Week 9, #23 - I'm done!

Unbelievable! I'm finally finished. First of all, this whole thing took many more hours than we were told it would take. The exercises which required us to be creative or to come up with a list of websites to do something with took me hours because I am not creative. I would DEFINITELY change the course to provide examples that non-creative students could use to practice the technology. I am glad that I was exposed to all of this new technology, but I doubt if I will use most of it. A lot of weeks, all I could think is that there are a lot of people out there who are spending WAY too much time on their computer. People need to walk a dog, get outside, get some exercise, talk to REAL PEOPLE. But yes, if a follow-up course is offered and I can earn CEUs, I would take another course. Hopefully, the format of the next one will be improved.

Week 9, #22 - Audio books

I had to explore Project Gutenberg because our library does not subscribe to the other two sites. I found several books that I would like to download, including the books on the Wizard of Oz, and Jane Austen's works. In fact, I would love to volunteer with Librivox to record more audiobooks that are in the public domain.

Week 9, #21 - Podcasts

I found some podcasts that were book reviews recorded by teens. I think that that would be a wonderful way to get students more involved in the library and reading.

Week 9, #20 - YouTube, ITube, WeallTube

Here is my proposed solution to all staffing shortage problems in our library system.




Regarding my opinion of the YouTube site, there is a lot of material on there that would be inappropriate for a library website. However, some people feel free to be very creative there.

Week 8, #19 - Web 2.0 Award-winning Site

I explored Yahoo Answers since, as a reference librarian, I provide answers for people. I found a lot of strange questions and answers on the site. The idea is for anyone to answer your question, so you have no idea whether they know what they are talking about or not. I could imagine some use in a library setting, for example in answering questions that would require local information from somewhere else. If a patron had a question about Montana or Minnesota, it might be possible to get information through Yahoo Answers. Again, you would have to be able to verify the information.

Week 8, #18 - Online Productivity Tools

I love the idea of having a document which other people could access from anywhere (if that is what you want and/or need). I explored Google Docs. It has most of the basic features of MS Word, with the advantage that documents can easily be shared. You would need to be careful to not do anything confidential, in terms of patrons or personnel, because the document is being saved on the Google server. You are also becoming more dependent on Google, so if they decided to start charging for the service in the future, you would have to pay them to continue using your documents.

Week 7, #17 - Sandbox Wiki

I added my blog to the list of Favorite Blogs in the Maryland Libraries Sandbox yesterday. I don't know what to say except that it was easy to do. I didn't follow our instructions exactly. I just copied and pasted the URL into a new, blank line. I hope that that worked.

Week 7, #16 - Wiki

Several of the library wikis that I looked at had information which is similar to what we put on our website. I guess the advantage of a wiki is that all members of the staff could add to the wiki, and update their subject area. Other really neat library uses are to allow members of the public to post book reviews. You would just need to be able to control any inappropriate content.

Week 6, #15 - Library 2.0

I read all of the articles, but I really enjoyed the article called “To a temporary place in time”. I loved the thought that in the future people “will collect librarians”, that we might receive ratings on how well we help answer questions, and that we could be popular or unpopular based on our success rating. What an amazing idea!
Library 2.0 means that we would encourage participation from our patrons, perhaps attaching extra tags or subject headings or reviews to book records in the PAC.

Week 6, #14 - Technorati

I did the keyword searching all three different ways, and the results were very different. The thing that surprised me most about the top searches is that I didn’t recognize a third of the names and terms. I try to stay on top of current events, but apparently a fairly specialized group of people is searching using Technorati.

Week 6, #13 - Del.icio.us

Like most of these exercises, I can understand why some people would find this truly Del.icio.us and find it to be the most useful thing ever, but in my life it has no current application. If I bookmarked a lot of sites and wanted to be able to access them from multiple computers, it would be useful, but I don’t do that. Anyone who did a lot of research on the Internet accessing publicly available articles might also find it useful. I just don’t do much of that right now. I am glad to know about this, both so that I can speak intelligently with techno-savvy people, and because I might find it useful in the future.

Week 5, #12 - Rollyo

I spend so much time doing the exploring, that I have fallen behind on my posts.

Rollyo would be more useful if I had been anxious to find a way to search several websites at once, which I have not really needed to do. This might be more useful to me in the future than it is now.
http://rollyo.com/ponyahhn/ashealthsearch/

Week 5, #11 - LibraryThing

It will take me a while to build up my library, but it is fascinating to be referred to similar books. I will have to explore this in terms of reader’s advisory. I am not always happy with Novelist, and of course it doesn’t cover non-fiction.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ponyahhn

Attempting another image generator

Week 5, Thing 10: Avatar-land

I was sooooo excited that I could have a penguin on a leash, and make a certain other staff person pea-green with envy! This could be the perfect pet.

Week 4, Thing 9: Search tools to find feeds

Maybe it’s just me, but Feedster was useless for my purposes. I don’t like any of the sites brought up, and many of the pages just repeat the previous page. Am I doing something wrong? So many news stories end up being repeated, because multiple local papers picked up the same story, and then I have to wade through the repeats. I probably also am looking for topics that are best Googled. Syndic8 didn’t pull up anything useful. Technorati pulled up more interesting information, but I don’t anticipate using it after this course is finished.

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS feeds

I created my Bloglines account last week, and have been using it. I don’t see this as something that I would necessarily use in the long run. First, I like looking at the websites of the major news organizations. They have photographs, and they have tried to arrange their website to be user-friendly. I actually find the individual sites to be much more interesting and user-friendly than Bloglines itself. As for ads, I just don’t see them. Secondly, there are so many new stories or changes that the amount of stuff to weed through in Bloglines is overwhelming. The idea of a feed which will pull out only new items probably makes more sense for a website with fewer changes than a major news website with regular, major changes. Also, I didn't add many blogs to my list. That might make a big difference.

Week 3, Thing 7: Technology-related entry

This may seem like a strange technology observation, but I was searching the Washington County catalog yesterday for foreign films for one of our patrons. Most of the films that came up were available only as electronic downloads. The problem with that is twofold: 1. We can’t borrow them interlibrary loan. Someone has to have a Washington County library card in order to access them. 2. Our patron wanted a VHS tape ideally. She didn’t even want a DVD, let alone an electronic download. Many people do not have the equipment to download materials. This will be one more way in which the poorest and least educated members of our society will be discriminated against.

I had a similar experience last month. I was looking for books on thyroid problems, and the newest edition in Hagerstown was a downloadable book, not available to interlibrary loan. As more libraries subscribe to audiobooks, books and movies that are downloaded, we will have more trouble using ILL to obtain materials for patrons.

Week 3, Thing 6: Flickr mashups, etc.

Flickr mashups etc. – I think that these would interest me more if I were an artist. It’s interesting that you can find Flickr photos that match a particular color that you choose, but I can’t imagine any actual situation in which I would use it. I couldn’t make some of the other websites work. This is from Colr Pickr.

Week 3, Thing 5: My friend Flickr

I can't believe the variety of pictures on Flickr. I’m not much of a photographer, and a lot of these look very professional. I understand the idea of groups, etc., but I don’t know how people can keep up with the flood of pictures. Everyone tries to make their group sound like it is the most exclusive, but surely a novice would have to examine them all and reach her or his own conclusion. I think that I could spend a lot of time looking through all of the amazing pictures on here.

Week 2, Thing 3: My First Post

I had trouble thinking of a screen name, but Bill, the pony-less child, was an inspiration. I will be learning as I go along here.

Regarding the 7 1/2 habits, I find the easiest habit is having confidence that I am a competent and effective learner. I always did well in school, and have never doubted my ability to learn.

I think that I have the most difficulty with creating my own learning toolbox.