Reflections (#23)

Overall this was a useful activity. I enjoyed learning what I did and would do it again. Here are some things that I learned along the way:

1. Three things that I like and will probably continue to use: Yelp., LibraryThing and del.icio.us.
2. 23 things are a lot (not as many as 43, of course). I really only accomplish three things on any given day and to do one of the 23 seems like major progress. I wasn't intimidated at all about the technology but I was intimidated the the number of things involved.


3. Get it done quickly, before getting interrupted and forgetting. I have obscene amounts of drafts for these posts that never got published. And I still have to go back through them to be sure I really am done. I would be really frustrated with this if I was really new to the technology or if I was trying really hard to learn it all. Seriously, some of the simplest things took hours to go to all the sites, sign on, figure out what to do, help a patron, go to all the sites, sign on, figure out what to do, help a patron, repeat as neccessary.


4. There is generator for almost anything! Images, jokes, stories, oh my! Fun.


5. Adding images to the blog is the best part, but I am too concerned with copyright (it's like Catholic guilt) to really have much fun. Most of the images are from the .gov. zzzzzzzzzzzz. I suppose I could find images on flickr and email the owners for permission...how many more things is that?

2.0 Awards

I looked at the city guide called Yelp. for places to go, things to do, things to see in Seattle. It is kind of like a cross between CityPages and City Search. It has restaurants, music, movies, etc. like City Pages, but it also has reviews like City Search. It seems like by combining just the general info. on what's happening with user added reviews, you can get a good idea of what places are like and when the best time to go is. People can also make lists of their favorites, you can browse by topic and you can browse this week's events. And it also maps the location for you. Lots of good info!

Future of 2.0 #18

I quickly read all the articles from OCLC's Nextspace and here's what I picked up:

1. Because of 2.0 applications, people are able to participate more in the way information is created, organized, accessed and shared. Libraries and librarians aren't the "keepers" of information (were we ever?). People's attitudes and expectations regarding information are changing, as well as their attitudes and expectations of libraries.
2. 2.0 applications are tools. They can help create connections between people and information and libraries. They aren't very useful with out content or without users.

Changing expectations towards libraries means that libraries need to become more customer oriented and adapt to our fast paced world. Libraries take on a new role as a public and community space. I think that is already one of our many roles. But our role of a place to go for information, books, magazines, music and movies isn't going to change for a long time. If anything, people will have raised expectations that we have everything they want when they walk through the door.

Google Docs

I'm writing this on Google Docs. I'd used ZoHo writer before when we had to to a group paper for a class. Group papers are logistic nightmares! And I'd used Zoho's presentation for another group project. I wasn't too impressed with it, though that was a couple years ago and I'm sure things have changed. Our problem was that we wanted to make nice handouts with the slides, like you can with PowerPoint, but we had to print the slided individually instead. Hopefully they've changed it.

Anyway, here I am with Google Docs. The presentation application seems pretty easy and you can choose different backgrounds, which is nice. You can also print, but again only 2 fit on a page rather than 6 or 9. The spreadsheet seems to have everything that I would need in a spreadsheet. I'm not an advanced excel user, so I'm happy with an easier version. As far as this writing program goes, I like that it saves automatically every so often. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to have spellchekk that works well/often. That could get me into trubble.

SandBox Wiki

Yeah, it was pretty easy. I kept wanting to add a link to the text rather than text to the link. Eventually it worked out. I didn't try any of the tutorials but that would have been the next step.

Wiki Kwiki

Wikis. I think they are a really great, democratic tool for organizing and deseminating information. Power to the people!
It seems that there is a critical mass of information. Otherwise, it really isn't doing much. Why not have a blog? I think the Library Success Wiki is and excellent example of one that is ...successful.
The thing that I don't like about wikis is that most of them look the same. They are very stark, white and uninviting. The BookLoversWiki is an exception. I like it! I just wish there were more books on it - that critical mass thing I was talking about earlier.

Tagging thing #17

I keep getting interupted while working on this one. And I just don't feel a stick-to-it-ness about this thing. Tagging I think is great. People should be able to organize information in ways that make sense to them. Duh. But then there are also people who will tag everything so that they fit into certain categories, like me. My cell groups: family, friends, work, other. That's all I need to keep myself organized, especially since I know what information I have entered. My LibraryThing tags: children's, teen, romance, fairytale. The group of everything else is small enough for me to manage.
The problem with tags is that most people probably don't do it with other people in mind. Look under "interesting" in del.icio.us and you'll find lots of crap that isn't interesting at all. This is why I don't think that tags or folksonomy should be the only way of organizing information that is meant to be accessible to everyone, like a library catalog. It might be a nice way to supplement a catalog with more user-friendly language, but it shouldn't be the only organizational system. LC still rocks!

mine are delicious

I like del.icio.us as a way of keeping track of my favorite websites and organizing them a little. It was particularly useful when I was going to school, because I could just save all the pages I was looking at. I guess I don't really care about the social aspect of bookmarking. But there are a few others that I linked to because I thought their websites are good. Mostly, I look at other people's bookmarks and then take them as my own. Ha-ha-ha (evil laughter).

My Rollyo

My search engine is called fun in Seattle. The idea is that I can look for tours, shows, events, dining and other fun stuff for my vacation. Yay. Of course, I used Google to find the websites to add to my search engine.

I think it works well. But one problem is that some of the sites feature travel in other places too. So my "winery tour" search found tours in other areas as well as Seattle.

I'm planning to have dinner at the top of the space needle.

Rollyo

I haven't started yet, but I wish I would have know about this tool when I was planning my wedding. I used del.ico.us instead.

Library Things

So I don't really get the point of cataloging the books that I own. I seriously only own about 10 books. I work at a library, can check out any book that I need on any day of the week AND they are already cataloged!

But what I DO like is that I can keep a list of the books that I've read recently. That way I don't have to remember. And I can go back to the list if I want to recommend something or read more of an author. Plus it is fun to see all the covers.

Another Thing about Image Generators

Okay, it was really fun! The generator blog had some really neat things. You could generate images, jokes, poetry--all sorts of things. The problem that I had with most of them is that I could print off the image/joke/poetry/whatever, but couldn't save or copy. So I have nothing to show for all of my hard, hard work. It's a crying shame.

Fun.

Image generators are fun. The generator blog was especially fun to play at.

Playing

Okay, I think I'm just not ready to settle down with any blogs or RSS's out there. I'm playing the field, having lots of fun, having flings with all kinds of blogs and sites with RSS's. Great. I found lots of celebrity gossip blogs (Joey McIntyre has a new kid on the block!) and sites with the latest news on health and nutrition. I tried both technorati and topix for blogs and news feeds to find this stuff. But am I ready to be serious about reading any of them? Absolutely not. I can always find more like them. Or not, which would be fine.

my bloglines story

Okay, so about a year ago (maybe 2, I can't remember) I started a bloglines account because it was "the 2.o thing to do" and, you know, I'm hip with that. I had about 15 feeds, which I checked religiously for about a week. And then I had't checked them again until this week because, you know, I'm hip with that...again. There were about 6,000 new entries. Luckily you can dump them all with just a couple clicks to tidy up your account. Now I have only 10 feeds. I plan on checking them and dumping all the updates sometime around 2010, or when I need to feel 2.0 hip again.

Calorie Mate Excitement

Chocolate Winner!

Yay! Thanks for the fun contest, fun in the library. I was very determined to win, and smoked the competition...well, I don't know if anyone else participated. But it was fun...in the library. We work with such interesting people!

The image is of the new $25,000 chocolate dessert. I did not win this. But the truffles were quite lovely!

e-audiobooks

So I went to Net-library to download an e-audio book to put on my MP3 player. I decided to do a short one that was supposed to take 10 minutes to download onto my flashdrive. Of course it took longer--the last 23 seconds took 3 minutes! But it eventually got saved.

Later...I copied the file from the flashdrive to a folder on my computer by clicking and dragging. So far so good. WMP automatically opened saying that I need to obtain the license. Got it, no problem!

But then I wanted to syncronize it to my MP3 player. I had to get it onto the sync list. I clicked all over until something worked. Then I hit the start sync button and an error message popped up, saying the file isn't in the correct format. Grr. It is. That's why it took forever to download in the first place. Then I tried it again. And again. Then I restarted the computer. And tried it again. This time when I tried syncing it worked!

I don't know how it worked but I'll take it. I'm not sure how I'll explain that to confused patrons...

Not Much. You?*

I looked at Podcast Directory and I just didn't like the design (or lack) of the website. So yes, there was information but there were also a bunch of ads which blended right in with the rest of the page. Podcast Alley suited my aethetic much better. The search tool was easy to find, navigation was easy and there were some featured podcasts that were interesting. But I wish that the directories had short descriptions of the podcasts.

I was happy to find on the NPR directory, that the Whad Ya Know? Show -All the News that Isn't, which I grew up listening to every Saturday morning, podcasts its shows and has an audio archive of the past year's shows. Good ol' Wisconsin entertainment!

*The answer to the question "Whad ya know?" is "Not much. You?"

U2ba

YouTube time is like restaurant math. It took 5 minutes to watch something that was 1 min and 40 sec. And I'm afraid I'll disturb people if I turn the sound up, so it makes the 5 minutes seem like 6 1/2 minutes.

BUT I learned about CalorieMate :) Have look. Dramatic, eh? There's a series of them. Here is more info on Calorie Mate. Mmm. Everything the body needs...

Oh, and it is searchable through google. Just type in "calorie mate" to find more commercials. Awesome.

Technology Related

I turned into a cow. Well, I didn't but this online persona did. Why? I didn't want my pumpkin-head image to get mixed up with all the other pumpkin-heads out there this time of year. And my husband's favorite animal is the cow. I'n't that sweet.

Mashups are cool. I googled "flickr mashups" and found a top 10 list. Probably the same thing everyone else did. Some were fun but wouldn't ever use--even for fun. And some I would use for fun, like spelling with flickr. Yeah, it's nerdy but still fun.

One think that is kind of annoying me is that I wanted to change the colors of my template to be more scary, and I was only able to change the color of the text. Grrr. Now I'm tempted to change the html, but that will probably be a larger project than what I really want.

Learning 2.0 begins

Hi! So I've tried this before, and feel somewhat 2.o literate. But I'm looking forward to some of things I haven't tried like posting on Flickr, editing a wiki, or using LibraryThing. It should be fun as long as I can keep up!
According to the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits I should establish goals for learning. This is the hardest thing for me, but I do think it is important to have goals and have motivation for a project. So what do I plan to get out of this? A fabulous flash drive...time to "play" at work...more experience working with 2.o applications that I haven't tried...the chance to win an ipod...a chance to engage in new ways... Is there more to this that I'm missing?