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