Thing 22 Keeping Up

Yes, I've learned so much since mid January when I started my first blog for 23 Things. I feel I can make a decent attempt of using some of the tools that I've explored. I haven't learned as much as would have liked because there just wasn't time at work to do it so I've been doing my best by my lonely at home. But I'm proud I struggled on, even if sometimes it wasn't going as deeply as I should have.
However, I am skeptical at how much I will use RSS or other delivery devices to "keep up". I had subscribed to a newsy email from SLJ and probably read a couple of them before just regularly deleting them. There's just too much to do and your current work problem keeps you busy enough at work to take up all your time. I will try to keep following Things at home but acknowledge that the deadlines and the common purpose in the Neflin program did motivate me to spend hours of my "home" time at it. However I liked reading the Shifted Librarian and the presentation on ways to keep up.
Okay, I'm being negative here and that's not the right attitude and I should be saying I will find the time in my work day. Yes, I will but it will probably be to keep current with the latest thing we have to know/do for my job -- evance or adding Flickr photos to the Branch webpage, or sending out publicity for our events or trying downloading for myself so I can help people. Just responding to email at work keeps me extremely busy and if you're very busy with 2.0 Things you might just miss out on keeping up with people or never get around to doing your Library .1 responsibility -- remember shelfreading?
I hope the NEFLIN blogs will stay there so I can check in with more of them. And I'd like to go back into some of the Things to do them more deeply.

Thing 21 Student 2.0

I think that with any self-help tool the person receiving it has to be interested in receiving the help. This is true with these outlines and calculators of progress and of course Thingers had to be at least mildly motivated in learning 23 things before Jennifer's updates and any deadlines would be of any assistance in getting people going. That said, this is a handy compendium of useful tools that I am glad to become aware of. I used to give programs to help students find materials in the library for their research papers. I would include these to hand out if I ever gave one again but it's unlikely -- students just didn't show up. But if the subject came up when I was helping someone, I'd point them in this direction. Sheets of tips are always useful.

Thing 20 Books 2.0

Once again, overwhelmed by the amount of info and sites out there. Do you think that people are creating book-related social networking sites instead of reading?

Glad to hear that reading is up.
Kindles in libraries - sounds challenging to arrange but I'm all for it if the problems about circulation issues can be worked out.
Books on my phone -- this doesn't interest me at all but maybe because I've become an audiobook lover and would rather just plug in my earbuds and listen off my phone. But I think this is probably the future with young people. I went to Japan and even though the manga museum was full of fans reading traditional books they said the format was moving to having them published in phone form.

We've been using "What should I read Next" for a long time for readers' advisory. What's Next is a great tool as well although I've noticed some lapses in it and no longer take it for the be all in answering reference questions about what book is next.

Loved the Reading group choices sites -- great for our patrons who are avid book clubbers. Read up on my latest listen/read, Edgar Sawtelle, and enjoyed the reviews and comments on the book. LitLovers had alot of possibilities too.
The free download of books might be worth looking at when we've got high schoolers panicked about summer reading assignments and the hardbacks are gone.

Other blogs ways more thoughtful and insightful than mine. Nice to read thoughts of my co-workers -- I'm very impressed.

thing 19 Other Social Networking Sites

I'm not a big fan of being involved with social networking in a big way. I have known about it for a long time because my son developed a site and then sold the company last December and we heard about it and used it though it was mostly popular with teens. It appealed to those who wanted to spill secrets anonymously but your friends were always trying to guess who was saying what because of course alot of it was pretty juicy.
I just used Ning to look into storytelling and found a nice network for storytelling information. Looked again at WebJunction. Looked at the book search networks also and read some comments about a book I just finished. I didn't find the comments any better than the ones you read on Amazon but I didn't sign on.
These things are amazingly numerous and cover so many things. Gee, I just have to quit my job so I have time to network.... (Feeling overwhelmed)

Thing 18 Facebook

I've been facebooking for a while. I got started when my kids posted photos there and told me to get into it to see them. But I lapsed and just recently got more active about getting in when I suddenly got friended by many of my co-workers and their friends so it has been alot more interesting lately. I can spend alot of time at it so I have to back off and stop after a while because it isn't always productive. My email gets full of Facebook notifications; yes, I know I can control that but that's like turning away from a good story when you're on your way to work but you hear a tidbit while passing in the hall.
I've gotten good information and have enjoyed it.
Professional use? I'm not sure yet. I am getting book tips from a librarian friend who posts her favorite reads and that's good. I don't "get" the library as a friend on either Facebook or My Space but it was good to see that ACLD is represented. I guess you could get notifications of our news and programs that way but it doesn't look like anyone is keeping it current.
I think social networking is great and I heard a news program today say that with the economic climate the way it is we're probably going to end up spending even more time at it because it is good cheap fun and many of us will have less $ to allot to entertainment.

Followers, check out online comic Flat Philosophy.
www.kianmckellar.com

I now have two sets of NPR podcasts available off my Yahoo page. I'll never lack for interesting listening.

Thing 17 Podcasts

I've been interested in podcasts because I'm a NPR fan -- I like listening to their radio broadcasts. I am familiar with their website and love to pass on their audio commentaries to friends and family when they are interesting. So I listened to a Fresh Air broadcast and have put a link to this program which is on air 5 days a week on my browser view. I'll be able to easily listen to the noontime broadcasts whenever I want to from my computer. Then I tried to download one of the programs to my MP3 player and wasn't successful. It seems to synchronize up to 50% and then disappears. I should have enough space on it so I don't know what's the problem. I'll try again.

I was frustrated that my YouTube broadcast was squeezed into the rectangular box but now I realize that it's just a teaser and you click on it to link to the video.

I love to listen and love using my MP3 player for books so it's an easy leap for me to go to podcasts. I just have to get to the point where I find it an easy task to download and that'll come. It took me a while to do books from the library catalog but now I do it without trouble.

It was good to look through all the offerings on the podcast sites. Mind boggling what's out there.

Thing 16 You Tube

I brought in a You Tube video of a storyteller I admire but somehow it came in a long rectangle on the side of the blog. Not very successful to view but I was pleased again that my copying html worked. Have to re-do. (I took it off and will try again.)
I enjoyed the library tours, jokes, musical, etc. Would love to have a funny library tour on our website but it would take some good writing and filming.

thing 15 Rollyo

Well, I feel triumphant that I copied and pasted the html for Rollyo into my blog successfully after it not working with Library Thing.
I did like the readymade grouping of great websites for travel. I will definitely be checking there to prepare for the next trip for wanderwoman.
I am amused by the Star power website gatherers -- funny to see what celebrities are using for their website surfing but probably it's just Rollyo doing some marketing.
I can definitely see that Rollyo could be used at the reference desk. In a sense we have it already in our bookmark collection but this is a great way to personalize and winnow out what you really use and find valuable.

Thing 13

Library Thing
Very interesting-- I've wondered about it so I was glad to be introduced to its possibilities. I like knowing that I can add book covers to my posts. I signed in and took the tour. I do feel like saying that instead of doing Library Thing "I'd rather be Reading" but it's a valuable tool. I did look up the book I had just started and the postings immediately told me more than I wanted to know. Spoilers on the plot. I do like the announcements of what's happening locally in the book world.

thing 13

My attempt at using html to add a Library Thing widget didn't work out so well. I'll see about getting help.

Thing 14

I admit it- these things left me cold. I have done a MY Yahoo page and use it to check on some of the things I want to know about repeatedly. But an online to do list and a countdown widget just smack of overproduction for me. I put stuff in my Outlook calendar at work for other people but really prefer the old paper version. Writing things down imprints them in my memory and I don't want a computer to be on all the time so why do all this stuff online? I suppose the sharing part might be useful but again, there are some of my staff who don't check in online often enough to make this workable.

Thing 12

Wikis--
I do agree with the teachers asking students to look further than wikipedia when doing the usual school report that is easily findable in a more authoritative source. They should be teaching the kids to look further than than their noses (ie a google search that brings up a wikipedia article)-- that's what school is for and they should be establishing good habits they'll hold onto.

Hey, I confess I have read Wikipedia articles -- sometimes it's the only place to find out about a defunct tv series or some celebrity gossip. I admire it for its far-reaching subject matter --there's lots of stuff that only a wikipedist will cover.
Of course all this self publishing and treating everyone in hearing range to your telephone conversations is a change for society that we won't understand the impact of for decades.

I added a comment to the 23things Wiki. Just an exercise to join my comment and my name to others I saw there.

I have tried the floating collection wiki we're using at work. Good idea in theory and I admire the creator for putting it up. Wikis have amazing potential if you have avid followers. My son (sorry if you're tired of hearing about them, folks) used a wiki to plan a group camping trip to great advantage.

I read through the library practices wiki and some of the others. Some looked like they had been started and abandoned or at least didn't seem recently used. I can see that easily happening. I will have to think hard about doing anything like that because it seems that once on the web, always on the web and I don't find abandoned property desirable.

Thing 11

I think Common Craft is awesome -- they do a fabulous job of boiling things down.

Social Media. I was familiar with Reddit already because my son uses it and he had recommended it to me. I hadn't taken the tour until now though and my reactions was not as positive as when Paul showed me his Reddit page. The conclusion I would make now is that you have to choose your content according to your interests and refine it to what you'll enjoy reading because otherwise it would be overwhelming and be altogether too much. Sort of like receiving a Sunday New York Times every day and feeling guilty that you haven't got time to read all the fascinating articles. But on watching him, he gets it up on his iphone and thus never is at a loss for news articles to read wherever he is.

Looked at the other choices. I'm not motivated personally to use these for myself -- part of it is that doing these Things I've found myself using hours of my off time on the computer every night getting lost looking at blogs and sites I wasn't aware of before. That's not bad but it is a huge user of time. So I guess the answer to the blog prompt is - productivity detractor

I don't know how I'd use this for the Library but I'm glad to have explored it some.

Thing 10 continued

Yes, I too wanted to explore delicious since I've heard it bandied about since forever. I established an account on one computer and happily found my delicious bookmarks when I went to another. Very handy especially since I do travel and use multiple computers.
I looked at Lansing Public's bookmarks and thought we too could use delicious to organize our public library bookmarks. The only drawback being that reference librarians can go wild adding bookmarks and then there's just too much to go through. I know, I know, the tags are there to keep it organized but I'm still more comfortable looking through fewer well selected bookmarks than 100's. I'd rather just search for a website that satisfies a patron's needs than go through a co-worker's delicious tags but of course if it was my delicious list, then I'd know what was there was eminently helpful. So that means that I will make my own great reference list with great tags and then sign into delicious every time I am on a public service desk. That is, of course, possible and maybe it'll happen.
I'm glad to have been pushed by 23 things into exploring delicious.
I haven't yet seen the value of looking into other people's great bookmark collection but I know I can do it and will if the situation calls for it.

Thing 10

It took me two nights of beating myself up to accomplish Thing 9 and 10 isn't coming easily either. I couldn't find the labels place in the edit view on the blog but now I see an option for a label at the bottom of this. I'll see if it works.

Thing 9 - trying again

Thing 9

I tried two ways to create a flickr badge but I must not be cutting and pasting the code properly. I'll see if I can get help. I end up getting error messages that the blog will not accept the HTML I put in.

Thing 8

I signed up for Twitter just to see my reaction to it. (My son wrote that the "mom barrier" had been broken :). Not impressed so far. I am following 4 people and can't say there is much of interest. However my facebook account is getting more stuff in it now that friends are reporting their activities- I can see that being something I am will watch more often.
I do Ask a Librarian chat and have IMed with my sons. I have watched over their shoulders as they IM with 4 people at a time. At least you never feel that you are missing a call...
Library purposes? AAL serves a function -- especially the afterhours contact when most libraries are not answering their phones. I guess we can twitter our news just like we can blog it. "Guitar hero starting up"? We could give instructions on downloading audiobooks on IM. But I still like hearing people ask their questions on the phone. Voice inflections are better than emoticons.
I think AAL attracts customers who really don't have a clue and would feel foolish calling so they like the anonymity of asking questions online. So again AAL serves a purpose.
My family has gone in strongly for a genealogy social networking website called Geni -- we're having fun adding stuff and figuring out the birth order of the generation who landed in this country 100 years ago-- good we're starting now before their children are completely gone. I applaud Geni for getting us started on something we've talked about for years. Maybe I'll do a library program on it if I feel comfortable enough....

Thing 7 Captioner

Okay, this time here's a photo with the caption attached.

This feature will be very useful for captioning library activity photos. We can use it to advertise what we do on our Branch website.

Thing 6 -- Big Huge Labs Captioner

http://bighugelabs.com/photos/01ca749bdd7e93e09c0b531ad6575b08/captioner1019420

Okay, I thought that the captioned photo would materialize but I guess there's only the link to it. I guess next time I should save the captioned photo in my Flickr account or on my computer and then I can add it directly to my blog.
Also I tried for almost an hour to get a slide show of the library going and was frustrated. I'll have to ask for help.

Thing 6

wanderwoman's travels

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Wow, the list of Flickr apps is overwhelming!! Too much to absorb but plenty to play with if you have the inclination. The Map Maker feature attracted me because, of course, I am wanderwoman. Always ready to travel....
My sister's map would be almost entirely blue.
Okay, I'm going to have to go back and explore more applications that we can use in the Library but it would be fun to use the map maker with a group of senior citizens and have them fill in countries as we talked about their life experiences.
I think it an accomplishment when all I do is download photos succesfully but I want to get back in and do the captioning and the mapping of photos. Sounds like a good idea -- would help jar my memory in my personal life.

Thing 5

As I commented in my posting, I need to be careful about sending things from Flickr to the blog because it's hard to change once they are posted.
However, I'm very glad to have gotten my feet wet with Flickr. It's something I've wanted to try for a long time.
It will be very useful to have a link to Flickr when we get into our Branch page production. I have no idea how many people will look at a Branch page but having more information out there about what we're doing can only be a good thing.

AlachuaLibrary 001

AlachuaLibrary 001
Originally uploaded by carylmckellar

Thing 5
Here is the entrance to the Snuggle Up Center at Alachua Library. I established a Flickr account and add some library shots. We should have photos on our branch page.

Thing 4

I set up Google Reader and added two subscriptions -- Market Watch and the NYTimes Carpetbagger. Yes, I'm interested in Oscar buzz (guilty secret :). I am realizing that this is not so new to me because I have had a "MY Yahoo" page for months and added stuff I wanted to see there. Not blogs but news and websites I wanted to follow. It's been very useful to have that content up there and changing daily without any effort.

I can see that RSS will be handy in the library if we can use it to broadcast information to our avid patrons. Programming for those parents who really follow our free offerings, materials we've added, etc.

I can never remember the hints on what we might put in these posts when I'm blogging so that's my excuse for content-thin blogs on each Thing.
I can see where RSS would really eat into your time. I have had this conversation with my addicted son who watches his iphone constantly for updates on everything.

thing 3

I used the blog search engines for "storytelling" "storytelling Jonesborough". Google was more useful the first time but the second time with Technorati "Jonesborough" brought me videos from YouTube of well known tellers which made me happy. Interesting that they are using YouTube to promote themselves -- the stories stop early to whet your whistle for the teller. The rest of the blogs I found just were boring travel blogs about people's experience at the national festival which is all well and good but not exciting reading. That's what I have against alot of blogs -- diaries important to their writers but not worth my limited internet time.
Went into Ask.com too and tried my sons' names. Did find the older one since he was recognized as a source for people investigating social networking. So I have that connection to Web 2.0 -- we've gone through him developing his website, it becoming an applicaton on Facebook, and then he sold it in January. He received dozens of comments bemoaning him leaving -- that was very nice. But here I am being a proud mom. Better get back to Library 2.0 instead :).

Thing 2
I finally caught up at work with the things I had to do there and worked the weekend. Now after being back and working 7 days I can spend my day at home and can get around to 23 things. But I'm not complaining. It's what I expected to do and I am intrigued with it.
Read about 2.0 and watched the video finally. Not much to say other than what I said before. I would like to be more helpful to patrons and want to do the Branch's website and not depend on others so much. Looking forward to Flickr.

Read about Library 2.0 but didn't watch the video yet because I'm in the library and keep forgetting my headphones.  I don't have much of substance to add to the posts that are there.  I guess I'd like to shadow a librarian who is fully aware of 2.0 features and see how he/she operates and assists her patrons.  That would help me enormously since i learn best that way.  I'm afraid so far I only see patrons who are asking for basic stuff so I am comfortable with and happy with my responses as a librarian offering services so far but things will be changing.  23 things is making me happy because I can learn about things my sons have been using for a long time.

Also went ahead to thing 3 because I wanted to search blogs.  tried storytelling and the google search engine was far superior to technorati.  Found something useful. will go back to try again.

I will add some blogs of my co-workers to follow.  

i'm about to expose my newbie status but my co-workers know this well so what the heck.  I am now in the Santa Fe New mexico public library using my husband's Macbook and on their WiFI.  First time, folks!  

I will try to get to Thing 2 because I worry about falling behind since I'm on vacation.  But I'm having a great time here so I'm not TOO sorry.

I'm on vacation in Santa Fe, NM. I wanted to continue with my 23 things but am frustrated by the lack of internet at the resort I'm staying at. Only a half hour a day on the lobby computers -- that's pathetic.

I did check out the public library and might use their computer tomorrow but have to put aside sight-seeing to do it.

Great to be able to watch the inauguration this morning.

HOpe it has warmed up in Florida.

Lots of people at the Branch trying this out. If 7 people get to at least five things we are doing a pizza party - a bit of motivation -- but I think that everyone being in the same boat has more to do with us proceeding with it than just the food.
It would be nice to find some blogs worth reading. So far I'm not impressed with the content of the ones I've tried out. But it's obvious when you open one who's blogged before.

As with alot of my co-workers I am trying out a blog for the 23 Things project. It will introduce me to some things I have never used before. I've even gotten a gmail account -- something my techie sons have been advocating for ever but I've been so fond of the yahoo mail that I started with that I never changed. We'll see if I switch over.

Off for a vacation on Thursday but I'll try to continue the 23 nevertheless. I've borrowed a laptop to try so that'll be something new as well. I'll see if the WiFI in the public library in the city I'm visiting will work for me.

Enough for now.