Thing 23

Just for continuity's sake. In case someone stubles across this and goes - wait! What was thing 23?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

It was just a survey of this project, what we liked, disliked, etc. I completed it and am now waiting anxiously for my flash drive - and the $200 amazon gift card which I'm dying to win.

Thing 22: Staying Current

I don't think staying current is a problem I have - yet. I'm only 27, so I'm still right there in the midst of most of this technology, but I have to admit I did learn a few things from this experience.

1. I found out what an RSS feed was! I had heard of them, and could probably hazard a guess at a definition if forced to, but now I actually know and have one. I don't really read or use it a whole lot, but it's there.

2. Flickr! I had a Photobucket account, so I was no stranger to online photo sharing, but because of Flickr I now have 3 (yes 3, they sent me an email about the other yesterday) pictures shortlisted to appear in a publication!

3. I have to mention Delicious! I don't know why I did not know about this site, but it is fantastic, and I'm so glad I found out! Now there isn't the frustration of not being able to pull up my bookmarks on a friend's computer!

4. Twitter! Its my new obsession and favorite place for celebrity stalking - er, mini-blogging.

Lifehacker seems a pretty good site for keeping up with things, and I like to read technology news on BBC or Wired magazine. I also work with the middle and high school students at my church, so if I'm ever feeling out of the loop, I'm sure I can ask some of them and they'll fill me in. Am I glad I did this? You bet! I can't wait to share some of these tools with patrons, coworkers, and other people!

Thing 21: Sudent 2.0 Tools

Every year we have the elementary gifted classes (grades 4 &5) come in and do a project on countries around the world. They each have to pick a country and write about it, as well as bring in a dish from that country to share. These are smart kids, and we usually do a lot of preselection as far as books go, so there's generally no problems, but some of the sheets under the teacher's guide would be great to give them as guidelines.

Same goes for high school students. I don't know what standards are around Florida, but right after I graduated, they started making students do junior and senior projects. Basically they're just year-long research projects, but man, what a pain they are! So glad I didn't have to do that! Anywho, I'm sure there are some kids who don't have the first clue on how to research and write a paper, and some are unlucky enough to have terrible teachers. This would be the perfect tool for them! Of course, getting them to use these would be the hardest part. Most teens think they know everything, and don't need any help or conversely, are totally inept and want it done for them.

I was most impressed with the Assignment Calculator - is seemed to be geared more toward college/high school level. I particularly liked their link about writing thesis statements, and the examples of strong and weak ones. The Research Calculator was fine, but seemed to be geared toward a younger audience.

Being a procrastinator, this might have been a good tool for me to have. Of course, being such, I probably wouldn't have used it anyways - instead preferring to leave it til the week of, and then cramming as much as I could into as little time as I could spend.

Thing 20: Books 2.0

Seriously?! This was the Thing without end! Man, it took forever to look at those sites! (No, I didn't do ALL of them, but I did do one from each category, which was enough!) So here's a breakdown of the sites I visited and what I thought about them.

Daily Lit - I really liked this site. I actually signed up to get the Picture of Dorian Grey sent via email (in 96 installments!). I got the first installment this morning, and am quite happy. It was a little short, but there was a link at the bottom of the email where you could get the next part if you wanted to keep reading. They're almost all older books - ones that aren't protected under copyright anymore - but they did advertise Cross Country by James Patterson as one you could get for about $10. Not too shabby. This may be a good resource for some school's required reading.

Book Lamp - Good concept - I love Pandora! Why not one for books? It turned out that there was not enough of a range of books. You could only pick from about 50 in a drop-down menu, and they all appeared to be action or scifi. The thing that really bothered me was that they actually listed the titles starting with "The". Hello?! Clearly not someone who has ever worked at a library.

Reading Trails - Interesting. Basically book lists that anyone can post. Someone actually made one "Books to Read While Breastfeeding" - the books were neither about babies nor breastfeeding. Strange. I can see the appeal though. There were other trail on post-apocalyptic reading, or art for preschoolers. Basically just a way for people to make and share reading lists.

Visual Bookshelf on Facebook - As I had said in the post about Library Thing, I already use this. They are two very similar things, but Vis automatically loads anything any of your friends are reading, you don't have to find and add them.

Book Glutton - This site is similar to Daily Lit, in that you can read books online. This one has where you can upload books to share, join groups, and possibly chat to others online while you are reading. I don't really want to join another site, but I may change my mind.

LibriVox - This seems like a really cool site. I would love to volunteer to read! Maybe it could lead to a career in reading for audio books! This, like the others, has the older copyright-free books. One feature I really like though, is that they have audio in all sorts of languages.

BookBrowse - A bit snobby/elitist? This is a site that is supposed to only review books that are worth reading - books that you take something from the experience, rather than pure entertainment. I suppose it cuts out the crap, so maybe that's not a bad thing. Unfortunately you have to be a paying member to use some of the features.

ICLD - Super cool! Kid's books online - and from recognizable authors! Again, a great feature is that this has books in other languages too. It's no good if you don't read those languages, because there is no translation, but it could be a resource for some of our ESOL families.

Book Swim - Cool concept, though I already have something like that for free - the library. (It seemed a bit pricey for me) But good for books we don't have, esp. textbooks. I'm going to have to tell my sister about renting textbooks - it would save her so much money!

I do worry that the internet is robbing people of their concentration, but I think the nytimes article had some good points. As seen above, there are all sorts of wonderful websites that can supplement reading. In fact, the internet may be getting kids more interested in reading and writing through fan fiction sites. I mean, the reading online isn't any worse than reading a magazine - at least they're still reading, right? I don't think anything is going to take the place of physical books anytime soon, but who knows?

Thing 19: Other Social Networks

My interest/obsession with things comes on strong, and then fizzles out shortly, so these topic-themed networks are a blessing and a curse. They're great at first, but then I get sick of them and abandon them altogether. I used to belong to two sites/forums (which I'm counting under this category). One was for comedian Gary Gulman, the other for vampire Don Henrie. (It was a phase - well, one that I came back to - long story - let's just say I'm weird.) The problem with these forums is (and with a lot of these Things) that they take an investment of time, and I have a life. I would start out contributing to the forums regularly, but once you fall behind - you miss a day or two - there are suddenly 100 new posts, and it's almost impossible to catch back up.

Gather seems interesting. I was really excited when the article mentioned one of the publishers doing a short story contest, then I looked at the date - 2005. Thanks. That's not to say they don't still do it periodically. I guess I just have to check out the site more.

Flixster is on Facebook, but I don't use it much. I did the rating thing that compares your taste to your friends', and I've taken some quizzes, but I have to be REALLY bored to do it.

Other than WebJunction (which at least seems somewhat useful), I'm going to have to pass on other social networks.

Elation!

I just found out that two of my photographs have been shortlisted to appear in a publication (possibly online only) of a travel guide - schmap.com! (They do over 200 cities worldwide – maps, descriptions, pics, etc.) I just happened to check this yahoo account that I opened to do this 23 Things project through work, and saw the emails. There is no money, but it’s nice to have the recognition of “Hey, you don’t totally suck at photography”. The best part is I didn’t really have to do anything. I just put the pics up on Flickr, and they found me. So I checked my Flickr account and there was another message from someone wanting to add another one of my pics to a group of Art Nouveau works. Sweet! I am in a very good mood now.

Thing 18: Myspace and Facebook

So I am waaay ahead of the curve on this Thing. I have been using Myspace for years, and have been on Facebook now for at least a year - maybe more. It's such a great way to keep up with friends, particularly when most of my friends and family live far away - New York, Houston, Boston, Sarasota. It was part of the reason I started writing a blog - it's a lot easier to put something up that everyone can read, than it is to tell the story about 15 times. I even have had a friend tell me recently that she was mad because I haven't been blogging as much, so she has no idea what I've been up to. That and I can't tell you how many times I've sent messages to my dad via Myspace, because I was more sure he'd read them there than through his email.

I just recently signed our youth services department up for a Myspace page. You can find it here. We're going to be starting up an after school teen program, and I thought it would be a good way to get the word out. The profile's not much to look at right now, but I'm working on it. I also signed us up for a Facebook page at the same time. I don't know how to link my profile, but if you register, you can look up ColumbiaCounty PublicLibrary YouthServices, and you'll find me.

I've used groups on my other accounts, but honestly, I don't really keep up with them. We have one for my youth group at church, but since I'm not an admin (something I need to get changed), I can't send mass messages to the group. Sure you can post on a message board, but they don't really send anything out telling you that. So unless you check back often, it's kinda useless. A feature I do like is being able to post and event and invite people. They can RSVP, and the pages will even give them a reminder when it's coming up. That's the tool I've used to promote our programs.

As far as Myspace v. Facebook goes, Facebook is the winner in my book. Both have changed their formats, which vexes me greatly, but Facebook has the cleaner, more streamlined approach. The new Facebook format has the main page just showing friends' status updates (trying to be Twitter?), and everything else, photos tagged, groups joined, etc. is in a bar on the right. Again, I'm not enthused over this new change, but it's still clean, neat. Myspace just has too much. I hate all the videos and flash that the Myspace front page has. I also hate how much people have "pimped" their pages. It's annoying and takes forever to load. Yes, I'm guilty of changing the background, but all the music, and videos everyone has - they reload every time you have to go back to the person's profile. Stupid. And I have talked far too long about this.

Thing 17: Podcasts

I've been dragging my feet on this Thing because we can't download anything at our library. I've said before that I have dial-up, so doing it at home is a no go too. I thought the whole thing was a bust, and I was just going to have to make something up - disappointing too because I wanted to listen to Ricky Gervais' podcast. Well, when I did a search they had some free clips you could listen to online here. Hilarious! (Though I am easily won over by British accents - that and I already have a love for Ricky) It's just his usual banter with Stephen Merchant (cowriter/director), and this idiot man-child, Karl, on a particular topic. 3 guys sitting around talking, but it's brilliant! Why can't this be what's on the radio in the morning?

I was pleased to find, that when I searched further, I could find podcasts that could be played online, no download required. One of these sites, Mevio, you have to register for, but you can add favorite channels, and they even have videos, though it didn't seem to have that great of a selection. Then I found it's sister site, Podshow, which has a lot of music, but also has spoken word. I found another British comedy show, Traces of Nuts, that I listened to briefly and enjoyed. Podshow doesn't require you to register - you only have to do that if you want to do a podcast yourself, or if you're a music artist that wants to get on one of their channels. As far as music goes, I'm going to stick to Pandora. It's not really a podcast I guess, because it doesn't have individual episodes - it's really just radio online. I love it though, because by telling it what you like and dislike, it analyzes your music tastes and picks other songs for you to try. AND if you're listening and you think, "Why on earth did they think I'd like this?", you can click and it will tell you why it picked it out.

I've got more to try to learn as far as podcasts go. I don't think I'll be attempting my own anytime soon. It's bad enough I think people actually want to read what I write, but I think it would be a huge display of vanity to think they'd want to listen to me too.

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Alright, I had to post this. Again, it makes me laugh and more people should see it.

Thing 16: YouTube!

Woo-hoo! I'm back on the excited train!

I've used Youtube a lot in the past, so this Thing was a breeze for me. I've looked up commercials, tv shows, home movies, etc on this site and I love it! I haven't ever posted anything on here, and my fear of it taking off and being my 15 minutes of fame keeps me from doing so. However, I was at a workshop recently and was shown some booktalk videos that people uploaded. Some were crap, but others really inspired me. Finally! Something I can use my background in film/animation for!

I chose this video because it always makes me smile. Sure, I could've chosen a video that was pertinent to Web 2.0 or the library but what could be better than REM and Muppets?

Thing 15: Rollyo

I feel like I've grown a bit apathetic about the Things. Rollyo did not excite me. I suppose I should've compared a search of one of the searchrolls to Google, but I didn't - just because it seemed to me that they wouldn't really turn up vastly different results.

I learned quickly in searching that certain mega-sites were going to overtake the results that could be found from others. When I did a search of "chimp attack" on their pre-existing news searchroll, CNN made up the first 20 or so hits. The same thing happened when I made my own searchroll. Since I couldn't think of anything else I made a searchroll of some of my favorite shopping sites. However, I added some biggies like Target and Amazon, and those were all of the hits that came back. Once I removed those, it seemed to give a little more play to the other sites. If you want to look for something on my searchroll, there's a widget on the right.

I suppose I could find some practical applications. If I worked the reference desk more often, I would searchroll a bunch of sites I used often - world atlas, online encyclopedia, etc - hopefully making the search for an answer to a question come that much faster. Other than that, all I can muster to say about this Thing is "meh".

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

Online Productivity - isn't that on oxymoron? Most of the time, when I'm online, I am anything but productive. In fact, there are tons of sites out there that I'd wager that's their sole purpose in life - to waste time. But that's not what this thing is about. This is about the productive ones.

I did the iGoogle thing. It was ok. I mean, I suppose it's handy to have a lot of the Google features there to click, but is it really that hard to click on a tab and choose it from a menu? The nice thing about it is that it gives you a preview of your inbox and RSS feed, so you don't have to open them if you don't see anything new. However I am easily distracted, and me clicking on one of the news articles may lead to a 30 minute venture in webland.

I browsed through some of the other things, like the post-it notes and list maker, but didn't find them useful. I just don't make lists - it's just another piece of paper for me to lose. That, and I procrastinate, so looking at a list of all the things I haven't done yet just makes me feel bad. And no, laziness usually wins over feelings of self-defeat.

Online calendars are definitely useful, though when I usually need to consult a calendar I am nowhere near a computer. However, it would be great thing to have on a webpage to let patrons know of upcoming events. Backpack seemed pretty useful too, but Google had something somewhat comparable. If you just start a Google group you can upload documents, have a forum, etc. Backpack may streamline it a bit and give it pretty color coding and other fancy bits.

I can see how all these could be useful, but not readily applicable to my life at the moment. Productive? Maybe - however with a simple click on new tab, my mind can be off and wandering even with these sites up.

Thing 13: Library Thing

Or as I like to call it "How nosy can you be?! Why don't you just read over my shoulder for god's sake!". Not really. Well kinda. Anyway...

So I've already done something quite similar to this on Facebook. I think they call it something like "Visual Bookshelf", but the idea is the same. You input a bunch of books that you've read or are reading, and you can write reviews and see what your friends are currently reading. The problem is, I'm really bad at updating it, so my friends probably think I've been reading the same book for about 6 months now.

I can see how this could be a useful tool. If tagged properly, you could use it to search for a book whose name you can't remember. (Like all those patrons who come in saying "I'm looking for a book that's blue with a mouse on the cover" or "It's about a detective in Cedar Falls"). You can also definitely use it as a "what to read next" function. I had a great time looking at people's bookshelves that shared a similar taste in books. I'm always looking for new authors!

A cool thing, but not one I'm over-the-top excited about. If you want to check out my bookshelf, there's a selection over on the right - the last widget. Enjoy!

Thing 12: Wikis

You know, I was just thinking - who came up with up with the word "wiki"? All I can think of is when someone's using a record to scratch - the sound is that "wiki wiki" sound, and somehow I doubt that's it.

OK - just went to dictionary.com and looked up the origin of the word. It comes from a term coined by Howard G. Cunningham - WikiWikiWeb, a software he developed. The term "wiki wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick". In 1995 Ward Cunningham created the wiki as we know it today. *Etymology lesson over.*

Wikipedia and other wikis are the bane of teachers' existence, and I can see why. How reliable is the information on a site that anyone can edit? The nice thing about it, is that it is a quick answer when you have a question or two AND you can always click on the links listed under "Resources" at the bottom (in case you want other, possibly more reliable information). Banning wikis doesn't irk me quite so much as when they won't accept stuff from our databases. So what if it was found online - these are legitimate newspapers, magazines, and books, whose information has been put out on the WWW! Get with the times people!

I gave editing the NEFLIN wiki a whirl - it was easy, but not something I'm going to use all the time. All of this technology requires a commitment, and I have far too many things going on in my real life, making such commitment almost impossible. One of the blogs I'm following mentioned using it for book lists and the like. I am actually compiling a number of those right now, but I think I might post it on something like Lazybase instead, so I can lock it if I want to.

Thing 11: Social Media

This social media thing is ... interesting. Almost a popularity contest for news, but I get it. It's a way to put more power in the hands of the people. I can see how it could be a time-saver - you can customize the types of stories you want on your homepage, but I can also see how it could be a total time-suck.

After touring all 3 sites, I decided I like Digg the best. One of my friends is on this site (I think - I couldn't find her though), and it just seemed to be the most streamlined. One of them (and I can't think of which) had where you could write your own column on the site, which I thought could be fun, but I have trouble keeping up with my blogs as it is - I don't need something else to fall behind on.

In truth, I think I've been doing this for awhile. Every so often on my blog, I'll post a bunch of links to news stories I think are weird or interesting. I really like the science and technology stories, so those are more often than not the ones I post. True story: One week I found a bunch of news stories that convinced me that all the books I was reading were coming true. I read the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, and then found an article on the British developing plastic blood. Then, I had just gotten done with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and there was an article about this 1,600 lb. hog a boy killed. (I guess you have to be a fan of the books to really get those).

I signed up for Digg, and customized it a bit - though in reality, I think I'll just rely on my RSS feed for news. True, I may be missing something that I could find at another website (or rather that someone else could find at another website), but I just don't have the time for that much news consumption.

Thing 10: Tagging and Delicious

Delicious pretty much rocks my world. OMG! When Delicious gave me a little smile as I passed him in the hall, I almost fainted! And when he passed me that note in Algebra? *sigh* Wait - Delicious is waaay too organized to be a guy - which now raises a lot of questions about myself. OK seriously- I have to admit, I did not go on NEFLIN's Delicious account and wander around the site first - what can I say? I'm a dive right in kinda girl. However after doing so, I have to say this may be the most useful Thing so far.

But before I continue to gush over Delicious, let me talk a little about tagging in general. I've been tagging my posts for some time now - here and my other blogs, and I really like it. For example - my friend Jane has a blog, and she uses tags, so when I wanted to show my sister some of the pics of the ridiculous tshirts over in Korea, I just had to click on her tag for "Konglish", and found it pretty easily. (Konglish being Korea's form of English, which is pretty badly butchered sometimes. It's hilarious!).

I have also tagged all my Flickr photos and have used the tag search there as well. I was at the FLYP workshop in Tallahassee last week, when they showed us another site that uses Flickr's tags - Tag Galaxy. You type in a tag search, and it creates a little galaxy of related search terms around your central "tag planet". You can click these other planets to refine your search, and when you're satisfied, click the center planet, and it pulls all these pics from Flickr that are tagged with those terms, and makes this sphere of pictures that you can rotate and look through. If you see one you like, you can click it and be taken to the page on Flickr. Very cool site - especially since it gives you terms to refine your search, instead of having to think of them yourself.

OK - back to Delicious. *twirling hair* I heard Delicious still doesn't have a prom date. I wonder if he'll ask me - tee hee! Sorry. Jokes aside, I really do love this site. I just changed job titles, and as part of my new job, I'm trying to come up with cool programs for teens. So I'm doing a lot of research online, but the problem is, there's only one computer in the children's department! As a result, I've been using my laptop at work the last few days - which is not hooked up on the network or to a printer or anything. Thankfully with this site I can save all my bookmarks online - so if I need to print out a template for a craft, I can go to any computer and pull it up without having to find the original site again! PLUS using the tag search has pulled up a lot of similar sites and has saved me a lot of trouble searching online.

Thing 9:Part 2

UK mosaic
Originally uploaded by TheNonLibrarian

This feels like deja vu all over again. So - more photo sharing tools. The mosaic maker over at BigHugeLabs.com is cool, but a bit irking. Look at the pic of Big Ben immediately to the right of this! Trust me, that is not the way I took that picture. I'm not really happy with the pic of York Minster in the center either - it would be nice if they would let you select the part of the picture you want in the mosaic. One of my coworkers actually found a practical application for this! She puts up pictures of her kids on the shelving above her desk - this allowed her to put up a lot of pics, but not use as much space. I thought it was a great idea!

I did not create a slideshow, as Blogger and Flickr helped me make some for my blog already - the results are towards the bottom right of my page. It's really easy to do, and a great way to share a bunch of pictures without uploading them all to a page.

The database thing I like. I was just working on a dystopia/cyberpunk/steampunk teen reading list for a workshop I was supposed to go to tomorrow. I was just planning on printing a list and handing it out, but having it online would be a great resource - especially if I post a link to it on our webpage! Part of me likes the ability to let others edit, but that also means you have to keep an eye on the list to make sure no one messes it up. More to come as I explore this.

Thing 9: Part 1

Switzerland/Paris mosaic
Originally uploaded by TheNonLibrarian

Thing 8: Communication

It's one of the things we are constantly struggling with as a society - communication. How to get our ideas across to friends, family, colleagues - and now we have more ways of doing it than ever.

Our library has employed email for the last year or so. It's been really handy, especially at a time when we were divided up into teams, and had to coordinate meetings between 6 or so people. We don't have to worry about lost paper messages, or rely on our terrible memories - but there have been some downsides. I think there are some people who will communicate through email only - which is not the way to handle important business. We have plans to use email to send messages about late books and fines, but as of right now, I think we have yet to do that.

As far as IM and texting - I am well familiar with both. I actually have a friend who lives in Ohio that I've known for about 9 or 10 years, but whom I've never met. We met in a chat room a long time ago, and kept in contact via IM. Now that both of us don't spend as much time in front of computers, we text back and forth, and occasionally, he'll resign himself to actually speaking to me on the phone. In fact, I still remember ICQ - anyone else? Talk about old-school! All of my friends were on that back in the day before AIM and MSNmessenger were big, around '95/'96. I really want us to use IM in our library. The posts I've read on other blogs by libraries that use it have all been positive, and I think it would be a much faster way to send a message to someone, rather than trying to track them down or phone them. And using it for reference? Brilliant! You could send links to the information you used to answer the question, or to people or sites that can help them better than you can!

As far as texting goes, I am SO addicted! I have a prepaid cell phone plan, and it's cheaper for me to text someone a quick message than it is for me to call them. Plus, it's fun to send strange messages back and forth with my sister or friends - something I wouldn't bother calling someone to do. I really want a phone with a full keyboard, but I have to save a little to get the one I want. I think the idea of sending notices via text is great. I would much rather get a text than a letter or a phone message, because I live at home and don't often get those things passed on to me by my mother or sister.

I have not attended any webinars. Erm, I may someday, but it's difficult to do at my library, as a lot of sites that use video - like Youtube - don't load. In fact, I haven't watched any of the videos posted on the NEFLIN blog. Before you burn me at the stake - I have read the articles, and clearly am not having any issues using the technology.

Twitter - I just found out about this recently. I know my fave author, Neil Gaiman, twitters, but I have yet to use this myself. One of my friends was telling me you can receive friends' updates via text, but I do not have the right cell plan for that.

Thing 7: Image Generators

This is an image generated using a website called http://www.sp-studio.de/. It's pretty interesting too, because the owner of the site does talk about copyright infringement - but not of him violating the creator's rights - no, it was of people ripping off his creations. However, the website is free, and supposedly does not generate revenue, so that may be how he gets around it. It's a fun little activity, but of no use that I can tell. No- I don't have ice blue hair, but it would be wicked if I did.

One of the other ones, ToonDoo, does have its uses for me. I teach an anime class every summer at my library - my degree is in animation - and I think this would be the perfect tool to help expand the class a bit. Kids could learn how to set up a comic strip without having to worry about drawing ability. It could teach them punchlines and planning - and then when they wanted to start drawing their own comics, it would be an easier transition! Plus it could be an eye-catching way for us to advertise upcoming teen events.


[This is based on an actual phone conversation I had at the library - well, the first two frames anyway - the third is what I really wanted to say. Btw - you can click the image to see it full-sized (I know it's a little hard to read this way).]

This last image generator I found through the Generator Blog. The actual generator can be found at http://www.says-it.com/softdrink/. I thought it was a cute way to advertise, though my blog name is a bit long for the can. Ah well, what can you do?

With such a variety of generators, I'm sure we could use them for adverts for any number for programs. They could be fun activities for our teen users too - we could have them go to the website, generate an image, and then post it onto an open blog...hmm... I can see some possibilities.

Thing 6: Part 2 - Flickr Mashups

Thing 6 is definitely wicked! It was way more fun than I should probably be having at work! Yay NEFLIN! Can you tell I enjoyed it?

Anwho - my last post was just one of the Flickr mashups I tried out. I also toyed with the Flickr Color Pickr (which is not just fun to play with, but fun to say - go ahead - say it out loud), and really enjoyed it. I'm an artist though, and color mesmerizes me. I'm not sure how I could practically apply it, but fun nonetheless.

I also tried out Spell with Flickr. Below are the results. Again - practical application? Probably none, but half the things I do online have no purpose, so what's one more? One of the apps that would actually be of use to me would probably be the jigsaw puzzle creator. I don't know if you could print that out or not, but we made puzzles for a Harry Potter party celebrating release of the Deathly Hallows, and boy could we have used that app! We made puzzles by hand to use as part of one of our games, and it took awhile.

I have no problem with sharing pictures online. Flickr has the ability to let you put privacy settings on the ones you don't want made public, so no biggie, right? Though it would kinda suck if someone stole one of your pics, submitted it to a contest, and won - you being left out in the cold without even getting any credit.

Thing 6: Part 1 - Flickr Mashups

Damnation
Originally uploaded by TheNonLibrarian

So this is a picture I took on the subway in Paris (see - I'm not just being a bigot). It was this gigantic 15x20 ft poster on the metro station wall. When I found this tool on BigHugeLabs.com, I had to use this pic! Besides, it was the only one I could really come up with a semi-witty quip for - and even that took awhile.

Thing 5: Flickr

Mad Tea Party
Originally uploaded by TheNonLibrarian

I've actually been signed up for my Flickr account for awhile, but only today did I have the time to upload some photos. Since I'm at work, I actually had to download them to the computer from my other account at Photobucket, then upload them onto Flickr. Time consuming to say the least, but not difficult.

However I didn't waste my time - I had done some exploring on Flickr when I first opened the account. I did some searches, looked around, and found some things that I liked. The one that stands out (that I don't think Photobucket has) is the option to add a note to the photo. You can highlight a small section of the photo you wish to comment on, and add a message. Brilliant!

The photo to the right is of a painting based on the Mad Hatter's tea party from Alice in Wonderland I did for a Family Literacy Day program a couple of years ago. We had an indoor mini-golf game, and the kids had to answer a question about each book before making the putt. I painted about 8 different backgrounds based on books, and this is one. The others I won't post here (partly for fear of copyright infringement), but are up on my Flickr account.

This was definitely different as far as posting using Photobucket. There, you can click on a single (or multiple) pics, and just copy and paste the html code into the post you are writing (or even one already written). I had already started writing this post and had it saved as a draft. I thought I could do the same thing with Flickr, but that's not what I found. They posted it to the blog for me, and I had to go back to my original post and copy and paste the script into this one. Not hard, just strange - and now I know better.

To be fair to Flickr though, I was actually able to get my slideshow over on the side here up and running with them, whereas my one with Photobucket was having trouble. And no, it wasn't because I didn't know what I was doing. I was the one who helped a coworker set hers up!

I have yet to actually upload any photos of my library and tag them "neflins23things", but that will be my next task. At least I have gotten a taste of the site.

Happy Dance!!!

I got the job!!!

Ok - I need to backtrack. Ever since I started working at this library (which was 4 years, 6 months, and 4 days ago - but who's counting?), I have wanted a job over in the children's department. The problem was (aside from all the positions being filled), that it was part time and had no health insurance benefits. Boo. I loved the people who did it though, and since Bev has known me for - let's see- 14 or 15 years now (and I have a BFA), she let me help out with some of the artsy stuff that needed doing.

Tammy left - she had just had a baby, and then her husband got transferred. I thought "Here's my chance!", but the position stayed just part time and someone else was hired. Jenneffer was pregnant when she was hired, had the baby, then her boyfriend got transferred, and she left. See a pattern? They were both effervescent, lovely, bubbly people - but the timing with job/life was just really bad.

Again, the position stayed part time, but they allowed me to help out during the summer. They did 2 sets of interviews and ended up with nada - during which time I started doing storytimes at local daycares - basically working about 12 hrs in children's and the rest at all the other desks. Finally, they decided to make the position full time - turning a Library Assistant 1 into a pt, and making the other ft (basically what I was already doing, but maybe adding more hours in the children's section). However, they couldn't make it an in-house hire, so I had to apply and interview along with everyone else. 54 people applied! They did only 6 interviews, and I gave it everything I had. I just found out today that I got it! And our director said I did really great in the interview!!!

I am so pumped right now - even if I am sick.

Thing 4: RSS Feed

I was a bit non-plussed at the start of the assignment for this thing. I really didn't find it all that time-consuming to check the sites that I read everyday. That may be a bit misleading though, because I really don't get to check them everyday. See, I have dial-up at home - it's shocking and almost inhumane - I know, but I kinda live out in the country and can't get DSL yet. One of my coworkers however, who lives just 2 miles down the road from me can AND has a wireless network set up in her house! Jealous? You bet I am! *Ahem* That was a bit off subject. The point is though, that because I don't get to check a lot of the blogs and sites that I read everyday, there's usually some sort of update when I finally do get around to reading them. So I never thought I was really wasting time going to all the different sites. Besides, I am a visual person and really like the graphics on the websites I visit.

That being said, I am a bit more impressed with Google Reader and the whole RSS thing than I had originally thought I would. It is rather handy to have all the updates there in one spot. I have decided that maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to have BBC News on the feed. I have about 150 updates on my reading list from that site alone, and it's a bit daunting to scan through. The plus side is that maybe I see interesting headlines that I wouldn't have normally read if I were left to surf the site on my own. Humans are creatures of habit, and I certainly have mine. When I go to BBC I look at the Day In Pictures, Entertainment, Health, and Science sections, maybe glance at some football scores, and peruse the front page - that's it. Those things are certainly what catch my eye first, but now I look at some of the others, and will hopefully be more informed about the goings-on of the world.

My next step is to see about setting up one of those RSS icons on this blog and my other. Blogger does have a cool feature where you can follow blogs and have updates sent to your dashboard, but you have to be signed up for one of their accounts to use it.

Thing 3 - Blog Search!

I have to admit - I only gave this thing the feeblest of tries. Normally, the blogs I read are for enjoyment only, and I find them from following links on other blogs. I've written (and am currently writing) other blogs, to which I have added trackers - and believe me, the searches that people do that lead them to my blogs are astounding. Seemingly innocent words in posts, when connected form some interesting search terms.

So I decided to do an experiment. I did the same search using Google blog search, Technorati, and Ice Rocket. My first general search "animation", did not yield any results worth reading. So I decided to do "library", and oddly enough the first hits weren't for any actually libraries like I thought. So - to try to be more specific, I searched "neflin library". Google was the only one that came up with Neflin's 23 things blog - probably because Blogger is a Google tool. Ice Rocket came up with BlahBlahBlah, but as I looked farther, the 23 things didn't even show up on the second search page. But what I did notice, especially when I did a later search of "Obama", is that Google seems to come up with more news-type blogs than the other two.

Not really a tool I see using much. Maybe I need to play around with it more.

Thing 2 AKA Web/Library 2.0

So this whole 23 things bit is a part of exploring Library 2.0/Web 2.0 - a new era of technology and networking, and making the library more accessible to patrons. After reading a few of the articles linked at Neflin's 23 things blog, I am inspired.

Though really, it's been something that's been on my mind for awhile - ever since my library's staff development day last year. Brad Ward came and did a presentation on pop culture, and hit on the subject of libraries using sites like Second Life to reach out and provide a service to patrons. My coworker Jan had already been on the site a number of times, and throughout the year it's something we've talked about. I've even created an avatar for the site and done some limited exploring (limited by the memory on my laptop, that is). In fact, since reading the article and me starting this post, we've even decided to start talking to libraries already established in that world to see what they offer and the kind of traffic they get.

Of course there are some more basic things we need to address at our library too. We just added 9 more computers for public usage - though unfortunately we didn't add any more bandwidth, and so when all of the computers are full, everything crawls to a halt. At this time, the only thing on our public computers is Internet Explorer (we have separate and ancient word processors), which really wouldn't be too much of a problem (what with all of Google's online applications), except that most of our patrons are not really computer savvy. No CD-ROMs, disks, flash drives are able to be used in our computers, which is a shame, because I think flash drives are an important part of Web 2.0 - that whole portability/accessibility thing. Also, more and more businesses are going web-based - we have numerous patrons coming in trying to fill out online applications for jobs, food stamps, unemployment, and student loans.

One solution to this would be to offer computer classes. The local community college offers some, and there's also a local computer lab, but they've started charging for their services. We could do basics like signing up for an email address, all the way to trickin' out a Myspace page. I also like the idea of embedding an IM to the desktop for patrons to use. Heck, I'd like one for the staff to use. It could really help when there's a problem patron or something - it would be a discreet way to get a message to someone to come help without having to pick up the phone and describe the situation or leave to try to track someone down.

One of the articles mentioned trust. Trust is what we need to make these technologies available. Trust that if we let our patrons use flash drives, they won't crash our system with a trojan. Or, trust that if that happens, we have the technology and ability to fix it. Trust that if we put up blogs and social networking sites, our patrons won't leave profane comments. Library 2.0 is, I think, about taking chances and trusting that they'll work, or trusting that if they don't , the library will be ok.

Thing 1

An odd title for a blog post, no? Though somewhat appropriate for a library worker, since it makes me think of The Cat in the Hat. So why the title?


Well, I was informed that I would be participating in NEFLIN'S 23 Things project that they are doing. NEFLIN stands for Northeast Florida Library Information Network - in case there are any people who happen to stumble upon this and go "Wtf, mate?" (because of course you will all be Australian) or in case you are one of my poor friends that I force to read this blog. The project is to get librarians more informed about new technologies and how to use them for the library.

Can you guess what thing 1 is? It's this blog! I am already well-versed on blog writing (and some of the other upcoming things as well), but what the hey! I like writing blogs, and need an excuse to get back into the habit of writing. Besides, it's an excuse to shamelessly show off my awesome YA displays and techno-skills. Plus, I get to work on this while at work, so it's not really going to eat into my personal time - unless I want it to.

Hmmm - but maybe you'd like to get to know me a bit, eh? I am a library assistant 2, and pretty much do a little of everything at my little public library. Reference, ILL, circulation, children's programs - you name it, I do it - even cataloging (well, in theory - I've had some training, no actual practice yet). My biggest hope right now is to get a position doing children's full-time, and am currently holding my breath waiting for a call about an interview. In my free time I do community theater, sing, paint, and run the youth group at my church. I have a BFA in art and the library I work at lets me use my talent a bit. That's enough for now I suppose - stay tuned for an upcoming blog on Thing 2.