Thing 22 - Staying Current

The obvious thing about all this is that inertia is always out there sounding the siren call of do-nothingness. Luring you to a quiet place where nothing changes and opportunities slide on by. After all, your plate's already full, why pile on more?

This is why: the stuff on your plate can get stale pretty fast. Maybe you have a lot of "gotta dos" in your life and a lot of "we've always dones" so where's the room or time for more plans, more learning, more activities or opportunities? But really, a lot of day to day or even year to year "have tos" kind of attrition out. At least they do if you let them. It's like weeding a shelf of books. Maybe you hate to let them go; maybe some you'll always keep, but some have gotta go to make room for the new books.

So instead of always putting on the brakes or ducking and covering when something new starts ambling your way (or sometimes barrelling), maybe think, "here's a new way to learn something" or "here's a new way to reach out to the public". Same public as last week, similar goals, but a new way of doing what you do anyway. So you don't have to welcome everything, but a few things, here and there.
At least, that's what I'll try telling myself, as I crouch behind my bookshelf with a look of alarm on my face.

Thing 22 -- Student 2.0

I love the Assignment Calcuator and wish that it and the internet had been around when I was in college. I wish college had been online when I was going. Don't like classrooms, no, no, no.


The A.S. offers advice as what to look for and how to look for it and when to get 'er done. Very nice. Similar stuff with the Reasearch Calculator. I like the links and email alerts. I can't see a public library posting hints to students of how to do their research papers. By the time they are in the libary, a lot of decisions have been made and assignments have been handed out. Maybe a reasearch corner with helpful forms and tools... I dunno.

Thing 20 -- Books 2.0

This thing has an amazing amount of information. I liked the way BookBrowse was laid out and the kind of information, reviews, discussion, whole books that are available and I supposed the part that costs money is good too, but I'm not paying for it!
What do I read Next was a site that I have used before, but I haven't tried it for awhile. I put the "The Stand" as a search and got a lot more Stephen King as suggestions (no big help or surprise there) but did get a suggestion for "Swan Song" which sounds like an A+ and on the nosey.
I do think that sooner or later, Kindle-type books will check out of our library, but the first time someone has to pay for one, stand back!! Yaaaa!!
BookLamp seemed pretty limited -- maybe thery haven't been at it very long. They mostly had science fiction titles.
As far as Books on your Phone goes: My cell phone stays in my car and it is for calls that I absolutely have to make. Not a big phone person at this juncture, but who knows?
Swimbooks -- I'm not a student, but the textbook rental would appeal to me if I was.
I liked the themed booklist of Overbooked; it had some good suggestions under such themes as vampires and history.

THING 19 -- Social Networks

Webjuntion didn't do a lot for me; technology for it's own sake doesn't appeal to me much. I like Ning. I put in the search "simple living" and got several hits that looked promising in regards to information and validation of a personal view point ( and we all like that, don't we?).
Gather looks like it would be a good professional/political spot to investigate.



Really, there seems to be worlds within worlds, as we explore the internet's possibilities. Occasionally I find something to monkey with, among all these projects, that pleases me and - hopefully - as I go along in work and life I may now and then think -- Here! Here's a good way to use that thing we learned about. Here's a chance to make an impression or teach someone something. Maybe that will happen.

Sometimes I feel like a kid taking Algebra I and saying, "When will I ever use this?"
It's good brain exercise. That's reason enough, yes?

Thing 18 --Facebook and MySpace

I suppose the longest journey starts with a single step, but I look at the ACLD site and some of the other library sites... it's like we have the site because it's the going thing, not because we have any real enthusiasm for the task. These sites are not something that really interests me though, so maybe I'm missing the point For something to grab my attention it needs to be really clever or quite funny or both. Otherwise it's too much like homework: it's gotta be done, but given my druthers....

I did like the advice regarding using these sites professionally. It seems like it would apply in general. Be careful what you put out there, because who knows where it will end up? I did try to create a facebook page for Superman, but apparently revealing his identity is prohibited. If only they looked after all of us so well.

Thing 17 -- Podcasts

I added Dan Carlin's Hardcore History to my bloglines account. Also, The Word Nerds, just for fun. I own an MP3 player that I have never used. Maybe it's time.

Thing 16 --Youtube

I'm mad about Hugh Laurie and here's your chance to more fully appreciate him.

It took about 7 or so tries to import this youtube. I succeeded when I used the pull down menu to paste instead of ctrl + v.

Thing 15 - Rollyo

Rollyo: Roll Your Own Search Engine

The Rollyo I made is called A Better Place. I included alot of the sites I use when I am once again attempting to find paradise. Rollyo doesn't really work for this, however, because you can't really search Homes.com and epodunk.com at the same time. Does not compute.

But I could see combining more typical sites for a search, say sites on native plants or wildflowers.

Thing 14 -- Online productivity tools

I created my home or "start page" at iGoogle. This way I could check my gmail along with everything else. I added quote gadgets and beach scenes and deleted soduko and an obsolete feed.
I would need to be on the computer more than I am to make on online "to do" list maker handy for me.
Weirdly enough, I used Zamzar a few days ago, after spending an hour trying to remember it's name. I have since put it under my favorites. It's an extremely useful gadget that I don't use often. But when you need it, it's a miracle worker.

Thing 13 - Library Thing

I like Library Thing. My husband and have a lot of books and it would be cool to have the collection cataloged. I'll have to get a scanner. I opened a Library Thing account and added some books.

Library local mentioned one happening: Alachua County Library District Headquarters: Comics for Everyone: Drawing with Matt Madden (March 19 at 7:00pm)
Matt Madden promotes Black Candy, Odds Off, A Fine Mess.

I wish I had more time to think about all this, but I don't...

Thing 12 - wikis

I posted on the NEFLIN 23 Things Wiki. I didn't have anything to say so I offered a quote.
I do like what I learned from the Common Craft video. A wiki is a good place to meet and plan something.

THING 11 -- SOCIAL MEDIA

While an editor may not be choosing and slanting the content of the news on Reddit or Newsvine, the readers certainly are. I prefer clicking on a variety of news sites in my effort to get the "whole story". These sites are useful in determining what people are interested in, but you may well get lost in all the kibitzing.

I do like Stumbleupon which is not about news, but websites that folks find interesting. This is entertainment with a side dish of information.

I did try submitting a newsarticle to Reddit, but it had already been submitted

Thing 10 -- Delicious

Maybe Delicious is something that has to grow on you. I opened an account and put a couple of bookmarks on it just for the experience. I could picture using it constantly only if my job or hobby required a consistant set of web sources that I went to regularly and I moved from computer to computer. At our branch, we have a half dozen web sites that are needed frequently enough to put under "Favorites" -- and so far that has sufficed.
Maybe if you were, for instance, doing a newsletter-- a combination of RSS feeds and Delicious would probably make your task a bit easier, especially if you needed to work on it away from home.

THING 9- sharing photos, ect.

Well, a picture's worth a thousand words, especially if no one is taking the time to read the words. I could see the use of a button on a library webpage that says " show me how to place a hold" and then launches into a slideshow that actually shows the steps. Maybe another that says "how do I search the catalog?" or "What's a database and how do I use it?"

Thing 8 - IMs

I used Google talk to IM with a co-worker. I did have to download the tool to do it with.

I like the idea of web conferencing instead of going to meetings. Meetings take up alot of time, and if you can "go to it", while staying at your branch, seems like that's a winner.

I once tried Second Life (very briefly) and you are basically IMing with the virtual folks around you. I like this form of communication. In earlier times, I liked writing letters much better than talking on the phone, but this probably indicates that I may be a slow IMer, since I prefer to consider my words and do rewrites. IM seems to have a pretty quick receive and respond rythm to it.

Thing 7 -continued

I was about to dig into my Mighty Morphin Power Pancakes when I noticed something a little odd... Jimmy Durante's grinning mug staring up from my plate. Was this a message from, from ....someone, I don't know who -- telling me that I was supposed to... to... do something important? Or was this the result of one too many late nights, two too many early mornings, and maybe three or twenty-three too many things on my plate?

What to do with this pancake? Eat it or sell it on ebay?

There's an ancient chinese proverb that I like to think about at a time like this. When in the rain, be wet. When at the Pancake Palace, well, you get the picture. As Jimmy liked to to say, "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, where ever you are."

created using : [ Miracle Maker ] from the Generator Blog

Thing 7 - Stars in my Eyes

Okay-- the comments you see below in green refer to a neat little photo of a galaxy and words that come zooming up "TWENTY-THREE BILLION THINGS". I've sent various forms of it to my blog about 4 0r 5 times. It's there and then it's gone. Very frustrating!


This is kinda neat.

The main use I can find for a toy such as this on a library page is to simply catch someone's attention. Wave your arms, jump up and down and then -- show them something that you really want them to see.
ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Thing 6 -I LOVE

This gorgeous photo is Ferret Heart by بني جان . No, I can't pronouce it.
The url for it is: http://flickr.com/search/?q=ferrets&page=2
This thing was fun and fairly easy, up to the part where I was trying to "blog this". Then it failed. Then in trying to get back to where I was -- I lost it -- and had to redo it a couple of times. I finally put it on my desktop and then, using Picasa, uploaded it which worked fine.



I found the gadgets in flickr interesting and the possibilities for endless fiddling enormous.

Thing 5 -flickr

I uploaded this from our photo archive, which is a shared folder, to flickr and from flickr to this blog.

The picture is a bulletin board I did a couple of years ago.

Regarding flickr, I found it a little frustrating. When you are doing things right, you expect it to work. Flickr seems to work sometimes and sometimes, not. I can see its usefulness and potential and I enjoyed looking a the many interesting and/or beautiful photos.

I tagged this photo and this post "Alachua Branch displays".

ALA Displays 001
Originally uploaded by rstarnes2002

Thing 4 -- RSS

Okay. I had a little trouble with the RSS feeds. I had a lot of feeds on my Bloglines site that I don't think I asked for. But I figured out how to delete the extras.

I added a couple of 23 Things blogs, some news and book oriented subscriptions and one blog that I found about Hickory, NC, just for the fun of it.

If your wondering about the frog, I just thought it was pretty.

I got it from Flickr, the photographer is Maytevidri. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=frogs&w=25307487%40N00.

Thing 3 : Blog seeking

I tried a number of the search engines and was able to fine useful stuff on all, except for Sphere (I couldn't figure out HOW to search in Sphere). And the search results in Technorati were a bit skimpy, but I'll try again, because I found out belatedly that the search does not default to blogs but to something else. I think I liked Google the best.

Aspirations

Hey! This is just a little yada for the heck of it. I needed to book an after-hour meeting, which means booking a security guard for the evening. I sent the email to "security", which is in our email address book, and to the security manager email address I found in our online rolodex. This rolodex is shared by the whole library district. Apparently, this particular bit of the rolodex had not been updated in years! Our raggedy paper rolodex had the correct email address, so I was able to fix this goof, just in the nick of time.
So...the moral of this story : all the online and techno-whatever is really great, if it is as up-to-date and easy to get to as...our raggedy paper rolodex.

Thing 2 : Library 2.0

Okay. so Library 2.0 is a snazzy name for outreach via technology. Great idea and a necessary one, but I do wonder if we aren't mostly ahead of the curve by years. What percentage of library users are jumping into this pool? I think the group that we are mentoring right now, the youngun's, will be the first regular (keyword is regular) users of virtual library service.

Right now, however, I think we can feel pretty good about the numerous patrons that have learned to place their own holds and check their own accounts at their own convenience.

Thing 1 : Whew! One down.

Well, on the "name your url page" I kept getting an error. I tried, oh, I don't know, maybe 8 or 10 times. But here I am, blogging my first blog. I am curious about all this, the 23 things, though finding time during the day may be a problem.