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. ;^)