Thing 30 - It's Over!

Oh my gosh!!!! I am soooo glad it's over!!!!

Suprisingly, I am taking quite a bit with me as I walk away from this learning experience but considering I just wrote about that below I don't feel the need to type it all again.

The program was over-whelming at times. At one point I quit, there were just too many e-mails coming out about how people were doing it wrong, it was one after another and I wasn't even to that point yet so it freaked me out. Then, one of my supervisors asked me to give it another shot and so I did. I think it was set-up pretty well, except when the links wouldn't work. I give it a 7. =0)

You asked if I would ever do another discovery program like this in the future and I honestly have to say I don't know. It would depend on the circumstances, this was pretty time consuming and being that we are under-staffed here I had to come in on my days off to do the majority of it. Not my favorite thing in the world, I rather enjoy my days off.

Thing 29

Okay, so above all else, through this entire journey, I think that learning about RSS feeds and setting up a bloglines account was by far the most irritiating "Thing" we had to do, it took entirely too long to do, mostly because I had no clue what I was doing and I think it almost brought me to tears out of pure frustration at least three times but in the end it was the best excercise of the whole learning experience. It truly is a time saver, I love it and check it out at least once a week to get updated on the stuff that I want to know about. Best by far!!!!

Before starting Web 2.0 I was a little leary about computers and had no real desire to learn anything, I was happy letting my husband navigate me through technology but now I know that can do it for myself. My learning has not stopped here!!!!

Thing 28

http://rollyo.com/dshook/ , Okay, this is my rollyo account. I personally wouldn't have a need for this site because I just google everything and I do mean everything, I don't really have one specfic thing that I am so dedicated to that I would need a search engine of my very own but it may work for some.

Thing 27

Wow! That was easy! It took less than 10 minutes to set it all up and add 5 books, I love it! So, here's the link, http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dshook .

Thing 26

This is actually the same photo that I used for Thing 20, I got it while exploring Flickr. Anyway, for this I went to www.bighugelabs.com , it was extremely easy! If I had a few more pictures on this computer I could have done more on that site but because I only have this one I decided to keep it simple and turn it into a puzzle.

Thing 25

So, I checked out a few of the podcasts that libraries are using today. It was pretty impressive. One thing I don't think is needed or should be needed is a computer to read to our children. Seriously, let's not take that responsibility from parents, or rather, let's not take that parent-child time from our children. But aside from that, one that I checked out had a "library channel" which was pretty cool, it talked about topics that go along with somethings a person may be studing or already reading about and they also have some podcasts to describe what sounded like explanations of library events. Pretty cool way for people to get information!

Thing 24

For this one I actually had to check out all three of the podcast directories just to be able to do this activity. First, I tried podcast.net and it looked promising but unfortunitely something was wrong with the website today because I was unable to view any podcasts, an error kept coming up. So, then I ventured on to podcastalley, searching for the podcasts was easy here but you couldn't view them without downloading or at least that's what the website told me. Finally, I found myself at Yahoo Podcasts, as you can guess this one was my favorite because I was actually able to not only search for podcasts but view them as well. I then went on to adding the RSS feed for the podcast into my bloglines account and now I'm headed off to try my hand at thing 25.

Thing 23

Whew! This took me forever! I did it though, honestly, I think it was my own fault that this excercise took me so long but I got it in the end and that's all that matters, right? Anyway, this site is pretty cool, it seems to work off of tags, I didn't exactly see that word anywhere on the site but searching was extremely easy, I entered Library and a ton of things came up, so, for the purposes of this excercise I closed my eyes, spun around three times and picked the one my curser landed on. It's a pretty cool one despite my lack of effort, however, it did not get rave reviews amoungst the young folk.

This could be a pretty cool way for a library to add visual appeal to a wiki, myspace account, or website. I'm sure we would have no problem finding youtube vidoes to go along with any of the topics that we could get into in these virtual worlds.

Thing 22

For this excercise I checked out many of the toys available to Flickr participants. My favorites of these were the Trading Card Maker, Spell with Flickr and the Postcard Browser. All three of these are my favorite for one reason and that is because when you went to them there was absolutely no confusion, not even a person like me with a serious fear of technology could get lost within their simplicity. Actually, out of those my absolute favorite was Spell with Flickr.

Thing 21

Okay, one more on Flickr and the importance of tagging. Tagging is extremely important in the socail aspect of Flickr, it always a person to enter a word, a subject, and view all pictures Tagged with that word, not just within your albums but in anyones albums that has set their account to public. Without this feature you probably would have never had the opportunity to view that picture, and then, it's taken a step further and you can comment on that photo, add more taggs to it, and make it a favorite of your own. It truelly is a social photo site.

Do I think that our patrons should be allowed access to Flickr at our library? I know there has to be a way that a minors passcode can prevent them from access to certain sites. If we were to figure out how to do that we wouldn't have to worry about the youngsters seeing a picture that they probably shouldn't. Numerous people come to library to use our computers if we start restricting what they can do on them and the sites they can go to then they may just stop coming. As far as the library using Flickr, I think it's a great idea and an awesome way to keep all of our pictures organized. I remember when I first started at the library and learned how to use my e-mail account, their was e-mail after e-mail from people asking everybody to go in and delete pics because the pics folder was full or something of that nature, that wouldn't happen if we had a Flickr account, and, if someone happens to stumble upon our pictures and sees just how awesome our library is that can be nothing but a good thing.

Thing 20 - Flickr

This site seems very useful, I have never used it but I have used other photo websites to get Myspace codes for my photos. This one seems to be alot cooler though because you can compile your photos into sets and file those sets into collections, very nice way to keep things organized. I think that the most important feature that the site offers is the personal privacy settings. I also love the way the comments that people leave pop up on the photo. Anyway, while travelling through the site I did come across a pretty interesting photo and here is the link so you can view it yourself. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbprzd/325187931/

Thing 19

For this one I decided to check out Zillow under Real Estate. I don't really see how this site could be used for library purposes but I suppose that it could be used for personal use. It allows you to post your home for sale on the site or to look up homes that others have posted and it is very simple to narrow your search to match your needs. However, being a licensed realtor I have to say that it is not the best way to search for a home if you are in the market because it only shows you the homes that people have taken the time to post on that site. If you are truly interested in finding a home for sale or making a comparative market analysis on homes sold in your area you would be much better off searching the MLS, a real estate agent can do that for you or you can go on any reality companies website in your area and pull up the MLS which will give you exactly what is for sale in your area except for the for sale by owners but there is a site for that as well.

Thing 17

In this exercise I learned about tagging, folksonomy and then toured Del.icio.us. I had never heard of any of these terms before this exercise. Looking through Del.icio.us was so easy, I was a little nervous about it but surprisingly enough everything you could ever want to know was just a click away. I do see how we could use Del.icio.us here in the library, mainly when we are working on different projects, it would really help to keep everything together. I also see how usual it could be for personal use as well. You don't know how many times I have looked something up and then later try to find it but can't or I have to spend a excessive amount of time to do so. Very useful!

Thing 16 - Create a Myspace Account

I love this one! I actually already had an account with mysoace but I decided to start a new one to refresh my memory on everything and I have to say it is one of the easiest things I have done so far, maybe it's because I already know how but that's besides the point. Sign-up, simple. Editing, I remember getting frustrated with this at first but now it's a piece of cake. Inviting people to be your friend and updating are a breeze as well. I love my Myspace and check it a few times a week. It's a great way for me to stay in touch with all my friends that have moved away. I wish it didn't have such a bad wrap. People shouldn't be using this as a dating site but rather just a way to keep in touch in a more personal way than e-mailing.

Thing 15 - Social Networking

Online Socail Networking is an online socail community. In this communty you control how much other people in the communty can view about you by accepting or denying their "friendship." Should libraries join these communties to reach it's patrons? I am going back and forth on this, I don't think it would be intrussive, as long as we didn't make it so, we could simply let our patrons know that we have an account within that community and if they want to be our "friend" they would extend the invite to us, not the other way around. I do think that it's a good way to make the younger group feel that we really do want thier opinions and our account would be set up to appeal to them. There could be links to our website, lists of top selling young adult books and links to those authors sites, and best of all they could add their opinions and questions in our comment section and as long as we kept up with reading and responding to those they would truely feel like they mattered to us, which of course they do. Would it work? I'm not sure. I know when I was a teenager the last thing on my mind was hanging out with the library unless I had a report due but even them it was like a chore. I just don't know if the teens of today are going to think of the library as their "friend." An information source in times of need - yes, a friend - probably not.

Thing 14

For this activity we were asked to add an entry to the Virginia Beach Public Libraries Readers Advisory Wiki. I found that the Wiki itself was very simply to use and modify. FYI, my entry was David J. Rosen - I Just Want My Pants Back. As far as your question, how could other libraries use a wiki to communicate, I think we here in Virginia Beach did an excellent job and if they pretty much followed our lead they would have a superb wiki on their hands.

Thing 13

In this excercise I learned about Wikis' and also explored a few Wikis'. I explored two on libraries the first I just glanced at, the second was called Core Competencies Wiki I played around on this one a bit and found it extremely easy to navigate through, as promised. I also wanted to see what all the hipe was about with Wikipedia and, wow, there is alot of stuff on there. You can click on a subject of interest and then it gives you more selections to narrow your search, because of this site size and apparent popularity it was a little more difficult to navigate through but I'm sure I could do it if I had time.
I do think that Wikis' can be and already are useful to libraries. They can be set up to keep an entire city with numerous libraries up to date on things, the information can be changed easily which is a good thing in the library world because things are always changing. It could be very useful. Also, a wiki could be created by the library system for it's customers. The library system could make a wiki for it's book clubs, they could add a link to the wiki on the libraries web site so it could be found easily by participants. Then they could add opinions on the book and so on. I think it's pretty cool.

Thing 12

For this excercise I learned about how our library sytstem is using IM. I was rather shocked to hear that we offered this service because I had never heard it mentioned by anyone and I don't generally use the libraries web site because I take care of all my library needs while I'm here at work and I can do most of that through workflows. I have many times chatted via IM it is one way that my Uncle and I keep in touch and I do think that it's an awesome method of having a one on one conversation with someone long distance without running up your phone bill, so check out IM I have done, then I went to the weebo service offered by VBPL to ask my question which I did and then I continued reading the page while I was waiting for my response and learned that it could be up to 3 business days before I got that response so for now I am an unsatisfied customer. I think that when this service was set up they forgot what the I stands for in IM, this response is not going to be instant by any means.

Thing 11

Instant Messaging-

I did read three of the resources about Instant Messaging but only one of them told anything about how libraries can use the service. I suppose that it could work, offering IM to our patrons but as I see it we would have to hire a whole team of people to handle the answering of the messages because as it sits we have a hard enough time keeping up with the phones. But I suppose that if I were at home on the computer trying to place holds on the library website and had a question and there was a button I could push to type my question and have it answered with in moments, while I was still placing holds that would seem like a huge convenience and many of our patrons may see it that way as well.

Using IM to speak to co-workers I guess could be useful but really we're all just 3 buttons on the telephone away from each other, then again, if involved in a project like oh I don't know, WEB 2.0, where none of us have any clue what we're doing but there is a library affiliate that does, it might be EXTREMELY convenient to be able to ask her that question via IM. Actually I haven't e-mailed her to ask her my questions because it just seems more formal than a quick question, quick answer IM would.

Thing 10

Subscribing to RSS feeds-

For this exercise I first tried to use Feedster and Topix but one site was down and the other difficult to use so I wound up at syndic8.com, I entered the word "library" and quick as that came like 600 library related feeds. After finding the one I was interested in I did have to go back and re-listen to the podcast on how to add a feed to your bloglines. But all in all it was pretty painless, however, it's not my favorite.

My favorite was simply using the Bloglines Search Tool. I love it because you just type in your interest, hundreds of feeds pop up, you click on one, scroll down push subscribe and your done, no flipping from bloglines to another sight to copy and paste and what not, it's right there! Awesome!

However, to broaden my horizons a bit I decided to take a look at Bloglines 200 most popular feeds and that is where I found most of my feeds, there is so much cool stuff out there that I maybe do want to know about but never knew it existed, this was the perfect way to let Bloglines give me some suggestions.

RSS Feeds - Thing 9

Wow, I am sooo glad this one is over. For this exercise I started a bloglines account. It was said that this would be the most difficult "Thing" to do but in actuality it was rather simple, the most painful part of the entire process was reading all the preliminary how to's which I felt were unbelievably over explained. It seemed rather self explanatory to me except for at the end when they were suppose to send me an e-mail verification and it did not arrive in my inbox, I began to backtrack and to see what I did wrong in the set up process and became rather frustrated until about 45 minutes later when one of my co-workers suggested that I check my junk mail instead of my inbox and there it was and there it had been for the entire 45 frustrating minutes. All that aside. I had never heard of RSS feeds before and after learning about it I really wasn't sure that it was something that I wanted to do but after setting it all up and checking out the feeds that I put on that interest me, I have to say that I love it!!!! Now, I check it everyday. I didn't put any library related feeds on there yet because I know that they will just sit there unchecked because that truly doesn't interest me at this stage in my life but it may one day and on that day I will have a quick simple easy way to stay up to date on library matters. It's awesome!!!

Thing 5

Summarizing Things read or watched in Thing 5:

- A Librarians 2.0 Manifesto- This video basically outlined the mind set that we should have toward the changes that come along with Web 2.0. Think positively about them and try them even if your current system seems to work fine, try it the Web 2.0 way.

-Library Journal.com - on Library 2.0 - Service for the next Generation- Explains how library customers will benefit from Library 2.0. By excepting and implementing the use of web 2.0 we will be able to service our customers in the way they choose to be served. It says that Library 2.0 is any service that successfully reaches users, is evaluated frequently and uses it's customers input. It talks about the "long tail" which in summary is a higher percentage of people desire to see or read things that are not "hits".
THAT'S ABOUT ALL I GOT.

Thing 3
Well, I think this is the first thing I'm supposed to blog about so here goes:Out of the 7 and 1/2 things this would be the order in which these are EASIEST for me:
1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Teach and Mentor others.
3. View problems as challenges.
4. Have confidence in myself as a competent effective leader
5. Use technology to your advantage.
6. Create your own learning toolbox.
7. Accept responsibility for my own learning
1/2. PLAY!!!!

Why? Because 1. I am always in a rush so being able to visualize the end is easy for me to do. 2. I love to talk and sound like I know what I'm talking about so teaching is a snap. 3. I don't quite agree with #3, the problem is not a challenge - finding the solution is, anywho, I will leave it where it is. 4. Having confidence in myself is not one of my strong points but totally supersedes 5. using technology and 6. creating my own learning toolbox because I tend to spend a lot of time on my projects solely because I don't prepare for it and tend to not use the technology available but I'm just the kind of person that would rather write than type. Lastly, 7. accepting responsibility is always difficult because it is so much easier on my mind if I can blame an innocent passerby and what they don't know won't hurt them right. :0)