Yippee! Thing 23

I will answer the required questions first:

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

Well, I now LOVE LibraryThing and have an account that I've updated and played around with several times. I used my del.icio.us knowledge already, and helped create an account for the Oshkosh Public Library and I really liked looking at the Web 2.0 Awards.

• How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Well, if I had 23 goals set I would have accomplished all of them. But I didn't even have a single goal so I'm pretty impressed with myself. I now feel like I know a lot more technology and can learn even more in the future.

• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
  

I guess I didn't expect to feel so excited about technology and libraries. I really want to start incorporating some of what I've learned. Now Now Now!


Also, I just happened to be reading the October 2008 School Library Journal and Surprise! there is an article on the 23 Things. Here's the link. I laughed over the Minnesota libraries slogan (23 Things on a Stick) and enjoyed that one librarian said that the 23 Things is like summer reading but for library staff members!
Overall, I am super happy with this experience. I've been forced (nicely) to step out of my box and try new scary technology thingies. And I've enjoyed it!

Thing #22

If you ever need the book: "Elisabeth's Manly Courage": Testimonials and Songs of Martyred Anabaptist Women in the Low Countries I know where you can find it: NetLibrary!
I've been a user of NetLibrary for a few years. I remember a few years ago I was reading a fun Young Adult series and was only waiting to read the last edition. I was like 40th on the hold list. Well, lo and behold: NetLibrary! They had the book available and I downloaded it to my computer and read it in one sitting!
At the library where I currently work we have someone mention NetLibrary and can we help them start a new account about once a month (we are a small library). I imagine this will only get more popular with the advancing technology that we are living through. I only wish the library that I worked at promoted this service a little more...

Thing #21

So, "podcast" was the word of the year in 2005 (named by the New Oxford American Dictionary). I have listened to quite a few podcasts over the last couple of years, for conferences and classes, especially. They are fun and helpful. I subscribed to MuggleCast, the #1 Harry Potter Podcast that talks about the Harry Potter books and movies and all sorts of "muggle" information. I think this could be great for a lot of the fans out there, I noticed several podcasts about the super popular Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Kids and teens might be interested to know these exist and Children's and Teen Librarian should be aware of them too, to keep "up-to-date."

Thing #20

YouTube hooray!

I don't have much to say about YouTube, I love the book sites that are popping up, like authors talking about their books to fans creating book trailers!
John Green is the author of several great teen books and his posts on YouTube are hilarious (see the one I added below)! I think this is a great way to help get teens interested in books and reading. On school booktalking visits I often try and show a book trailer or two.
I think creating videos to recommend books would be a fun for patrons and staff to do. And maybe creating videos so library patrons know how to do things like searching databases or looking for genealogical information would be good for visual learners.

Thing #19

The Web 2.0 Awards are awarded to the best sites that use this new technology in some way. For this Thing, I looked at the three top sites for the category "Books."
Lulu took first place. Lulu is a global marketplace where anyone can publish their own material (with cover art and binding) and purchase other material. This is something that I think librarians should be aware of. It seems often that would-be authors come to the library looking for information on publishing and this might be an option for some of them.
Second place went to Biblio where one can search for used and rare books. Also another good site for librarians to be aware of, with some of our well-loved books falling apart from use!
And third place was VuFind. One their website it states:

VuFind is a library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your library's resources by replacing the traditional OPAC to include:

• Catalog Records
• Locally Cached Journals
• Digital Library Items
• Institutional Repository
• Institutional Bibliography
• Other Library Collections and Resources

Wow! How did I not know about this? The live demo didn't work for me but it looks really interesting and seems to have a lot of potential. Imagine how handy this would be! I think I'll look into this a little more.
So I guess I decided that the Web 2.0 Awards are useful for librarians to be aware of, they provide noteworthy things going on in the technology world!

Thing #18

This week's 2.0 exercise is on using online apps like Google Docs. I use Google Docs often. It has become increasingly handy as I progress through graduate school. I am a commuter to Madison, driving about an hour and a half to get to class. My only class on campus this semester ends at 8PM, making me very hesitant to want to stay after (or come down another day) to work on group projects. Then, Google Docs enters the picture. I have several documents that I share with many group members. We can all be editing the same document at the same time. This alleviates the multiple emails from group member to group member, being unsure which is the most recent document and who made what changes.
I do not think that at this point Google Docs or Zoho will mean the end of the Office empire. I still copy and paste what is finished in Google Docs into Word and mess around with fonts, margins, etc. I will probably continue to do this because I like being able to use some of the features that are in Word that are not in Google Docs.

Thing #17

PBWiki is a popular wiki-making site. Wikis can be created for free and wiki-ers can create as many wikis as they would wike...I mean like.
I think wikis are definitely something I will try in the future, especially with a teen group. I also think that if a library staff is very large, a wiki would help keep all staff up-to-date with goings on at the library.
I did discover one issue I have, however. For Thing #17, we were shown the Sandbox wiki that was created to by the Learning 2.0 folks. This wiki is considered a "sandbox" because it is only for play. When I was glancing through a few of the pages, for example there is a Favorite Books and a Favorite Movies page, they seem incredibly messy and long. The lists just went on and on with no sort of structure or well-organized layout. That messiness bothered me but I suppose this is mainly a problem with the large amount of people that are trying to post on the Learning 2.0 sites.

Thing #16

Wikis-galore!
I am a fan of Wikipedia. Sure, I get they they can not be treated as completely reliable, but think of all the wealth of knowledge that people have and could compile here. Think of all the random bits of information floating around out there...
I have not created my own wiki but looking at some of the sites for this week makes me think it could be a great idea. I think I would use one with my teen advisory group. On this wiki we could all make notes, ask questions, change meeting agendas, and much more. It would be much simpler than a bunch of emails being sent around to everyone. I may have to start my own wiki soon!

Thing #15

"What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory."
Taken from To a temporary place in time... by Dr. Wendy Schultz

Libraries and technology, technology and libraries. It is an ongoing discussion. Are libraries doing enough with technology to make them viable for the future? Do libraries really need to focus on technology, or just do what they do best?

Schultz wonders if Library 4.0 will be a technology-free space, where people can go to relax and get away from technology. That does sound nice to me, back to a place of quiet retreat, but is it really feasible in our society?

Michael Stephens in Into a new world of librarianship argues that some of the most important parts of new technology is that it can help librarian provide better service. He says that the librarian should embrace the technology and learn to detect the new trends and stay on top of it.

So which way is right? Which way will the library go? Perhaps both, is my thought. Libraries need to remember that there are all kinds of communities that we should support, the people who use and love technology and the people who love the quiet peace they can find in a library (and all those people in between). So, why not both I ask?

Thing #14

The most popular blog in the world right now is Boing Boing, a site that discusses cultural events and technology advances. I got this information from the site Technorati. Technorati is the premiere search engine for the blogosphere. Anyone who has a blog can register with Technorati and add Technorati tags to their blogs, making searching very handy.
Technorati certainly makes searching for blogs easy, but not all blogs are registered with Technorati, just something to remember. And both Google and Yahoo also search blogs but Technorati takes it one step further, they list the most popular blogs, rising stars, and top headlines. It is definitely something to be aware of and should come in handy when looking for blogs.

Thing #13

I struggled a little bit with del.icio.us I have to admit. I knew that it would be helpful. I have often been using a computer different than my home computer (at school, at work) and wished that I had my bookmarked sites handy. So creating a del.icio.us account has been on my "To Do List" for a while now. I think I need more practice. Which I will get--the library where I am doing my practicum has me creating a del.icio.us account for them so I will learn quick! I just found myself unable to sort out the layout, what exactly I was doing, etc.

I can see this being helpful too, when looking for similar sites. I have a few blogs that I like to check on, see if I am missing anything in the teen and children's literature world. Here's my site http://delicious.com/Katies23 where I put a few of the blogs I regularly check. Now I can see how many other users bookmarked the same site and see what other things they also read which will introduce me to new things!

On to experience more in the 2.0 world...back soon!

An update to Thing #13:
I have finished creating my del.icio.us site for Oshkosh Public Library. If you are interested in weddings or planning a wedding, check it out! http://delicious.com/OshkoshWeddingPlanning

Thing #12

O Rollyo, Rollyo, wherefore art thou Rollyo?

Rollyo is this nifty site where you can create your own search engine. If you find yourself doing a searches on a few select websites, here you can combine them and only have to do one search. For example, when I'm trying to decide if I want to read a new teen book I have been hearing about, I sometimes check a few different sites (like Barnes and Noble, Teens Read Too, and Teen Reads) to see what other readers/reviewers have had to say about it. Now instead of going from site to site searching, I only have to go to one spot, my Rollyo account. I have put a link to it in my sidebar, give it a try! (A book I recommend: Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie)

Thing #11: LibraryThing

So today I'm playing at LibraryThing, cataloging some of my favorite books and adding them to my LibraryThing library. It really is incredibly simple, type in the ISBN and there you are. I will play around with this more. I would like to figure out how they work with libraries, adding tag clouds, etc. But I'm really impressed with LibraryThing. I like the ease of searching and that tags can be whatever you want them to be. Check out my sidebar, I added a LibraryThing widget and you can see what' I'm cataloging!

Thing # 10

Ha! This is my cat Shadowfax. How did I get his picture to look like this? Well, it is because of Thing 10 and using image generators to make fun things like this! I found this from The Generator Blog which has tons and tons of neat things to play around with. This was under the heading "Collage" and it is found on this site: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/hockney.php. I'm going back to play with more now. I'll see you on Thing 11!

Thing #9

So, I am sure you are wondering: how do you find those pesky feeds and add them to your bloglines account? Well, apparently they are everywhere and I have been completely unaware of them! Do you see the lovely little orange symbol in my Thing #8 post? Well, that is how you find if blogs or organizations or other sites have RSS capabilities.
There are a few sites to go to search for feeds, also. Here are my thoughts on those: Bloglines and Topix were two that I was not impressed with at all. My searches came up with things completely not related. Let me stress---COMPLETELY not related. I won't say more. I could not get Feedster to work, Syndic8 seemed unprofessional to me. But, I was impressed with Technorati. So I would recommend them for your RSS needs. They have an appealing layout, nice color selections and just a friendly looking site. Search away!

Thing #8

Look! Subscribe to me!



I understood what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds were, I just did not know how they could help me out. Now I know! Instead of having to check all my favorite blogs every couple of days, RSS will keep track of changes for me, when things are updated and what I have missed. Before I give my final verdict I am going to give it a few days. Try it out and see how I like it. I will keep you posted!
Also in the right column you will find "My Bloglines" under the category "Learning Links." Click there to see what I'm following!

Thing #7

For me, Thing #7 will have to be....Book Trailers!
For this post, we are supposed to blog about something technology related that interests us.
I have become a huge fan of Book Trailers. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure, a Book Trailer is like a movie preview, but for books. It is tying technology into reading and hopefully trying to garner more interest in reading.
It is especially popular to create trailers for teen books, they are at an age where movies and movie stars are very popular. I recently went to a local high school to do booktalks with the high school librarian. We tried to be as funny and entertaining as possible but the teens positively perked up when we told they we were going to be showing book trailers!
You can check out the 2008 Teen Book Video Awards here. I also recommend Libba Bray's A Great a Terrible Beauty trailer, which was part of the 2006 Teen Book Video Awards. Find it here. A lot of tech savvy teens have been breaking out their video recorders and creating their own book trailers. Enjoy the show!

Thing #6

This lovely "Thing" was created by Spell with flickr. Which I learned about today while playing around with Flickr. Who knew that one could create so many interesting things with a bunch of photographs. For example, create your own trading card here and here you can integrate your photos into maps.

There is a lot of terminology to learn when one is trying to figure out 2.0 tools. Mashup, for instance. Who came up with that?

Anyway, "Spell with flickr" is a fun site where you enter a word you want "spelled" with Flickr. The creator decided to use Flickr's web developer's tools to create a code to take photos from a couple of groups to create this fancy lettering. He also provides the code for free on his site. Neat stuff!

An-In-Between-The-Numbers-Post

So a lot of people have been talking about the demise of libraries. Are libraries worth tax dollars, are libraries going to still exist in 15 years? (And if not, why am I going to library school...)
I dislike these questions. Its not that I don't think this is important for people to discuss, I just think it has been done to death. The end of libraries was predicted...when? Twenty years ago? How did that work out? E-books were supposed to be the next big thing, the Internet was going to take over the library (anyone read Feed by M.T. Anderson?)...
I feel that the more librarians dwell on this the more time we waste where we could be getting things done. If we start getting panicky over losing patrons and losing tax dollars, it will happen. Because we are NOT spending that time worrying about acquiring new patrons, planning new programs, creating incentives to get children, teens, and adults into the library. Librarians need to be proactive. Get your library a blog, figure out RSS feeds and "chat reference." Make yourself useful dammit.
Alright, I'm done ranting. Really, what I'm promoting is positive thinking and forward acting. Lets suck it up librarians and show Google what service is.

Thing # 5

oshkosh
Originally uploaded by 23 Things Account

I took this picture last holiday season, it is the front of the Oshkosh Public Library. The two lions, Sawyer and Harrison, are festive and make me happy.
Know what else makes me happy? Flickr.
I like the photo sharing site. I can see using it for programs at the library I work at. We are always running out of space on our camera and have to quick delete photos when we need to take more. Now that I know more about Flickr I'd be more than willing to start our library's account. I like that you can have some of your pictures remain hidden and others can be for public viewing. Now I know a little more about Flickr, just in case patrons have questions about it.

Things #3 and #4

Thing number 3: set up blog. Done.
Thing number 4: join the party.

So I resisted blogging for a while. When blogging shoved I shoved back. But I finally gave in. I started a blog a year or so ago to keep track of what books I was reading and to stay in contact with some friends from Illinois (who kept asking me: what are you reading?). So I killed two birds with one stone. Then lost interest. It was a lot of work and almost stopped completely. Then I looked at the number of people that had viewed my profile and was back hard at work. I now have started up blog number 2 and 3 (both for classes). I find that I like playing around with layouts and backgrounds. Now I am excited that during this class I will learn how to make my blogs even more interactive and fun. I'm ready!

Thing #2: Lifelong Learning and Learning 2.0

PLCMC created a nifty little tutorial that discusses the 7 & 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners. The Habits are:

1. Begin with the end in mind
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning
3. View problems as challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
5. Create your own learning toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
7. Teach/mentor others
1/2. Play

For me, I think I have the easiest time with Habit #3. Problems arise during any learning experience and I think I handle them well. I have the most difficulty with Habit #4. I think I get down on myself and distrust my abilities often. I would also like to work more on Habit #6 and really take advantage of technology.

1st Thing First

Hello and Welcome! This is a blog to discuss and try out my Library 2.0 skills. The title comes from a project created by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) that was designed to help people discover new technologies and learn about Web 2.0.
PLCMC wanted their staff members to learn about new web devices and created this challenge to inspire learning. If you are interested in reading more, see the link in the side bar.