Week 10!!!!!!!

iHCPL was a great learning experience and a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed playing with and learning about Flickr and photo editing with Picnik (I hadn’t really done all that much with digital pictures before). Blogging was something that I was already quite familiar with, but this program really expanded my knowledge about it, including introducing me to cool sites like Technorati.

Another thing that I’ll take away from this experience is a new found devotion to Del.icio.us. I had used it in the past and then sort of forgotten about it, but becoming reacquainted with it has sparked my interest, and I now find myself using it every day.

On a practical level, becoming better acquainted with Overdrive has been useful in my day to day work, and it helps me provide better customer service in the library. Although, I do wish it would work with my iPod! :) Also, I was not familiar with podcast search engines prior to doing the 23 Things program, and I believe that this also could come in handy some day in providing good customer service in the library.

In the future, I plan to continue learning more about Wikis. I feel like I got a good introduction during the program, but I’ve begun building my own and am working with tools available at PBwiki on developing my knowledge in this area.

Overall, I feel like this was a very positive learning experience. I appreciated how many of the lessons had obvious ties to real-world applications, and I certainly appreciated the focus on fun. I also liked that it was self-paced, and I had no problem fitting the bite-sized lessons in with my day to day activities.

Week 9 #22 Downloadable Media

Overdrive was very interesting and the online tutorial quite helpful. I was surprised to find movies available through Overdrive. One title that caught my attention was Afro-Punk. It's a documentary about being black in the predominantly white punk music scene. It supposedly includes concert footage of Bad Brains. I'm going to have to download that one at home ;)

Librivox reminded me somewhat of Project Gutenberg, but with a focus on audio files. WOWIO seemed to have a different mix of materials from Librivox because it includes some non-public domain materials through using sponsorship for targeted marketing (an interesting idea).

Week 9 #21 Podcasts

Of the podcast search engines listed in iHCPL, podcast.net and Yahoo! Podcasts seem to have gone extinct; however, I found several others, including http://www.odeo.com/ ; http://www.podcastpickle.com/ ; http://www.podnova.com/

Of the ones I reviewed, I liked Podnova, PodcastAlley and Odeo the best. I think a great search feature to add to these search engines would be to limit based on when they were last updated because a lot of the searches pulled up podcasting sites that haven't been updated in over a year (there's no way to sort either).

I found a few podcasts to subscribe to, but the absolute coolest was The Rock & Roll Librarian (http://skalogy.podomatic.com/)

Week 9 #20 - YouTube

What can I say? YouTube is a lot of fun, and it has been for a while. However, it also has some serious uses like during the recent presidential election race, or for hosting footage of eye-witness news accounts. Most of my YouTube browsing, however, has tended toward the lighter side of things. I mostly like to look at music videos and concert footage.

One other interesting use has been the way people have used YouTube to launch their own careers. I have a friend of mine who is a producer, and he recently started a reality show spoof based on the brutal world of intramural basketball. The series was called Intramural Glory, and here is part one of the first of thirteen webisodes:

Week 8 Post 19 Online Productivity

When I first read about online productivity, I thought this would be about something like OpenOffice.org, but as soon as I saw the mention of Google Docs, I knew exactly what was meant. I used Google Docs extensively during my MLS program. I earned my degree online, and all of our group projects were created using applications in Google Docs. It was a great tool with many excellent features, and as I explore Zoho, it seems that it might be even more feature rich.

 

Without question, I think Zoho and Google Docs are tremendous resources for anyone involved in online collaboration. When I think of the time spent in the past with the back and forth involved in passing along emails with new versions attached... It was endless.

Technorati Tags     iHCPL (edit to add: I published this from Zoho! Very easy... with a Tag too!)

Week 8 #18 - Social Networking

I think social networking is one of the most powerful things to come out of this internet age. The popularity of sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, etc. is staggering. I've seen first hand how these online communities can create important contacts that lead to jobs and life-changing friendships. However, I've also seen people be too open on these sites and get themselves into trouble, including a co-worker who, five or six years ago, lost her job over posts to her LiveJournal account.

As for what's out there, I've found that Facebook seems to have worked the best at generating large friends lists, quickly. Less than two weeks after getting a Facebook account, I had already heard from over a dozen high school friends that I'd lost touch with over a decade ago. I also like LiveJournal because it tends to promote longer posts that help me feel like I'm still "in the loop" with friends that I've not lived near to in years and years. Also, LiveJournal is great for finding new people with similar interests. Finally, I like Twitter, but in small doses. I don't Twitter, but my friends do, and at first I was overwhelmed by the minutia one encounters from following too closely. Now, I just drop in from time to time, scan their Tweets and get a sense of what their up to without obsessivley following every update.

Week 7 #17 Technology

I find it interesting to see the extent to which social networking gets incorporated into many of these technologies. Flickr, Del.icio.us, RSS providers, etc. all have elements that promote social interaction. I see this as part of the Web 2.0 philosophy, allowing users to not just add content, but to interact among each other. And this doesn't even take into consideration the explosion of blogs and online journal sites as well as virtual worlds (Blogger, MySpace, Face Book, LiveJournal, Second Life, etc. etc.)

It's an interesting phenomenon, and it seems clear that inclusion (opening sites to user input) has produced better Web sites, better services, and greater success for service providers. Libraries are included in all of this as they increase their online profile and create opportunities for patrons to contribute content.

Week 7 #16 Wikis

I tend to agree with the readings that state that wikis are good for quickly gathering facts or serving as a starting point for further research. Given the open content nature of wikis, I worry about people relying on them as if they were edited/peer-reviewed encyclopedias. With that caveat in mind, I think they're great. I've seen them used at Penn State for storing best-practices information, as well as addressing policy and technical issues within the university and its many (many, many) colleges, departments, and services. It was fantastic to have a single place to go to to get department-specific info created by people within the very department in question. They also used it extensively for conferences and symposia to add real-time information.

Reviewing some of the other resources, I really liked the subject guide and pathway wikis, and I thought the idea of annotating catalogs with customer reviews and further-reading suggestions is fantastic. I also liked going through (or playing in) the iHCPL sandbox... I got some great vacation ideas.

Week 6 #15 - Blogging on Library 2.0

I like the idea of library 2.0. I think the concepts behind it speak to our mission to provide equal access to information for our customers. Opening up the way we do this to allow two-way communication improves the quality of information we share, helps us better understand the information needs of our community, and serves as an important opportunity for outreach.

As circulation numbers decrease, we need to show that we are still relevant, and having a strong online presence is a big part of that. Books are still a huge part of our service, but Internet access, online information searching, and things like online "ask a librarian" services are becoming more important and we need to change to address needs as they arise. I also think creating opportunities for customers to participate like they do in sharing book reviews online is a great way to keep people connected the the library.

I also liked what I read about web 2.0 (and library 2.0 for that matter) having a beta release model that is open to user feedback and change. Releasing programs in beta format shows a keen interest in experimentation, and in order for libraries to keep up with the times, we need to be open to trying new things. They may not always work, but we always learn a lot in trying.

Finally, the discussion on web 3D and web 4.0 was a little puzzling to me, but that is just a sign that I need to do more reading on the topic. I think that while we are working on developing library 2.0 ideas, it is also important to keep an eye out on the horizon.

Week 6 - #14 - Technorati

The distinction between searching blogs and posts is interesting. The results for blog searches pulled up fewer hits, but the results were more on topic; whereas, the results for post searches was much less topic specific, so if you are searching blogs that focus on a particular topic, then blog searching is definitely the way to go because post searching will pull up way too many bad hits (i.e. posts that simply mention the search term without the post actually being about it).

As for the popular feature, who knew Arriana Huffington was so popular? Looking at how the rating system works was interesting as well: the "authority" marker relying on number of links to one's blog seems like a good way to tap into the zeitgeist of the blogging community.

Week 6 #13 - Tags and Del.icio.us

I've been using Del.icio.us for a few years, but perhaps not as much as I should. I used it first when I lost all my links at a previous job (disaster!). It's a great tool--very convenient because it's accessible everywhere, and the tag feature is great. I like exploring other people's tags, and this often leads to many lost hours exploring the net (but never at work, of course!).

What I really need to do is transfer some links that I have on my home computer from my library school days to my Del.icio.us account, so that I can use them to help customers find information.

Week 5 - Library Elf

This is a great tool! I selected the RSS feed, so I can follow on my Bloglines account. I was a little iffy about giving out my PIN, but I still think this was a very cool idea. The ability to track multiple accounts is very useful in a place like Harris County where many people also have a Houston Public Library card.

Week 5 - Image Generators

FotoTrixaltrd_picnik, originally uploaded by bibliblogger.

My cats generally look pretty subdued, but they are in fact sociopaths.

Week 5 - LibraryThing

So LibraryThing was fun. I'm already on GoodReads (but I hardly ever update). LibraryThing was quite similar, but the widget feature is cool:

Week 4 - Finding Feeds

Of the ones I played around with, I liked Syndic8 the best as a search tool. I liked its search features better than Blogline's. However, the feed that I liked the best was one that I found on Topix (it was the newswire for Houston). Technorati was interesting, but its focus on blogs didn't really appeal to any immediate information needs that I have. I can, however, see how it could be a great social networking tool in blogging circles.

From past experience, I also like the search features in Google's Reader quite a bit. Its "suggestions" feature has actually provided some good suggestions in the past.

Week 4 - Bloglines

I've been using Google Reader for a while, but I liked working with Bloglines just fine. There were a lot of similarities in terms of layout and both were quite intuitive to use.

In other news, Blogger no longer thinks I am spam. I feel vindicated.

Week 3 - Photo Editing

Here's Ms. Kitty sans red-eye and cropped.

Week 3 - 3rd Party Tools etc.

There were a lot of fun tools out there, and I could see how one might spend a lot of time playing around with them. PictoBrowser looked suspiciously familiar, and what do you know: http://www.hcpl.net/branchinfo/ata/atainfo.htm

Oh, and of course today's "word verification" word is qywxezhk. Definition, anyone?

Week 3 - Blogger thinks I'm spam

So my blog is locked and under review (requiring I type in a word verification every time I post... fun... today's word is "Ikdhu"). Anywho, I'll play with the "Blog It" feature on Flickr once this is resolved. For now, I just posted a link to the pic of my wonderful cats ((two of three) see below).

The Cats (posted on flickr)

Week 2 - Online Privacy

I tend to be very nervous about sharing personal info on the net. There's all of the identity theft stuff to worry about, but it's also important to remember that the Internet has become this massive gossip monster. I have friends that get very involved in the drama (on LiveJournal, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger etc.), but I try to stay well clear of it. It's bad enough to have friends find out things you don't want them to know--it can be embarrassing--but having an employer see something inappropriate can get you canned. So I think an abundance of caution is always a good idea.

Week 2 - Learning Style

I think I tend to learn by doing, i.e. repetition is the key to mastery. This also works for studying more abstract ideas in that I tend to understand them better after I've tried to formulate and write down my ideas.

I also prefer a quiet study environment with few interruptions, or at least I think I prefer that as my reality hasn't really afforded me any opportunities for quiet uninterrupted study time. I don't think I've had that since I was an undergraduate.