2009-05-05T13:49:00.003-05:00

I tried reading the article "Future of the Reference Desk", btu I couldn't understand most of what she was talking about. "Triage technologies"??? I also disagreed with her saying the Reference is a librarian's term. Our library got rid of "reference" librarians and reference desks years ago, but patrons still ask for it.

The Slam the Boards idea is awesome. It gives us know-it-alls a chance to use all of our useless knowledge. :) When I looked through some of the different answer sites, there was a wide range of question quality. I looked at Wikianswers first and really liked the way the site was set up. Some of the questions seemed really random, but that was only until I looked at the other sites. I'm not sure if the people who ask questions on Yahoo!Answers speak English. A lot of questions weren't even recognizable as questions. I really liked Mahalo and the fact that you could ask questions through Twitter. Plus, their pictures were all cute Hawaiian cartoon kids.

Thing 33: Travel 2.0

2009-05-04T14:57:00.003-05:00

I don't travel much myself, so mainly I need to keep up with sites in order to help patrons. So far, we haven't had much demand for travel 2.0 sites; they stick to the booking sites.

Looking over the sites, the only one I was familiar with was TripAdvisor and I'm sorry to say, that's from an episode of "The Office". I looked at mykugelhopf.ch which was pretty cool to look at, I don't know if I would read it on a regular basis, but it's about food and based out of Switzerland, what's not to like?

I also looked at "The Cranky Flier" which I probably wouldn't use for travel, but so I could keep up to date with what's going on in the airline industry. I went to UND, so most of my friends are pilots, ATCs or TSA employees and sometimes I get left out of conversations.

My 3 favorite links in this thing were: Vcarious Wines and Times, and Greenroutes I could definitely see myself using them in the future.

Thing 32: Google Maps and Mashups

2009-04-28T17:23:00.003-05:00

I don't know if it's because I haven't been keeping up to date with the thing or what, but I was really frustrated by the time I was done making my Google Map. I watched the video on how to use Google maps - but most of that information I was already aware of. I've gotten frustrated with Google maps before so usually when I want directions I use Mapquest, but I did use Google maps when I was looking for a new apartment to see what the neighborhoods looked like.

Even though I knew that you could zoom in on Satellite images, when the video showed me how quick and easy it was to find a major airport "You can even see the planes parked at the gates" it seemed wrong. There's some information that probably shouldn't be on the internet. Major airports especially - national security issue, anyone?

Anyway, I went to make a map of my own. It was hard. I kept getting confused between how to zoom and how to move the map north and south. The computer also kept trying to change which roads I was using. This was a map I was creating and there was a reason I was taking certain streets. Some of the times it switched the routes, it tried to go the wrong way down one-way streets. I didn't find it very intuitive.

Thing 31: More Twitter

2009-03-18T15:17:00.004-05:00

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, so if I re-make points here, I'm sorry.

Twitter is awesome. I've been using it consistently since I set up my account. I'm following some famous people (well, famous to me) and some work friends. I've also started following a couple random people. This was a weird, stalkery step, but made easier by the fact that they started following me first. I still haven't set up TweetDeck, but I mean to. It's the one that looks the most popular. My only problem is that I only remember while I'm at work and I want it to be on my computer at home....

I signed up for Mr. Tweet right after I made my account, but so far it hasn't really been helpful. Maybe I'm using it wrong. I've used the text-tweet feature a few times. It's awesome. There are lots of times when I feel the need to share a thought and am nowhere near a computer.

I've been thinking lately about the whole issue with security on Twitter. As of this post, I have my full name and where I live. I wanted it to be easy for other people to find me. But we had a presentation here in the library by a policeman last week talking about all the creepy on the internet and how easy it was to stalk you. Now I'm paranoid. I did add my name to the Twitter directory though...... we'll see.

Other than that, Twitter has been fun. I've found a good site for sharing the songs that are stuck in your head - songza.com and have figured out most of the little twitter nuances. I still have no idea what hashtags are used for.

Twitter questions

2009-02-24T13:34:00.002-06:00

What's correct etiquette for Twitter? I know how to not be annoying, but are you supposed to follow people who follow you? All of them? Are you supposed to send a message to people thanking them for following you? What's the deal?

Thing 30 - More Ways to use RSS and Delicious

2009-02-23T15:55:00.003-06:00

I love RSS. It has made my life so much easier over the past year, I can't imagine living without it. I looked back at my posts from the first round of 23 things, and apparently I thought it was stalker-ish. Twitter is way worse, and I love that! My RSS is through Bloglines and I still find that easier to use than Google Reader. I check it at least once a day to make sure I don't get overloaded with posts. I don't really sort my RSS. I follow some other 23 things participants, and I do have those in a separate folder. And during primary season, I had all my political blogs in a separate folder (they were taking over). The others I just keep alphabetical.

I tried using the RSS locater. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but it didn't seem to come up with anything useful. I looked at some of the examples that were on the thing page, but none of them fit with what I use RSS for. If I lived in a city larger than Fargo, the Travel updates would probably be pretty cool.

Delicious. well.......... I haven't use it since last time. I tried to sign in and apparently didn't remember my password, so I had to set up a new account. Then I realized that I don't use bookmarks. I did in college, but haven't in years. So I didn't really know what to do. I'll check with some other people here in Moorhead and see what they use it for.

Thing 29 - and another thing

2009-02-19T09:39:00.002-06:00

I haven't tried Goog-411, but I'm putting it in my phone. I may need it someday. I wish it had a less-annoying name...

Thing 29 - Google Tools

2009-02-19T09:33:00.004-06:00

Looking through the options for thing 29, I'll admit I wasn't all that excited about this thing. I didn't want to use Web History because of the privacy issue. I clear all the private data off of my home computer at least once or twice a month. I don't necessarily think that anyone's gonna steal my information, but I just don't like having it there in plain sight.

The Google calendar has been really useful here at the library. We use it to set up a schedule for the use of our meeting rooms, since it's easy to access at any of the staff computers. In my personal life, I have a pocket calendar that's always in my purse. You don't always have access to a computer when trying to schedule things, so for me - a hard copy is better.

I already had a Google account that was automatically created when I signed up for Blogger last year, and I've used gmail for a computer class before. Thing is, I've been using hotmail since 1998. I'm usually resistant to change, but hotmail has been acting up lately and has big ads all over the place, so I'm giving in and switching to gmail. Everyone here at work tells me that this is a good thing.

I've also set up Google News. I already use an aggregator and have both CNN and InForum feeds, but I'll use both and see which one wins out.

Thing 28 - Customized Home Pages

2009-02-14T14:59:00.003-06:00

I set up an iGoogle page during the first round of 23 things, but I have not used it a single time since then. One of the reasons I love Google so much is that it's so simple. Google is actually my homepage at home, but just the plain one. I get distracted very easily and usually when I go to look something up, I'm doing so right away so I don't forget. If I have tons of applications on there, I'm going to see something else and read that instead.

I signed into my google account, just to see what the page was like. I put a lot of really stupid stuff on there last year. I figured it was probably going to be easier to start over with a new site than rebuild my Google page. I tried Netvibes first, but I couldn't figure out how to modify anything and all the news applications were through CBS. I would rather get my news from almost any other source. I gave up on Netvibes and tried PageFlakes. That was really easy. I could move stuff around. It was very customizable. At first I couldn't figure out how to make applications go away, but I figured it out.

I'm going to try to use it more often this time around. We shall see.

Thing 27 - Twitter!

2009-02-10T11:31:00.004-06:00

I've heard of Twitter before; some of the blogs I follow have mentioned it every once in a while. Personally it seemed like a waste of time. Now that I've tried it, it's amazing!! It's like updating your Facebook status, but better. This is stream-of-consciousness blogging, which works really well with my ADD. I can put random thoughts on there or use it to make a to-do list or some other thing that I'll just need to be reminded of later.

It was unbelievably easy to use; you just sign up and go. I was even able to add a widget to my blog! I'm still trying to see how this could be useful in a library setting, so I'm following the Hibbing Library to see what kinds of tweets they're doing. Maybe if I were attending a conference, I could use Twitter to put up quick thoughts on different presentations.

A hint to other users: if you want to share links, but your tweets are getting too long, try using tinyurl.com I've seen a few more experienced Tweeters? twitterers? using it to make long URLs fit within the 140 character parameters.

Thing 26: Join the 23 Things on a Stick Ning

2009-02-10T00:09:00.002-06:00

I signed up for the 23 things Ning during the first round, but didn't really use it. I played with it a little more this round and I think I have a better understanding of how it works. I added another video to my page, commented on a couple others, changed the layout of my page, and joined the NLLN group. As a whole, I think it's a good idea to have a place where people can go and discuss issues that arise while they're working on the different things, but for some reason I can't see myself using it much. There doesn't seem to be much organization throughout the site. I'm going to try to keep going back to see what's been added.

Review: CORALINE

2009-02-04T18:39:00.001-06:00

Review: CORALINE

Posted using ShareThis

Thing 25 extras

2009-02-02T15:45:00.004-06:00

Just for fun, I took the Blog Readability Test and the Typealyzer. I'd be really interested to see what results other people got......

Typealyzer = ESTP - The Doers

The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

Movie Reviews

Thing 25 - Bloggers Toolkit

2009-02-02T15:28:00.003-06:00

I looked at the videos about widgets and there was a lot of good information included. I looked through Widgetbox and Google to search for some widgets to put on my blog. I found that both were easy to navigate, but I liked Widgetbox a little better - it had better categories and it gave you live previews of how the widget would actually work in your blog!

I've used some widgets before. I had LibraryThing on my blog during the first round, and then added RSS at the beginning of this round. I also used Clustrmap on a wiki that our library set up for Teen Read Week. I added 2 new widgets for this Thing, a digital clock on the bottom of the page and a movie trailer widget. I took the movie trailer one off already as it took you off the page. Isn't the whole point of widgets to get people to stay on your blog?

The best widget I've seen looking at other peoples blogs was a Super Mario widget on Shane's blog. Although I lost right away, it was fun!

Finishing Thing 24

2009-01-28T14:37:00.003-06:00

Alright, I finally found a template that I like (mostly). It bothers me that there are gold flecks in my avatars face, but as you scroll down they go away - it's something I can live with. I was also able to replace all of my widgets that disappeared when I was playing around with how things looked.

gah!!!

2009-01-27T14:55:00.002-06:00

This is frustrating! I tried to switch the template of my blog, but then it erased all the widgets I had from last time, including my avatar, my librarything, etc.

grr

Thing 24: Refreshing your blog

2009-01-27T13:45:00.004-06:00

I've been lazy since we finished the first round of 23 things; I haven't blogged at all. That's a lie - I did set up another blog with some people at work, but we failed at updating that one as well. Part of my problem is that I don't have anything interesting to say, so people won't read it. And if people aren't reading it, what's the point?

When I logged into my blog (for the first time in a long time) the template that I had before no longer worked. I'd been using one that I found through Pyzam and my guess is that it just became inactive or something. There were a couple other people who were using similar templates and there's didn't work anymore either. I picked one of the templates that Blogger had, but they were all boring, so I'm pretty sure I'll be spending some time looking through some fun sites to find a more interesting background.

I looked through some of the new Gadgets Blogger has added and most were ho-hum, except for the RSS feed!! That is an awesome update! This well make it much easier for people to keep track of when other people have updated their blogs. It'll make communication a lot easier.

I liked the way my avatar looked and I had the ultimate perfect background for it, so all I did was change my outfit. I'd played around with the Yahoo avatars a bit during the first round, so I was going to use one of the other sites, but none of them really caught my eye and you would've had to register with a new password. Since I already had one I could play with - I just stuck with what I knew.

Thing 23 - The End

2008-04-16T14:37:00.002-05:00

I really enjoyed participating in Thing 23; I learned a lot and it gave me an excuse to play around on the Internet. I would definitely participate in a program like this again - I thought I was pretty up to date on technology, but have learned that sadly, I'm really not. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to use everything that we've done at our library. Not just to aid us in helping patrons, but maybe showing patrons how to do some of these things for themselves. There is so much information out there - I'm excited to see what else I can learn.
The end.

Thing 22 - What Did I Learn Today?

2008-04-15T09:39:00.003-05:00

Taking part in 23 Things has at times been frustrating, but overall has been a good experience. I've enjoyed seeing all the options that are out in the technology world, whether I think I'll use them or not. There are a few things that when I was first introduced to them I didn't think I would ever look at the site again. Of course, those are the ones that I've now become addicted to. My favorite Things were: Bloglines, LibraryThing, Facebook, discovering other social networks, and YouTube.

I'm not sure if I'll keep up with my blog. I don't have much going on in my life outside of work, so I think I would run out of stuff to talk about. Maybe I'll try it for a few weeks and see how it goes. I will be using many of the things I've learned, both at work and at home. I will also continue to play with the different technologies that I've started accounts with. There was so much information during 23 Things, that I don't think it had time to sink in. Now I can go back and actually take my time working through things.

Thing 21 - Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

2008-04-12T14:59:00.003-05:00

I am a member of Flixter and of last. fm. I got involved in Flixter through my Facebook account, which had a movie application I added which created a Flixter account for me. I signed up for Last.fm in March and it has been awesome! At first it was a little creepy because of it's audioscrobber, but once I witnessed the amazingness that ensued I was converted. Last.fm automatically builds a profile for each user based on the music that is already on your computer and then can recommend other music or show you other users accounts that share your interest.

I'd be interested in using Gather and WebJunction in the future. I've tried WebJunction a few times and haven't been able to get it to work, but I haven't really been gung-ho about it. If I maybe applied myself I could probably get it to work. :)

Thing 20 - Libraries and Social Networks

2008-04-12T14:40:00.002-05:00

I was already a member of Facebook before I got to this Thing. I admit, I was very anti-Facebook for awhile, but now I can't even remember why. It's been great for me. Since I moved away from my college town, it's kept me in the loop. I know when other people are coming back to visit, when there's going to be get-togethers, etc. The reason I like Facebook more than Myspace is simply privacy. There're sooo many more people on MySpace that it's scary. Facebook (in my opinion) has better privacy filters. With Myspace, it's either all or nothing whereas Facebook gives you options.

I do like the idea of using these Social Networks to get the library into a public place. I really like Hennepin County's MySpace page. I'd like our library to have one, but we would need to solve some filter problems before it would actually work.

Thing 19 - Podcasts

2008-04-03T14:05:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit apprehensive about podcasts, I've said this before I think. This Thing changed my mind a little bit. I listened to a few from MPR - they're related to music and language. The one about music is really good. They had an entire episode all about The Clash!

I haven't done anything with iTunes U, but one of my friends plans on spending his summer at the lake using his iPod to study for the bar exam. The directories listed on this Thing were really helpful, as I had no experience in podcasts at all. I had some problems with podcast.net, but I'm not sure if it was the site or my computer. It kept timing out. I also wasn't a huge fan of the Educational Podcast Directory. It just seemed like it was too specific, but if you were in a situation where you were studying and needed that kind of information, it would be a valuable resource.

I have never done any podcasting myself and can pretty much guarantee that I never will. I did however subscribe to 3 different podcasts that I'll keep for a while and see how I like 'em.

Thing 17 - ELM Productivity Tools

2008-04-03T13:33:00.003-05:00

I think all the ELM sites are incredibly useful. I wish our library had Proquest, but now I see that I can go in through http://elm4you.org and access it that way.

I tried to make a web page through EBSCO, but it seemed way to advanced for me. I was confused through the whole process, it didn't turn out and even if it did, I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do with it. It wasn't on the internet, so was it a webpage? Much bewilderment. Setting up an account seemed like a good idea. It would be especially advantageous for using at home for saving articles and searches. It would make research really easy. It wouldn't work quite the same way at the library. We do such random searches for patrons that we almost never need to go back to the same search a second time. Maybe if we get interrupted or something.

I set up a search alert just to try it out. I checked my Bloglines account this morning and had over a hundred links. That's a lot. And most of them were from Australia and kind of repetitive. I wonder if there's a way to limit your search to just certain places? I'll have to do some more experimenting.

Thing 18 - YouTube

2008-04-02T14:38:00.003-05:00

I don't have TV in my apartment, so I spend an awful amount of time on YouTube. There is so much stuff that is wonderfully time-wasting. YouTube is currently filtered on the computers at our library, I'm not sure if it's because of the content or more because of the bandwidth. There are some racy videos on YouTube, but it's way more conservative than what some people manage to find - even with the filters. One of my favorite things to search for on YouTube is movie trailers. It has made me really excited for this summer! The Incredible Hulk, Ironman, Dark Knight, X-Files, etc. The clip that I chose to embed in my blog is from Comic Relief in Britain. It is a sketch of David Tennant of Doctor Who fame and Catherine Tate, who coincidentally will be the Doctor's companion in the upcoming series.

Thing 16 - Student 2.0 Tools

2008-04-01T13:37:00.002-05:00

I wish I would have known about these while I was still in school. (If they existed) I am a master procrastinator known to watch an entire season of a TV show to avoid getting my work done. These tools don't allow you to "forget" that you're supposed to be working on a project. I would definitely recommend this to students using the library, especially high school students. I think it could also be useful for the staff of the library. We could use it to keep on top of projects or events without becoming overwhelmed.

Thing 15 - Online Games and Libraries

2008-03-27T11:29:00.005-05:00

I'm a really big nerd. Thought I should lead with that. I love MMORPGs. I've played Everquest and EVE and I'm completely addicted to World of Warcraft. I'd never played Puzzle Pirates or SecondLife before, but I'd heard a lot about SecondLife. I signed up, created my avatar, wandered around a bit, visited Info Island and got really bored. Really fast. The reason that I play online games is to beat levels, or go on missions. SecondLife was too much like the Sims for my liking. It also seemed a bit creepy. People are living more on SecondLife than they are in Real Life. They end up spending all their time and money on this fake world that they've created for themselves. It just seems wrong. Maybe I would have liked Puzzle Pirates better.

My favorite part of these games is creating the characters. My character on WoW is awesome. He's this big viking-looking guy with tons of cool weapons. Total BAMF. On EVE, it is a completely different story. No matter what I do, or try to change she always just seems to turn out looking like a Transvestite Hooker. Can't change it. Don't know why.

Games are fine in libraries. I know that there are a lot of people who get mad at the people playing these games when there's a shortage of computers, but that's an equipment problem rather than a content problem. We can't judge people based on what they're using the computers for. Even though I didn't like SecondLife, I think it's cool that libraries do have a presence there.

Thing 14 - LibraryThing

2008-03-25T17:36:00.003-05:00

I love LibraryThing. I've been using it for about seven months and have really enjoyed it. I needed a way to keep all the books that I own straight. That way if I ever move or rearrange, I'll know where they all were and hopefully it will make it a little easier to put back in order. Or if we get an earthquake. That probably won't happen in this part of the country, but it's good to be safe. It was really easy to add my books into the computer. The first time, it did take a little dedication to get all the way through, but now I just add the book as soon as I bring it home from the store and it's taken care of. What I've recently started doing was adding reviews to a few of my books. It's been hard for me to really say anything valuable in the reviews other than yay or boo, but I spose that will come with practice.

There are still so many things on the site that I haven't gotten involved with yet. I joined the group Librarians who LibraryThing, but haven't really contributed anything. It makes me feel guilty for being in the group. Maybe that's why I haven't joined any others. Oh and I try to get early-reviewer books, but haven't been lucky yet. Cross your fingers.

I added a widget to my blog awhile ago after seeing one of the other girls here do it. I copied. So sue me. But in case that's too time consuming you can also go here to look at my books.

I think it would be useful for the library to have a place where people could look at recently added books or see what the librarians are reading, but it would take waaaaaaaay to much time and effort to enter all of our books, even with a scanner.

Thing 13 - Online Productivity Tools

2008-03-25T13:47:00.002-05:00

The sites that we looked at in this Thing seemed like they would be more useful than others we've seen during this process, but there was kind of an information overload. There were so many different sites to look at, I felt overwhelmed. It might be good for me to look at one different site a day so I can actually comprehend the differences.

Since I already had a Google account set up to use Blogger (and have a hatred of all things Yahoo!) I chose to set up a Google start page. There were some things that seemed to be useful - I liked having my weather right there! But some others seemed extraneous. One thing I really like about Google's original homepage is that it was so simple. You could go to Google and find what you were looking for without any distractions. I'm very very very easily distracted, so I think I'll probably not ever sign into that homepage again.

One tool that was talked about on one of the links was TinyURL. I've used that a few times. Sometimes the addresses for sites get so incredibly long that there's no way to remember them, no way to write them down, and no way to copy/paste them into anything. When you use Tiny URL to shorten the address it saves a lot of time and brain power.

I won't use an online calender - I'm too afraid that I'll forget my password or forget where I put it. I use a paper calendar and that is what works best for me. However, at the library we do use a Google calendar to set up the meeting room schedule. We used to use a paper schedule and then it would be constantly erased and changed and things were moved around all the time. Now we have a Google account just for meeting rooms that everyone has a password to - it saves a lot of time and effort.

Thing 12 - Do you Digg?

2008-03-24T15:14:00.002-05:00

For this Thing, I browsed around all four sites to see what struck me. These are my first impressions. Digg - too much pop culture. Reddit - strictly sensationalism. Newsvine - actually reliable? a tad more intelligent, maybe. Mixx - combination of the others, I liked how it was divided into categories. While I think it's good for librarians to stay on top of what's going on in the news, I feel like these sites will actually detract from that. There is so much junk to sift through that it will take more time to find the important stories. And there's the fact that these sites that are Digged (dug?) could be anything; they could be some crazy guy from the backwoods ranting about aliens. There isn't a filter to keep the important/relevant stuff in and everything else out. That's why respectable sources have editors. I think I could spend hours wasting time on these sites at home, but not in the workplace.

Since starting on the Things, I've become addicted to my Bloglines account. I have news feeds there that automatically update and since they're from CNN, the BBC and the NY Times - I know that I can (cross your fingers) trust the information that's on there.

I went to the NY Times and found the article about Sarah Jane Olson being let out of prison and then being put back (She was released because of a clerical error). I have shared articles on Facebook before, but never through any of these sites. I chose to use Mixx mainly because I really didn't want to use Reddit or Digg, but it was really simple. It let me share things without signing up for a full membership, but the site seemed friendly (if that's possible for a web site to do) and I almost considered creating an account. But I didn't.......for now.

Thing 11 - Tagging and del.icio.us

2008-03-24T14:36:00.004-05:00

I've been tagging all of my posts as I've been going along, so that was pretty easy. I've also used tags for some other sites (such as LibraryThing). That was actually my favorite part of del.icio.us. I don't think I'll use the site for reference, since there're only a few sites that we use consistantly and those are already bookmarked on Mozilla, but hoo boy! it was funny to see the connections for between me and random other people who look at the same websites as I do. The tagging of my LibraryThing is pretty standard (I used subject headings) so that it would help me recognize Dewey numbers better since I'm still new at this whole library business. For my blog posts, I've been incredibly random. I've found that the randomness isn't quite as useful, but is a lot of fun. And as long as you have a few serious tags, what difference does it make?

BTW, did anyone else have a hard time getting the dots right in del.icio.us

Thing 10 - Wikis

2008-03-21T10:32:00.003-05:00

YAY Wikis!! I've never edited a wiki before, so that was kind of fun. The only experience I'd had with wikis before this thing was Wikipedia (which I am in love with). I know it's not "scholarly", but when I need to look up random pop-culture information - nothing can beat it. I've also used Wikipedia to aid my research a few times. On some of the more standard encyclopediaish articles, they have resources cited at the bottom of the page and also places to go for more information. It's helpful.
Before watching the CommonCraft video, it hadn't even occurred to me all the different ways wikis could be used. I think it would be awesome to have a wiki at the library with book reviews or something for patrons. But I fear that someone would have to be monitoring it almost constantly (we have some little stinkers in the library that may decide that the entire wiki must consist of Runescape cheats) Can you even cheat at Runescape? I have no idea, I may have to go to a source. Anyway, I love the idea of wikis and all the things that we can do with them.

oh and I edited the 23 things on a stick wiki.

Thing 9 - Online Collaboration Tools

2008-03-20T13:48:00.004-05:00

In this Thing we were to follow links and edit the Declaration of Independence. I found both programs pretty easy to use, but if I had to choose - it would be Google docs, but that could just be because I am more familiar with the way that Google sets their sites up. The one thing I had an issue with was the fact that you had to get permission to edit a document. I guess if you were using it for your own personal use that wouldn't be a problem, but it seems just as easy to have a flash- drive on your keys.

Thing 8 - Sharing Creations

2008-03-18T17:28:00.002-05:00

I just realized that there's less than a month left and I still have 15 things left. YIKES!! I've been extremely over-lackadaisical about this whole thing. I need to get my butt in gear. Alright, thing 8...I tried using Zoho to make a little slide-show. It was really simple, which is good. I could see that being used in our library for presentations and/or classes. It takes a lot less time than trying to figure out Powerpoint. I'm not going to upload my presentation to my blog because it was really sad and little, but it served its purpose.

I also liked eFolio. It would be really useful during a job hunt, and not just for employers - I could see myself using it not to send to people but to keep track of information myself (awards, special projects, &c) so that when I was building a resume I would have all the information in one spot where I could pick and choose what to use. Was that a sentence? Probably not, but oh well. I looked at a few different resumes and the biggest problem I could see myself having with the site was keeping it interesting, but also professional. I could easily see it turning into a MySpace page.

Thing 7 - Web Communication Tools

2008-03-12T15:25:00.005-05:00

I have a feeling this post may get really long, so I apologize in advance.

I grew up in a world with the internet, so most of the web communication tools in this thing were already at least a little familiar to me. I have used e-mail since middle school and was a bit confused by the comment in the "thing" explanation about e-mail existing before the internet. Not really sure how that would've worked, but anyway..... In our library we do have computer classes showing people how to set up an e-mail address and how to do the basics (writing messages, opening messages, forwarding, replying and attachments if the class can handle it) We also have all our overdue notices going out through e-mail. This is not a perfect system because the people w/o e-mail never get notified, but it's something we're working on. We also have an "Ask a Librarian" feature on our webpage.

I used to use IM a lot. I still use it, but not quite as much as I used to. It's helpful to keep in touch with people I went to college with, but who now live far away. I can see good and bad things about using IM for reference. We are not sitting at the reference desk all of the time (we wander and help people on the book floor) so if someone IMs us, we may not notice the message is there until it's too late and they've signed off. Another thing I think we'd have a problem with is the language. Although I use IM quite a bit, I don't use the Instant Message language (I'm really weird and have been known to use semi-colons [and I'm not talking about emoticons]) I couldn't understand half of what was said in the video!! I fear that we would need to have a dictionary sitting by our computers at all times in order to communicate.

Texting is a communication tool that I don't use very often. Again, it may be because I'm too long-winded and don't use or want to use the abbreviations for things. To me, it seems to take more time than IM or e-mail, but if someone used it all the time that wouldn't be so. One thing that is good about Text is the convenience of always having it with you. I saw that future versions of Millennium will have text capabilities built in to notify people of their holds. That would be really cool!!!

Whenever I think about web conferencing I'm reminded of the episode of "The Office" where the boss thinks he's going to a cool party in New York, but it's actually a party at their office connected to other offices by webcams. I have taken part in a couple classes that were taught by a person via the web, but that's as close as I've come. I learned in this thing that I have a really hard time absorbing the information in podcasts. There are too many outside distractions, especially if I'm trying to listen to them at work. I think they would be convenient to set up meetings between people in different locations, but it probably wouldn't be my first choice in how to learn information.

Alright, that got really long. Again - I'm sorry.

Free Book

2008-02-28T20:28:00.002-06:00

One of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, has made one of his books free for the next month or so to read online, which marks the very first time a major publishing house has made their books free on the web. If you click here, you can read American Gods.

Thing 6 cont.

2008-02-26T13:19:00.002-06:00

I had problems posting this picture, but I'm pretty sure that I just used the wrong code. Now the picture is bigger than I wanted, but I can't seem to make it any smaller. Grr at the confusing computers.

Thing 6 - Online image generators

2008-02-26T09:48:00.002-06:00

For a lot of the image generators, it required you to sign in to a Flickr account. I didn't create a one, so it really limited what I could do. I do see how most of these could be used in the library. I love the trading card idea (especially for authors rather than the librarians themselves).

I also took a look at toondoo, but I don't think I'm quite creative enough to create comics :) The other image I made was pretty much to experiment with the animation. It said that it would show up moving on my blog, but I had my doubts. Again, I am not really that creative and we show movies at my library, so if we do end up creating a blog or a myspace page, I'm interested in what would and would not work. Oh shoot, I'm supposed to be out at the desk right now. Gotta go...

Thing 5 - More Flickr

2008-02-20T15:11:00.004-06:00

Most of the extras that I looked at this week seemed just to be a waste of time. You were able to find interesting looking pictures, but that's about it. If we were to use Flickr in our library, I think we would use it as a place to post pictures from our events etc. I don't know what the use would be to spell your name in blocks or sign letters. The one mash-up I looked at that would be cool for personal use was Jigsaw where you could turn your pictures into puzzles. The best part was the fact that you could order an actual puzzle made out of your photo. It would be good for gifts. I used Retrievr to find pictures that kind-of went together and then made a Mosaic of them. Interestingly - what I drew didn't look anything like what the site pulled up. I'm really not sure how that whole thing works. I also had some problems with the size of my type in my previous post, but I think I got it fixed.

Random Article not having to do with any(thing)

2008-02-20T10:37:00.004-06:00

This is an article that was in Library Journal last week. I thought I would share.

Blatant Berry: The Vanishing Librarian

The library becomes a dehumanized supermarket or a chaotic bookstore

Thing 4 Addn

2008-02-17T13:38:00.000-06:00

YES!!!! IT WORKED!!!

Thing 4: Photosharing

2008-02-17T13:27:00.003-06:00

I had more fun with Fickr than I was expecting. I'm not really a picture person - in fact I tend to run away whenever cameras come out, so signing up for a Flickr account really didn't make sense for me. I did enjoy looking at pictures that other people had uploaded.
When I watched the CommonCraft video I was a bit concerned about the whole public/private thing, but once I was looking around Flickr I found that you don't have to make all your photos public, you can pick and choose. There are some pictures that just shouldn't be shared with the world.
The picture that I decided to upload looked really cool, like the guy was in a raindrop or something. It was originally posted by Lawrence Whittemore. I didn't have too much trouble posting the picture to my blog. (At least, I don't think I did.) We'll see if the picture actually shows up when I publish this post.

Thing 3: RSS

2008-02-04T15:03:00.000-06:00

I had set up an aggregator account through Bloglines right after MLA in October, but hadn't used it since...until this week. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get into it, but amazingly I remembered which password I had used and I was in! When I first set it up, I only put in 2 feeds which I learned wasn't enough of an incentive to use it.

Half the time when I'm on the internet, I'm trying to procrastinate or pass some time. Going to individual blogs was really good for that. I fear that with the aggregator may make me too efficient! I added the main 23 things blog and the blog for my region as well as 3 other participants' blogs. I found this creepy in a stalkery way. I felt like I was spying into their lives (especially the people that I know [so it doesn't count as stalking if its a stranger?]). I let myself experiment with it for a few days before I posted and I learned that not everything is good for RSS. There is one site that I visit frequently that deals with new and upcoming musical acts, but the site itself is somewhat like an aggregator, so when I added the feed to mine, I was getting over 100 updates a day. That had to be taken out. Right now I have 10 feeds. Over the next few weeks I may pare that down or add more, who knows? I do plan on adding a few more of the 23 things participants, but other than that I think I have as much as I need. We'll see.

Thing 2

2008-01-29T16:46:00.000-06:00

In Stephen Amrose's video about technology in libraries he mentioned a few ways that it would be easy to find the time to participate in the activities. Some of the tips made really good sense, like the fact that you don't have to do it all at once. Find 10-15 rather than thinking you need to do it all at once. I have definitely used that strategy this week. I was really busy at work and didn't have the time to sit down and complete the entire activity, but I was able to watch the video in one chuck. I printed out the blog post and the article so I could read bits and pieces of them whenever I had time. The only part that I actually had to sit down and do was write this blog entry. That took awhile because I kept getting interrupted. However, I don't know if the activities to come are going to be as break-up-able as this one was. One problem I've found with finding time is finding a computer to do the work on. In our library we have to share computers. Usually I'm able to find one that isn't being used at the time, but then I have to deal with the filters. All of the computers in our building are filtered (both public use computers and staff computers). A lot of the sites we have to use are blocked (Blogger for example). Without removing the filter, we couldn't sign into our blog or view the 23 things blog, or watch the video, or read the John Blyberg post. The only thing we could do was access ELM, but we would need to know ahead of time what article we needed. That was another reason I printed off all the articles. It took some of the hassle out of dealing with filters every time I had free minute and wanted to get some of it done.

I liked the definition of Library 2.0 that was provided in John Blyberg's blog post that was originally Sarah Houghton's definition. It kept the concept simple enough to relate to everyone, and didn't completely focus on technology. Technology is a big part of Library 2.0, but it isn't the only thing. It should involve everything the library is already doing, just moving it forward to another level. One thing I really didn't understand about his post was the pre-Google vs. post-Google and how we as libraries have to compete against this "giant". We should be able to use Google as a tool, incorporating it into our other sources. It makes a more complete source of information (especially in the future when Google scans every single book into the computer, but I digress...).

I've used/experimented/dabbled in about half of the technologies on the list, but that was for my own use. I'm looking forward to finding out how I can use what I know and what I'll learn at the library (both for library use and to help patrons). Overall I'm just excited that our library is participating in 23 things on a stick. It is a great opportunity to have all staff members learn what's out there.

The first "thing"

2008-01-17T16:26:00.001-06:00

I just realized how stupid I was for not knowing what an Avatar was. I did know, but just didn't know what it was called. If someone had called it "the little picture thing that represents you", I would have known what they were talking about, but since the world needs cool names for things...

I set up my avatar through Yahoo. It was fun; kind of like Barbie for adults. I'm not sure if I like what I ended up with. I may have to try something different later, but for now it works. The only problem I had was trying to get it onto my blog once it was made. I ended up saving it on my desktop and just copying it from there. It worked, but I'm not sure that was the easiest way.

With that done, I believe I've completed the first of the 23 things (hopefully correctly) ahead of schedule. yay!

23 things on a stick

2008-01-17T16:13:00.000-06:00

I had some extra time today, so I thought that I might as well get started on the 23 things on stick. I spend an awful amount of time on the computer, but don't expand my knowledge much beyond what I already know, so I should learn a lot while participating in 23 things. Setting up the blog was relatively easy once I got into it, and I've registered it on the 23 things site. Now I'm off to figure out what an avatar is and how I get one.