Just when I thought I was done

I was looking at my account at the public library and reserving books while looking for new things to read. Well, not all of the books I want to read that are coming out soon have been added to the library's catalog. So, what is a person to do? I decided a needed to make a list of all the books that I need to put on hold once they get into the library catalog. So, where to do it? I remembered that one of the Things about productivity tools had list makers on it. So, I went back using the knowledge that I garnered in 23 Things and found Ta Da List. I know I have said numerous times that I didn't want to sign up for anything else, but it seems that I am always eating my words. So, now I have an account on Ta Da List where I can list all of the books I want to put on hold, and reserve them as they become available in the library catalog.

Done!

Woohoo! I finished and early to boot.

Thank you

I must say this was quite an experience for me. I think it was a great way to learn Library 2.0 It took me out of my comfort zone and made me do things I probably would not have done on my own.
I had a friend who took an online Library 2.0 class. They met a few times and it was done. They didn't get to do all of the hands on stuff like we did here. You really can't learn it unless you do it. I liked that it was self-paced and I appreciate being able to participate.

Thing 17. ELM Productivity Tools

EBSCO.

Since I cannot get into ELM, I used the tools to which I have access. I created a webpage in Ebscohost. That is kind of cool. After looking at the sample webpages, it gave me the idea to make a webpage for my faculty workshop scheduled for the end of the month. It is on Information Literacy. The webpage could be a useful tool for engaging the faculty, as they are not always up for the workshops.



ProQuest.

The directions for this were a little confusing. But after going through it a couple of times I got it to work. I sent off a research webpage to a colleague and myself. I don't see myself doing that too much. It was kind of cool, though, and a feature I would not have known about as I don't take the time to fully explore what is available in our databases.



NetLibrary.

I created an account with no problems. I am trying to search, but everything is loading up very slowly. So I decided to start blogging about it while I am waiting. I am forever showing this to my students. We have a small library on my campus. While we can get materials from any of our campuses in MN, WI, ND, FL, or IL along with ILLs from all over, the students coming in for help usually need something yesterday. They are often thrilled to find out that we have this resource where they can access something today.

Still waiting......

Even thought I promote NetLibrary at my workshops, the students don't always remember it. When they come in I ask if they have been in one of my workshops. Most of them have but when I ask them if they remember NetLibrary, they often do not. I even have signs up around the library to promote the service.

Four bars.....

Once I show them how to use it, they are excited. They ask how to cite it, etc. I tell them it is easy, it is just an online book. It helps that we subscribe to Noodlebib, which is a nice tool to help the students compile their resource list. They are often afraid to try it, but when I show them how easy it is, they love it. It is a great time saver, doing all of the formatting for the student and printing up the reference page in correct APA style.

Lookee here...

I finally got somewhere on NetLibrary. I found a page to read and put notes on. Then I signed out and back in again just to see how easy it was to use. It was fine. I don't see myself using it as I am more of a pencil & paper note taker. (Probably why I like the Sudoku books better than the online or hand held games.) Something about the scratching of the pencil on the paper.

Thing 22. What did I learn today?

Winding down.

I need to go back and complete one Thing that I skipped, but then I am about to wrap it up. A resolution to keep up my blog? Hmm.... This is a Library 2.0 blog. I enjoyed doing it and learned so many things. Once I finish all the Things, I am not sure it is the place to keep going. What would I write about? I would have to wait for some new technology to try out. Of course, that wait most likely would not be long. Yes, I know I can do it, that it was fun, and that I need to keep informed. I also know that it did take up a lot of my time. One thing I have discovered is that everything takes longer than I expect. Can I ask myself what I learned today? Absolutely. Will I blog about it? Possibly.

The best way to keep up for me is RSS feeds. I can read others' blogs about new things and go and try them out. The information comes to me and I don't need to go searching for it. Of course my aggregator can get pretty overwhelming when I haven't been on for a few days. I did read a blog the other day that said when you add a new feed, delete two. I have deleted one so far as I didn't appreciate all of the negativity on it. I will attend some webinars. I have been looking to see what is available.

I really enjoyed creating my own blog. It is fun to do all of the things I learned from this exercise. Not that too many people actually read my blog. Maybe I will have to create a different blog with a different theme. Something to think about anyway. I think blogs are a great thing for people who like to journal, which really isn't me. So, we'll see....

Thing 13, again.

I am almost done. So I decided to try to get the countdown calculator to work again. And it did!!!
Woohoo! Sometimes things work out.

Thing 21. Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

OK. More social networks. Of the three, I thought Gather sounded good because it mentions National Public Radio. I love NPR. When I looked at it, though, it didn't really impress me. I have been on WebJunction. I don't really think of that as a social network. For me it is a learning tool. I have taken a self paced online course on WebJunction. It doesn't feel to me like the kind of place where I would go to network or socialize with people. I like the sound of Ning. I did get on it and did join the 23 Things group. To be honest, I may never get on again when I am done with this. I am on overload. I have so many new sign ons and passwords, I may never be able to remember them if I do want to return to some of the sites. But, hey, I feel like I earned my badge. So here it is:


Visit 23 Things on a Stick

I don't belong to any social networks. I am not sure that it is something that I want to do. I may go back and explore Ning some more and see if there is something that would be suitable for me. If I do, however, I don't really know how much I will sign into it.

Thing 20. Libraries and Social Networks

I have heard so many things about MySpace and Facebook. This is the first time I have actually looked at either of them. I looked at MySpace, of course, because you don't have to have an account to do so. I looked at both of the library sites. As I expected, they are used to bring in young adults. My own public library has a MySpace account with lots of friends. I wouldn't create a library MySpace account, since we are a system library. It would have to come from the top. I thought about creating a personal MySpace account just to keep up with my family. My family all lives in the same little town. When we get together my teenage nieces and my sister are always talking about did you get the email about whatever. I never get the emails, and when I ask about it they say, "Do you have a MySpace account?" However, I have heard about some of the stuff my brother does on there and have decided that I would rather not have my own account.

I attended IACRL last week. Facebook was being promoted for libraries in one of the sessions. It was suggested that academic libraries should have accounts. We were able to look at two different accounts. I suppose if you were to have tons of links in there for the library it would be like one stop shopping. It does seem that there is a lot of maintenance involved and you would have to have someone willing to manage that. Since I don't have enough hours in the day for what I need to get done, this would not work for me.

Thing 16. Student 2.0 Tools

What a great aid for students. I really appreciated the Research Project Calculator because it is more generic and doesn't take me to a library catalog that I can't access. There is so much information that the students can link to and it walks you through every step of the way. I think it is great that you can input the due date and it breaks everything down. That can make something that seems overwhelming at first doable. I also like the format option for essay, slide presentation or video. I also appreciate the support materials. I like the fact that they can be downloaded in PDF or Word.

The assignment calculator is nice, also. It has much in the way of help and resources. However, since it is the University of Minnesota, many of the links take you to the University's indexes and catalogs that you need an ID to access. I could see other academic libraries adapting the idea and making it work.

Thing 15. Online Games and Libraries

As I stated in an earlier posting, I don't want much to do with Second Life. To me that is too much like work. Besides which, I have dial up access at home, so it wouldn't really work for me.So, for this Thing I went with the Puzzle Pirates. I read a little bit and then just went to it. I created my pirate and did some bilging and earned some money. And another pirate just gave me a red bandana for nothing. Hmm...what kind of bartering is that? Then I did some carpentry and earned a little more money and the title of sailor. With that job I guess I earned a pink bandana. I tried to interact with another pirate, but didn't get anywhere. I enjoyed playing the games, but need to work on the social aspect. I am so much of an introvert, that I would rather just play the games, even if it is virtual interaction. However, I will give it one more shot.

I know many people enjoy Second Life. I would rather just enjoy my real life. Yes, I can see a role for librarians in Second Life. I know some who do reference there. I guess that is a good thing for the virtual world. I just don't want to be the librarian who is doing it.

Thing 19. Podcasts

I am a big fan of the Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz on NPR. Last week was the time change. Before I went out Saturday night, I set all of the clocks ahead one hour. I set my alarm, too. I wanted to be all ready for Sunday. Well, on Sunday morning I woke up at 7:50 a.m. I thought I had set my alarm for 6:30, since I had to leave the house at 8:30. Oops! I set it for p.m. I had to rush to get out of the house and I missed the Puzzle Master. So for this Thing, I decided to listen to the Sunday Puzzle. I looked at Podcast.com, Podcast.net, and Podcastalley.com to compare. Podcast.com and Podcastalley.com worked just fine. I entered in Will Shortz as my search term and they both promptly found the Sunday Puzzle. When I tried the same thing in Podcast.net, I didn't get any results.

This Thing has not inspired me to create a podcast. I don't like to listen to my own voice. However, I will most likely subscribe to the Sunday Puzzle so that I will never miss another one.

Thing 18. YouTube & Other Online Video

I have seen many things on YouTube. Many have been emailed to me from others. I kind of like the Library Ninja ones. However, I don't think everyone would appreciate the one I like so I didn't put it in my blog. I picked the next best thing. :^)



I must say, this was about the easiest Thing to do yet. I had no problem with the code as I have had with other things. YouTube is easy to use and navigate. When I went to Google Video, it just connected me to YouTube again.

I suppose it would be fun to have partial videos of library programs for a glimpse of what is happening at your library. Or maybe patrons talking about how wonderful your library is.

Thing 14. LibraryThing

Just when I said I didn't want to sign up for one more thing, I signed up for an account on LibraryThing. Perhaps so that I could post a few of my favorites on my blog - I am not quite sure. I did want to add some titles so that I could try out the suggester and unsuggester. I wasn't too impressed with the suggester, even though I did write down one title that I want to check out. It could be that I didn't add too many books to my library. Or possibly that I didn't put any tags on the books I put in my library. Half of the books were about cancer, which I am sure is because I put "My Sister's Keeper" on the list. I loved that book, but don't want to read more books about people with cancer. The unsuggester did look like there wasn't a book on there that I would be interested in, though. I also did not like that when I picked a book with a certain cover it sometimes just added a plain brown cover. Reminds me of the old library binding.

I don't think I like the idea of LibraryThing for my library. However, we have been talking about cataloging the books we have at my church. It is a small collection and being able to link to it from the church's website would be ideal.

Oh. And the 'chiclet' that is supposed to link to my catalog? It actually works!

Thing 13. Online Productivity Tools

For this Thing, I started with creating my own homepage. I took a look at Google and at Pageflakes. I entered the same things into each tool to see what I could see. I liked Pageflakes better. It put everything I wanted on one page, thus the name homepage. When I entered the same things into Google, it had a different page for every category I chose. Too much work for a productivity tool. I like seeing it all on the one page. It had my local news and weather on the top and then news from USA Today and CNN elsewhere on the page. It had a scrumptious sounding recipe on the page, a tip of the day concerning seasoning a cast iron skillet, movie listings for my area, and the sudoku game. Perfect and condensed. When I wanted to see the same things on Google, I had to flip through all the tabs. Not productive for me. So, if I were to keep one of these for my homepage, it would be Pageflakes. However, it doesn't really work for me at work, and I don't really use the computer too much at home, so I don't expect it will become my permanent homepage. It was fun to explore, though.

Our library team uses Google calendar. We have one sign-on for the team and we use it to schedule our hours for virtual reference. It is nice for scheduling because you can see who is signed up for what times, pick an open time and sign up. Or you can see who does VR ahead of you, so that if they forget to sign off you can remind them.

To do lists: my outlook calendar works just fine for things I need to do for work and I will continue to use it. As far as my personal life, I will stick with the old fashioned way of jotting it down on a piece of paper. That works for me and it can be recycled when I have completed the list. I would rather not be reminded by my phone when I am out somewhere.

The little white box below is my attempt to put a countdown widget on the blog. Is it me or is it justsayhi.com? Well, I did successfully put the countdown widget on the left side of my blog. However, it still won't countdown. I give up. On the Thing 14...

Thing 12. Do you Digg?

No, again I say no.

I checked out each of the sites. I did like the layout of Digg the best. Reddit reminded me of the Del.ic.ious layout that I didn't like. Digg had the nicest explanation of how it works, too. I went to a news site to try and share it with both Digg and Reddit. However, in my first few attempts someone had already posted the story. When I finally found something that hadn't been posted, it required my having an account to post. Frankly, I don't want another account unless it is absolutely necessary.

I am interested in knowing how people have the time to do all of this gathering. It seems like it would take some time to go browsing the Internet looking for articles to add to one of these sites. As far as using this tool in my library, the only application I see for it is to keep up on the latest stories that the students may be viewing in case they want to talk/ask questions about it. I wouldn't use it in my personal life.

I confess that I did link to one of the websites that I saw on StumbleUpon. It was under the bizarre category. Those who know me know that I like my fiction somewhat sick and twisted, so I wanted to check out the bizarre category just to see what was on there.

Thing 6, redux

Since I was able to get my image posted and I was able to play with Flickr spelling, I am feeling confident that putting my trading cards on my blog will not be a problem. I like the trading card idea. I think it would be fun in a big library for patrons/students to be able to collect trading cards of the librarians/staff. It also gives me an idea for a contest for the students at my campus. So, I may just have to create some more trading cards to work with!

Here is what I have done for trading cards. I decided it would be easiest to use photos that I already had. So here they are. Not so very creative, but now that I know I can do it, I can experiment some more.

Getting these trading cards on my blog was a little tricky. I tried to upload the images all together. Because Blogger does give you that option. It just never worked for me. I kept getting error messages. Next, I tried to upload 2 at the same time. Error again. Finally I just did one and it worked so I went back and put the second one on there and decided to skip the last.

Thing 6. Online Image Generators

I am going back to Thing 6. Since I discovered that I can do some things, I am getting a little braver. Here is my image that I created. I have also done some trading cards and will post them on another blog, since I still don't know how to put more than one image on a post. I can see the image generators being used for advertising the library. Plus they are fun to do

Thing 5. More Flickr Fun

Well, well, well. I finally got some code to work. This turned out quite nicely. Now if I can only remember to turn it off so that it doesn't show up every time I post. Hmmm.......

Thing 11. Tagging and Del.icio.us

I viewed the tutorial on Delicious. Then I went to the Minn23 account to look around. First of all, I don't like the way it is laid out. It is kind of plain and boring. It is also hard to read how many people have saved the bookmarks with the varying degree of pink highlighting. I like the idea of bookmarking so that you can find what you have saved anywhere and on any computer from which you have Internet access. If I save something at work and want to find it later, it is no problem. In our library system we already use social bookmarking, but we use Ma.gnolia. I like the layout of it better than Del.icio.us. it is easier to read. When you click on details, it has a thumbnail sketch of the web page you save and a list of others who have that page bookmarked. You can click on them to find out more about them and what else they have bookmarked. There is also a rating system from one to five stars. We collect websites and post them on the library page for students to use. They can link to Ma.gnolia using the tags for accounting, criminal justice, etc. There they can find some good websites without having to do their own Internet search.
I also put some tags on my blog. Okay, 2 of them - zoho and Flickr. I figured since I wrote about Flickr on several postings that it would be a good tag to use.

Thing 10. Wikis

Whew! I survived that one. I was a little concerned when I went into the 23 Things wiki to edit. I added a new page - the B Movie page. Then I thought it would be nice to link from the home page to it so that people could add their favorite B movies. Well, I had a little issue and linked my new page to the home page so that when you went to the home page all you got was the link for my page. I started to freak out and tried to fix it. Well, I couldn't figure it out at first and thought that yes indeed it really was possible to "mess up" a wiki. I finally found the history at the bottom of the page which let me delete my mess and I was able to link successfully.
It was nice to learn what wiki actually meant. You would think that being a librarian I would look into it, but I hadn't. It could work as a collaboration tool within a group as long as you know who is editing and that the edits would be correct. BTW, I really enjoy the Common Craft videos. As far as the wikis I viewed, I liked the Book Lovers one best. The others all looked the same, but this one was a little more customized. I guess I don't really care for the formatting all being the same.
As an academic librarian I really discourage the students from using Wikipedia. I tell them it is a place where they can go to find a general idea, or to get some search terms, but that they shouldn't use it as a reference. A student in one of my workshops said that she had used it as a reference on one of her papers and still got an A. At that point one of the other students told her that she shouldn't use it because anyone could go in and change it. Sometimes it works when they hear it from another student.

Thing 9. Online Collaboration Tools

First, I had to request permission to edit in both GoogleDocs and Zoho. After I received permission, it was quite easy in google; I just had to sign in and it let me edit. Google also has a simple toolbar, which is nice. And you could see a list of all revisions made. In Zoho, it took me a minute to even find the document after I created an account and signed in. Once I found it, the tool bar had a lot more on it than Google. Many things I would probably never use for shared documents. So, my choice would probably be GoogleDocs just because of the simple toolbar. The librarians in my system have a shared account in GoogleDocs that we can use to collaborate. We had a project to work on and could use the template in GoogleDocs to do that if we wished. I started to use it for my section, but when I discovered that no one else had done anything in it, I stopped. I believe that the founding fathers would freak out with this technology which is somewhat more advanced than a quill and a bottle of ink. That is after they had heart attacks at viewing what had been done to their document. ;^)

Thing 8 revisited

I am trying Flickr again. Yesterday I decided to work on a badge with public photos. I couldn't find a grouping that I liked of anything that said anything about me. I finally went with autumn and trees and found some nice pictures. I put on a border and was all ready to upload it to my blog, but the code would not go. So, today I go in and recreate the search that I did yesterday, but cannot come up with the same photos. Actually, Flickr won't preview my photos. I have to go to the code page and then go back for the pictures to actually show up. I am now going to try again to put the badge on here. We'll see. Here goes.......


Failure. It appears that I can put a link for Flickr on my post, but the code for the badge just doesn't work. Ah well, maybe I will try again later. Maybe not.

Thing 8. Share your creations

Ok, after doing flickr I am getting kind of tired of pictures, so for this one I decided to create a database. Those of you who know me know that I am a coffee snob. So for my database, I decided to do coffee roasters. I used lazybase which really has no frills. It is nice that it links to the websites when you click on the URL and that it sends you to google maps when you click on the address. If you want to see which roaster has the best coffee in my not so humble opinion, check out my database.

Thing 7. Web 2.0 Communication Tools

Okay, I am skipping around on the 23 things. I didn't feel like taking pictures today and posting them in Flickr, so I went ahead to communication tools. Before I started working here, I was not interested in IM. I had email and that was fine. But in our library system, the other librarians had IM and it was a great way to communicate quickly when I had questions to ask the other librarians who had been with the system longer than I had. So, I got an account and use it often. It's great because you can see who from your buddy list is online and then you know that you are likely to get a response soon. With email, you don't know how often the other party is checking and when they will get back to you. We also have just started using IM for virtual reference. This is my second week using meebo for VR with students. We went with a quiet start so that we can get wrinkles ironed out and are not overwhelmed with questions. The students are finding it on their own, though. I enjoy doing virtual reference with IM. It is a different dynamic than email - you have to respond quickly to the student so that you don't lose him/her and type short messages.

Thing 4 Photosharing with Flickr

Well, since the directions on part A of Thing 4 says to go exploring in Flickr and post a photo on your blog, I started a search. I decided to look for pictures using tags of my favorite things, coffee and books. I found one that was perfect. It was a pile of books, some of which I had even read, and a Life is Good coffee mug on top. By looking at the comments, I noticed that it had won an award, also. I thought that it would be nice to post on my blog, but it is copyrighted. So, I had to go looking for other pictures. There are some that have limited use that you can post as long as you follow certain guidelines. What might have been a somewhat simple project has now become complicated. So, I am choosing not to post someone else's work on my blog, even if I do credit the photographer. However, if you would like to see the picture you may click here. Then you can see it on flickr and you can find out more about the photographer.
Here ends my part A of Thing 4. I hope to move on to part B so that I can actually post my own photos from flickr on my blog. But that is for another day.

Thing 3 Keeping up - RSS feeds

I love the name of Thing 3 "Keeping up," especially since I can't seem to do it. I already have a Google reader account and have mentioned it in my last post. I do like that I have only one place to go to read all of them, it saves some time - if I keep up, that is ;^) Most of my subscriptions are ones that have been suggested by one of the librarians in my system, when she did a talk about RSS feeds. I have gradually added some others when they have been referred to in one of the blogs that I read. So, for this exercise I decided to go out and find some to add. I tried using the tools on 23 Things to find some blogs, but didn't have much luck. I did subscribe to Unshelved, because I decided that I needed something light in my reader. Then I decided that I would like to have the feeds from the Chicago Tribune and New York Times book sections because I love to read and am always looking for the latest title. To do this, I went to their websites. The New York Times was easy, because at the bottom of the homepage they had the little RSS feed icon and when I clicked on it, it gave me the whole listing of what is available. So I went to the book section, clicked on the icon, and copied and pasted the URL into my add subscription box in Google reader and there it was. For the Tribune, I had to go to resources, then RSS feeds, and then find the one I wanted. I then decided that I would subscribe to my coworkers' blogs on 23 Things so I could keep up with how they are doing.

Thing 2 What is Web 2.0....

I listened to Stephen's interview. The part that stands out for me is finding time. I am the librarian at a college campus of nearly 400 students. I have projects that I work on for the system, workshops in classes, books to catalog and process, weekly meetings, committees, etc. I always say I need another couple of hours in my workday - compressed hours so that I can work 10 and it still feels like 8. Sometimes it is hard for me to come up with a dedicated 7 -15 minutes to work on Library 2.0 - witness that I am only on Thing 2. Our college library system is already doing Library 2.0 things. There is a blog on which we have to post. We collect bookmarks in Ma.gnolia for student resources, which we should be doing about 10 minutes each day. We IM each other. We will start using Meebo for virtual reference. I subscribe to RSS feeds through Google Reader, which I haven't read in a week and am afraid to see how many have piled up. Also, I have used Google Documents to work on projects. I feel like I am slowly getting there.

I moved to this position from a public library. I still substitute there from time to time and I was talking to one of the librarians about all of the 2.0 stuff and she didn't know what it was. That made me feel a little better. Of course, I must say that until I took this position I had never used instant messaging. Now I have even created my own blog! The one thing I will say is that when I go home after looking at a computer screen all day, I won't even turn my computer on. So, I haven't been on Second Life because to me it seems like working after work, especially for librarians. I don't want to do reference and programming all day long and then come home get online in an alternative universe and do reference and programming. One of the positions I held at the public library, was Young Adult Librarian. One of the last things I accomplished there was getting a grant and purchasing mats for Dance Dance Revolution. Now, they not only have DDR tournaments but have also added Guitar Hero.

Thing 1 Challenge

Well, since I enjoyed creating my blog and creating an avatar (once I got my account on Yahoo!) I decided to go ahead and try some extras. As you can see, I added a photograph taken by one of my coworkers during our last ice storm. We are now having a great snow storm and are expecting up to 12 inches overnight. The photo was not so difficult. It is also the screen saver on my workstation. Although I am thinking about changing it to something that looks like spring. Then I added the sitemeter counter. At first I just clicked on save and it showed up on the top of my page. I didn't like it there, so I moved it to the bottom. Of course most of the counting will be from my own visits, but that should still make my numbers look good.

Thing 1 Setting up my blog

Finally, here I am. Okay, creating the blog was really very easy. The avatar wasn't so bad, either. The problem I had was with Yahoo! I did not previously have an account with Yahoo! When I went to create an account, it took me through everything just fine until the end. Every time I tried to submit the information to get an account it would bring up the "this page cannot be displayed" message. I lost many fun user names, of course, since the next time I tried it said that the name was not available. Today, however, I met with success. I have a blog with an avatar that looks just like me. ;^)