Week 9 23things....the end?

I must say that I really enjoyed doing the 23 things and I hope that we are giving similar projects in the future. I had fun doing it, but also learned a lot of helpful things that I can use to help our patrons.

• My favorite discovery had to be learning about RSS feeds. I created a personal bloglines account and when I don't have much time to come online I just go there and skim through everything that I've received. It saves me a lot of time not having to go to the different sites and pick through the information myself. I also enjoyed the Flickr exercises.
• The program has affected my lifelong learning goals in that I want to learn more about technology and new things that come out. Earlier when I went to Youtube as part of my week 9 exercises I saw that you can share with different social networks/programs that I had never heard about. But now my curiousity is peeked and I want to know if there are other cool things out that that I am missing out on, so I am more inclined to want to follow links and learn about new applications.
• A takeaway that surprised me is that these activities are not just fluff, or things that I have to do to try and win a nice prize. I learned about tools that I have incorporated to my every day life! This has been a useful exercise.
• The only thing that I would do differently with this program is make it longer than 9 weeks! I loved it.
• If there is a program similar to 23 things in the future I will definitely participate. Heck, even if it's not as similar I will still participate because I enjoy learning new things!

Week 9 Audiobooks and the Digital Collection

As part of this exercise I played with the audiobooks section of the PBCLS website. I knew that we had audiobooks available online, but had never really spent time becoming familiar with what we have to offer. Audiobooks is a good tool to have because we have a lot of patrons who only listen to audiobooks, and if we don't have something they may be able to obtain it through audiobooks. They can even burn copies of certain books for their personal us to listen to while driving, don't have computer access, etc. Another reason why audiobooks is helpful is that it has a section of "always available" books which include many classics. I don't know about other branches, but in BG we have a lot of students looking for the same books on their reading lists and we don't owe many copies. I like being able to suggest audiobooks to patrons who may not want to buy the book or wait for a hold to come in. It's instant gratification....fast and convenient.

While I was playing with Audiobooks I checked out the book, "Bonk", just to see what the process would be like. The book, "Bonk" is currently not available for checkout in our system in audiobook format, so audiobooks is the only way that we offer it. If a patron wanted the paper form there is a waiting list they would have to be on, and there is no way to tell how long it would take. With audiobooks, there was one copy of "Bonk" available, and I was able to check it out instantly. Now I have access to "Bonk" for 14 days, but the beauty of it is that if it looks like I won't be able to finish I then I can burn a copy of the book.

The way the information on the book is displayed is that it tells you how many copies of the book are available for checkout. Just like with a library there are limited number of copies on certain things (except for the always available books). And when you check out a book it reflects the checkout immediately on the information. When I checked out "Bonk" it went from having 1 to 0 copies available. Patrons can then be on a waiting list for the audiobook. For those of you who may be wondering how audiobook sets up their information, I copied the information from "Bonk" for you to see:

Bonk

The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Edition: Unabridged

by
Mary Roach
Sandra Burr
Publisher:
Brilliance Audio

Subject(s):
NonfictionScience

Excerpt(s):

Title, Author, Dedication (WMA format)
(burn to CD allowed)
Format Information
OverDrive Audio Book
add to Digital Cart
Available copies:
1
Library copies:
1
Lending period:
14 days
File size:
136349 KB

Week 9 Podcasts

I found a podcast that I liked and added to my bloglines account. The podcast that I choose is the library survival guide. http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibrarySurvivalGuide I enjoyed listening to it and I think that others will as well.

I was never familiar with podcasts before this exercise, and I wasn't aware that you can get audio and video delivered in the same way that you can receive RSS feeds. It's a wonderful tool to have. Making it even better is that you can also add the RSS feed for a podcast to your bloglines account, still keeping it all easily accessible from one place! What's not to love about the convenince? I will definitely explore more about podcasts on my free time. I think different radio stations in the area offer podcasts and they should make for a fun listen.

Week 9 Youtube

I really enjoyed this exercise because I have used Youtube in the past and like using it to look for snippets of things I may have missed on tv, music videos, quirky homemade videos...you name it, you can find it on Youtube.

The first video that I chose to share is the Wall-E trailer, because I just LOVE that movie! Wall-E reminds me of ET. For some reason when I try to embed the trailer I get a red x. This is disappointing because it is a trailer that I REALLY wanted to share!

You can check out the trailer at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_RnTNhJSWM

And in the meantime, you can watch this fun video showing what happens when you put Christmas lights in the microwave!



I like everything about Youtube. There is nothing that I can say that I dislike. I chose the videos that I did because they are things that I enjoy viewing and I thought that other staff members might enjoy them as well. As far as how I think Youtube can be useful to PBCLS, well, instead of just writing about what we are going to do we can make fun videos to show people just how enjoyable our activities are and draw them in. It might be nice to have a video welcoming people to our website. Basically I think Youtube would be a good PR tool. I also think that we should have Youtube videos embedded on the pages of the database, ILL, etc., to show people how to use the database, or how to request a book, because a lot of people are more visual learners.

week8thing19

Week 8- Thing 19

Zimdesk

     Thing 19 asked that we look at the list of Web 2.0 Award Winners and pick one to explore and post about.  I choose to explore and post about Zimdesk.  Zimdesk reminds me of things like Zoho Writer and Del.icio.us in that you can create a Zimdesk account and it will save the information that is important to you and make it accessible to you from any computer on your own virtual operating system.  Zimdesk is more like an operating system in that it not only saves links and documents, which you can do through other applications, but it is all encompassing and also provides you access to your messages, games, files, etc, from any computer! It gives you access to a wealth of your information no matter where you are. 

    Here is some information from their site:

    "Zimdesk is your computer on the web

 Essentially, Zimdesk is a web operating system or webOS, providing internet users with FREE access to a virtual desktop, online drive, file manager and a comprehensive range of 'on demand' web based applications for work and entertainment.

Zimdesk provides all the features and functionality you would expect from a standard desktop PC. The BIG difference is that zimdesk runs from your browser, allowing you to access all your applications, files, games and accessories from any PC ... anywhere in the world.

Zimdesks comprehensive range of web applications includes pop3email, file manager, sidebar, RSS, browser, word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, tasks manager, accessories/widgets, web messenger, video conference, media player,Internet radio, web TV, games, zimcommunity, zimblog ... and much more."

     I would recommend that anyone check out Zimdesk and create an account with them to see what they have to offer at http://www.zimdesk.com/.  It is a helpful tool in that it can do everything that some of the applications we have learned about can do, and so much more.  It is just a good tool to have so that you can have access to important date anywhere in the world.  And I would recommend that any floridian take advantage of this because with hurricane season sometimes displacing people it is good to have access to records form anywhere.

week8thing18

Week 8-Thing 18

 

Zoho Writer

 

     We are winging down on 23 things and I can honestly say that I am going to miss having the opportunity to learn about new tools.  I hope that administration will create another 23 things or different projects for us to do and learn about more fun and useful tools. 

    At Belle Glade for our staff meetings we each have a week where we discuss a website that we think other staff members would find useful.  Daniel did Googledocs as his website one week.  So even though at the time I had no familiarized myself with it, I knew that it existed and was there.  I had never heard of Zoho Writer before though, and am glad to have the opportunity to become aquainted with it.

 

     I think that Zoho Writer is an online application that our patrons can benefit from.  A lot of times we have patrons come in and work on a project in our word processing document only to realize that the computer they have been on doesn't have a disk drive and they are unable to save their information.  We normally tell them to email the document to themselves and then copy and paste it into word processing the next time they are at a computer.  However, if they have a Zoho Writer account they can just go ahead and do there work on there and save it and will then be able to access it from any computer, and not be in a bind if they realize that the computer they have worked on doesn't have a disk drive or if they leave their flash drive at home.

 

     I am going to play with Zoho Writer some more and familiarize myself with all that it has to offer because I honestly think that it's a great tool to have access to.  I would recommend to anyone working on any type of document to save a backup copy on Zoho Writer in case they go somewhere and forget their flash drive or disk.  That way they will still have access to their work when needed. 

 

     I have written this in Zoho Writer and now I am going to practice some more by publishing it to my blog from here

Week 7 pbclswiki

I just posted my favorites to pbclswiki. It was nice seeing the favorites of other staff members and being able to chime in. It made me feel as though we are all contected. This is a fun tool to have.

Week 7 Wikis

After learning more about wikis and how easy they are to edit and seeing the different ways that libraries are using wikis I think that they are helpful for libraries. I think it would be nice to have a library staff wiki that we can use to create a community in which to share information we think may help others. With the setup of wiki other staff members can build upon that to make new suggestions. The beauty of it is that it cuts out the middleman, saving time. Instead of having to wait for someone to edit and add the information it is something that people can do on their own.

I also think it would be helpful to have a wiki for the public which compiles helpful sites. I really like the idea of having a one stop place in which to store information. I think another good benefit is that a wiki has tools to show recently made changes so that you don't miss a thing. And I think that wikis would be great communication tools when planning events, like Annual Training Day (*sobs*...RIP). It helps everyone organizing the event to see the same information, but the setup is more convenient that that of a message board because on a message board you'd have to dig through posts for a link and on a wiki you have them right there for you.

I think it would be nice to have a wiki for the public that shows frequently used patron sites, or things that may be of interest. It's more of a selfhelp tool for them so that they can find what they need in one spot.

Week 6 Web 2.0 thoughts

To complete Week 6 of Web 2.0 I read a few different perspectives on Library 2.0. The main one that stuck with me is 'Away from the Icebergs', by Rich Anderson http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm

I think that the reason that this perspective stuck out to me is that living in Palm Beach County we live in an area where a large part of the population is elderly and is set in their way of doing things. We also have staff members who have been in the system for decades and are set in their ways. I know of several staff members who have been in the system for a while and have no interest in taking Web 2.0. I think that while we may be used to our way of doing things and it has always worked for us, we shouldn't let it hinder us from learning about new things and new technologies. Sticking to our way of doing things instead of learning new methods to do things and new technologies will hinder us in our growth. While we may have many elderly patrons who have been visiting our libraries for a long time and are set in their ways as well, the younger generation is more internet savy and may be more easily reached through technology.

I think it is important to focus on books and the tangible assets that we offer within our libraries, but it is equally important to be familiar with Web 2.0 so that we can use different tools to promote our libraries and events, know new technologies that we can teach computer classes on and be able to help patrons who have questions on web 2.0 related subjects.

Week 6 Technorati

I visited Technorati as part of my week 6 tasks for 23 things. I think that technorati is a great tool and does for blogs what google does for the web. Technorati searches different blogs for the information you are looking for, and presents it to you much in the same way that a search engine would retrieve different web links. I think it is handy for sorting rather than having to go to different blog sites and do individual searches for their information.

While at Technorati I did a search for Web 2.0 tags. The search brought up many up to date blog posts on the subject of Web 2.0. One of the things that I discovered while looking at the information that was brought up is that Firefox 3.0 debuts today. One blogger described it as the first Web 2.0 friendly browser out there. Seeing as I'm Web 2.0 friendly these days myself I will have to check it out and see if this new browser is for me. I wouldn't have heard about this new browser had it not been for my technorati search and the current information that it has available.

Week 6 Del.icio.us

I discovered Del.icio.us through doing this exercise for Web 2.0 and plan to get an account for myself. I like Del.icio.us in that no matter where I am I have access to the websites that I like. In the past there have been times that I have been on vacation and I may not remember the exact name or address to a site and am unable to visit it because the information is bookmarked on my computer and I am not around my computer at that time. But with Del.icio.us I have access to my bookmarked links no matter where I am. And I see the benefit to using Del.icio.us as a research tool as well because you can carry the information with you if you go on business and have access to another computer, or are in school and go to the computer lab and decide you want to save something or pull up something. It's all there. Another benefit of Del.icio.us and its social aspect is that if you are doing research you can browse under the tag of the subject you are looking for and find other websites that you may not have known existed. So I find that Del.icio.us is a helpful tool that I will be using.

SHELFARI!!!!!!!!!!! Too cool!

I just wanted to take a moment to let everyone out there know about Shelfari! I had never heard about Shelfari before and discovered them though 'Ask a Librarian's' Myspace. Who says that myspace can't be used for good? lol.

Shelfari is similar to Library Things in that it catalogs your collection and even categorizes it into sections like 'read', 'wish list', etc. But Shelfari is more like a social network in that it is set up similarly to myspace. There are members, groups you can belong to, you can tag books, see who is online, see new members, etc. It's like a social network joining people with similar interests in books. How cool is that? And the way that Shelfari showcases your collection is very neat. They have your books arranged on a bookshelf and if someone highlights the book they are given the option to add the book to their shelf or go to amazon for more information on the book. And the thing that caught my eye is that Shelfari has an myspace app that you can add to your myspace account to have your book list displayed on your myspace profile! How cool is that?

Here...have fun!

http://www.shelfari.com/

Week 5: WebFeat

I just completed the final activity for Week 5. I played around with WebFeat to see what I could find. I did a search for my hometown of Pahokee and found 16 articles. The first article at the top of the page caught me eye because it was a Florida Trend article from their September 2007 issue talking about my neighbors and their rental property business! I see them every day and they failed to mention being named in the Florida Trend article, so it was a pleasant discovery. There were other articles brought up that seemed interesting and that I wanted to read, but I was having problems with WebFeat. After the initial article, when I tried to click 'view' on another article the site would redirect me to a page stating that i had logged out successfully, which isn't what I had tried to do. That was disappointing because I wanted to play with WebFeat some more. I even closed the page and started a new session, but continued to have the same problem. I will have to play with it again some other time.

I like WebFeat because I like that instead of looking at each database individually you can plug in a search term and it will search all databases and retrieve the information for you. It is a great tool to have on the site.

Week 5: Library Things

I had never heard of Library Things before this exercise. I like how it's set up and being able to find people with similiar reading interests. I have created an account with some of my favorite "cute" books! If you are interested to take a peek at the 5 books I added, here is the link to my catalog http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hiddenme2

Week 5- PLAY WEEK!!! Image Generators

Image Generator

For this week's exercise I am discovering many different image generators that I never knew existed. I just used the image generator at http://oneletterwords.com/ecards/saint/ to create an honorary italian grandmother certificate. The image on the left was made to show an example of what the certificate looks like.

Many other cool image generators can be found at http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/

Letter James is a very cool website for image generators as well. You can play with the pictures found on their site and even order calendars with the personalized images! I will definitely look around that site some more and play more with it later. There is lots of fun to be had there! Check it out at:http://www.letterjames.com/start.php?mod=calendar-generator

As part of the discovery exercise I would like to share a site that I found which has a lot of image generators http://www.imagegenerator.org/ They have a compilation of many different sites that have image and text generators!

Without having pictures of my own saved on this computer I am limited to how much I can play with these image generators, but I can't wait to have a second look at them at home!

Week 4: RSS Feeds

I am always online when I am at home, so I had heard of rss feeds before but didn't really know what they were or had any experience with them. This week's thing was very educational because it taught me about rss feeds-what they are, how I can use them, etc. And I was also introduced to bloglines, which is a website I had never heard of before. Now I know what an rss feed is in case someone were to ask me, and I am also able to recomment bloglines to patrons and friends, whereas before I wouldn't have even known that such a thing existed.

I will answer some questions suggested for week 4 of 23 things:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?

The thing that I like about RSS and newsreaders is that they are short and sweet. If you have limited time to go online you can just go to bloglines, log into your account, and read through the feeds that interest you instead of having to go to the individual sites that you want to visit, waiting for the site to load, etc. It reduces a lot of time because you don't have to surf around or wait for pictures to load. Instead you have everything that you want in one concise, quick loading (because of no images) location. It's a real timesaver.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?

I can subscribe to feeds that interest me and that way I don't have to go through the trouble of remembering different website addresses, and I can cut down on the time that it would take me to visit each location and read up on what I'm looking for.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

Libraries can benefit by creating accounts, if they choose to do so and subscribe to different things that they think may benefit staff or be of interest to them. That way they can have all of the news in one location and it makes it faster for staff to look up news and information. It would also be smart for a library to have an rss feed because more patrons would be willing to receive snippets of information with their other news than to visit the library's website and spend valuable time reading a lengthier article.

And to end this blog I just thought I'd mention that surprisingly I found myself having fun while browsing through bloglines and signing up for feeds that looked fun. Before this week's exercise I would have never thought to do that. Good job 23 things team in finding fun new things to learn and enjoy!

Week 3- Something technological that interests me

Yesterday I took a moment to play around online and do some research on rss feeds, since we will be working with them during Week 4 of 23 things and I didn't know a single thing about them. While searching around online I found that google has an rss feed reader, and I wanted to share that as something technological that interests me because I think that it will be useful for anyone who does week 4 and becomes interested in rss feeds to know that this tool is available.

You can take a tour of the Google Reader at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlereader/tour.html

The thing that I like about Google reader is that we can use our 23 things gmail account to access google reader from any computer with internet access. Google reader allows you to add subscriptions to different rss feeds that interest you. That way google reader automatically updates you when new information is available and you have access to all of your feeds in one place. You can also search their directory to find more feeds that interest you and you can subscribe to. The reader also allows you to share information with your friends, and has a customizable clip that you can add to the side of your blog or website, and it will display your latest shared items in a sidebar. Another bonus is that Google reader works with any mobile phone browser, so it will allow you access to your information on the go. So if while working on week 4 of 23 things you get bitten by the rss bug, then Google Reader may be just the tool for you.

Week 3- My flickr photo

El Dedo de Dios

I really enjoyed week 3 of 23 things. It was fun looking at images on flickr and learning about the different things that the website has to offer. One of the features that I really enjoy is the map feature because you can find pictures that average folks have taken from different parts of the world. It is a very neat way of organizing the photographs.

The photograph that I have chosen to share is of 'El Dedo de Dios', from Gran Canaria. My mom is originally from the Canary Islands and I have visited family there before. During my last visit when I was 16 I was able to travel more. One of the things that I saw was 'El Dedo de Dios', which means 'God's finger' in English. The rock formation got it's name because to many the top portion looks like a finger pointing to the sky. This landmark had sentimental value for many people. I was disappointed to learn recently that a while back there was a severe storm and the winds knocked the finger part off of the formation and into the water. This was heartbreaking to many of the people who lived in the area because they had sentimental value attached to El Dedo. I heard that government officials were looking into ways in which the "finger" part would be able to be lifted out from the water and reattached to the rock. The last I heard it seemed to be a near impossible undertaking and hope was being lost, but I hope that they find a way.

Ideas on how blogging can be used in libraries...

I have a few ideas on how blogging can be used in libraries. For one, if we have a blog for our library we can update patrons with more current information on events and happenings without the expense of having to print flyers and posters, or the time consuming task of calling patrons. If we had a blog which allowed users to comment back it would also serve as a forum for patrons to give us their input, and tell us their thoughts and feelings.

Blog use is also a good way for us to keep up with other staff members and read about the happenings at their libraries. It is interesting to see others share the same experiences, as well as read about different experiences that what we may have at our branch. One thing that I plan to use blogger.com for is to read blogs from other libraries around the country and their happenings. It should prove interesting.

Another good way to use blogging would be for staff to hold blogging computer classes with both teens and adults to show them how to create and use a blog. I think patrons would enjoy learning how to use a blog.

7 1/2 Habits of highly successful learners

Here I was trying to think about something to blog about and coming up empty handed, so it's a good thing the 23 things team would like for us to write our first blog on the 7 1/2 habits. Thanks. That takes the guess work out of trying to figure out what to write atleast this time around! I don't know that I will be using this blog for much other than the 23 things project and maybe adding some library blogs that I can relate to/learn from. I know I would be treating this as an actual journal, because I have a hard time being that open knowing that people I know irl and through work will read it.

I have an AS in Staff Accounting, and through the business courses I took as part of my degree I became familiar with the 7 1/2 habits years ago. Can't say I've always applied them effectively.

The part of the presentation that I agree with the most is at the end after presenting the 7 1/2 habits where they suggest how to impliment them. I think that writing down your goals is a good idea and coming up with the steps to achieve your goal. Having it in writing helps to keep me on task with what I am doing, and signing a contract and having steps to accomplish helps to keep me honest with myself.

I am enjoying this 23 thing activity at work. I think it was a good idea for administration to give us something for us to work on at our own pace and learn more about technology. We always have patrons who ask us how to do every little thing, like we are supposed to know everything there is to know, but with this we can atleast became a little more internet savy. I am also a big fan of message boards, myspace, IMs, etc, so I personally enjoy the opportunity to learn more things that I can use for fun in my life and having more tech toys to play with;-P I just wish that we were still having an ATD. I understand the decision to do away with it because saving money to save jobs is more important, IMO, but I am glad that we are still getting learning opportunities like this to supplement our learning.