Final Post

I gave myself a pat on the back:) It has been quite a journey. It was good to review things I had forgotten as well as learn new things. As with anything we do, there are pros and cons. I certainly enjoyed creating my blog, but I'm not sure how often I would personally be able to use such a tool or have the time to spend on it. I guess I still prefer to interact with others "face to face." At the same, I do see the use of Blogs as a great tool to effectively communicate with a certain portion of our community if we were able to have one at APL.

Delicious, LibraryThing, and Bloglines are certainly ones that I will continue to use as tools to improve my productivity at work and to keep up to date with what is going on in our profession.

I did have fun doing the exercises, but it was hard to get to at times. This made it somewhat less enjoyable because I didn't feel that I could spend more time exploring some of the tools (in depth) without compromising something else.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this. It has certainly been beneficial in that it has forced me to keep up to date with what is happening in our profession and the world today.

Thanks for putting this together and making it possible for us to do!

Podcast

I like the idea of having a way to look up podcasts by subject. I found Podcast.net easy to use, but that may be just me. I wanted to find a library related RSS and liked the SirsiDynix Institute one, so I added it to my list to my Blogline account. I found this one that was of interest because Jenny Levine posted it and she was one of the presenters for a lecture I attended at TLA. Here is the URL link: Gaming in the Library

NetLibrary

Well, I've finally created my account and surfed a bit to see what NetLibrary offered in the way of eAudiobooks. I looked for uncommon titles both fiction and non-fiction, but didn't have much luck. I did find a few when I searched by author. I was a bit disappointed because I couldn't find the newer books by the author, Mary Higgins-Clark, but was able to find three of her older published works on eAudiobooks. I've had similar complaints by patrons. Hopefully, this will change in time. I'm sure it is a matter of licensing, etc. Looking forward to downloading a few on my MP3 player, yes I caved in and bought one:)

Youtube

It was fun viewing the video clips. I also searched for video clips on libraries and found some good ones. One was from the OCLC Symposium. I think it was 2005. The site itself wasn't bad and as with MySpace, it is another tool libraries can use to reach out to more patrons in their community. I've added a videoclip on dogs. Mine have done a few strange things before and this video clip reminded me of them. It's funny. Enjoy.



Found on Youtube 4-30-07 posted as Funny Dogs by RedCola22

Creating a MySpace account

Well, I've created my account on MySpace. I went through the steps on creating an anonymous account. I decided not to add anyone to "MySpace" until I had more time to explore, but something interesting or at least for me happened. I received an e-mail from a friend, but who could that be when I did not invite anyone yet to "MySpace." I was a bit alarmed at first in receiving an e-mail and a photo from "Tom," but then I decided to be brave and look at his message. Tom was offering to help me with setting up MySpace. I had to laugh at myself because it was probably an e-mail generated by MySpace itself.

My reactions were probably due to the fact that I was thinking as a parent. Now to disconnect from that part of me...in looking at it from a different role, I do believe that this has potential for use in libraries as another means of connecting with patrons.

Libraries and My Space

It is understandable that there is concern over children under 18 using My Space and the potential of predators and identify thieves taking advantage of information that can be viewed publicly, but just as the article from WireSaftey says, parents need to be aware of what their children are doing and get involved. MySpace and social networking online isn't going to go away.

Libraries can use social networking tools such as MySpace to target patrons that use them. It would be a good way of connecting with teens...the library users of the future. Libraries could also use MySpace for adults as well by promoting resources that patrons may not be aware of such as our online databases.

Learning 2.0 Sandbox

Playful wikis sort of remind me of online discussion forums or the online SLIS classes where you read the posts from other students in your classes and added your own comments, but without all the seriousness. The benefits of using such tools would be to see what others with the similar interests have to say as well as comment on your own postings.

Wikis

I really liked the St. Joseph County Library subject guide pathfinder wiki. I think that this type of application works well and would be very useful to library patrons. I also liked that patrons were allowed to add their comments under the discussion tab and that it appears that librarians were the only ones allowed to edit the pathfinder. Allowing anyone to edit or make changes would require a disclaimer like that on Wikipedia. I think that patrons in general view libraries as a trustworthy, reliable source for their information needs and that could be a problem if anyone were able to add or make changes.

I also liked this library's homepage, which included blog posts and was very clean and easy to view as well as navigate.

Book Lover's Wiki is another good example of how wiki's work well in a library environment. I'm sure a lot of patrons would make use of this if their libraries made it available to them.

Perspectives on Web 2.0

The articles on Web 2.0 from OCLC's Nextspace were very good. The one that I would like to focus on for my post is Away from the Icebergs by Rick Anderson. In short, he points out that our profession needs to change its perspective and allow room for change even if it is one library at a time. He pointed out that libraries need to change their perception of library collections or "just in case" print collections as well as the old view of patrons coming to us for their information needs. He made it very clear that libraries need to eliminate the barriers that are in place between patrons and their information needs.

I agree with Anderson that libraries need to integrate their services with local curricula as well as integrating library services into the user's environment...outreach.

As important as it is for the profession and libraries in general to embrace change, it equally important to keep in mind that not all patrons have access to the newest technologies that appear at the speed of light or can afford them. We certainly need to make a more visible presence on the Web (not just a website...smile) and reach out to those patrons who prefer this environment, yet we also need to remember that there are other patrons we serve that can not afford and/or know how to use these new technologies and the great tools that are available. It is equally important to remove the barriers for these patrons and their information needs.

Somehow, I do believe that a balance can be achieved to serve all populations equally as well as eliminating the barriers between them and their information needs.

Technorati

In regards to the layout of the pages for each, differences did emerge on how the results were displayed on each page. Doing a search in Blog Posts resulted in a list of blog posts with a few sentences from the post, which made selecting what you wanted to look at easier...at least for myself. Tags results did not include the sentences, but did include blog links. Blog Posts also included links attached to the search results that came up. Results from searching the Blog Directory included more blog links compared to other two. Similarities in the search results included the annoying ads for Howard TV, which took up too much space on the page being viewed. This aside, several of the same blog posts appeared in all three.

Exploring Popular Blog, searches and tags was interesting. Popular Blogs included pictures of video blogs, which is great for those of us who are more visual. What I found interesting is that Paris Hilton appeared on top searches for the last couple of weeks. She still must be very popular:) Both Paris Hilton and You Tube appeared on Popular Blog, Top Searches, and Tags.

If one can ignore the annoying advertisements, the benefits of using this tool would be to tag your posts for others to find, and as a tool for finding blog posts on topics you are interested in.

Week 6 Delicious Experience

Delicious certainly makes bookmarking better. It has the potential of making my work easier by helping me organize and access all of my bookmarks on any of the computers I am using at work.

In some instances, I think I would use it to assist with researching things, but at the moment I'm still more apt to use it as a bookmarking tool.

Rollyo Search Tool

Interesting concept. It's kind of neat to create your own search rolls. Check mine out on the right hand side of my blog. I've created one for organic gardening by pulling down the menu bar on and click on go.

My Library Thing

This is a great tool and fun to work with. I liked how another co-worker set up her favorite's list as a page element and I decided to do mine the same way. It's on the right hand side of my blog.

A Friendly Reminder (While I'm Away) To My Loved Ones at Home

This was fun. I ran across this one when I was surfing for more generators. You can also send it as a free E-Card, which I did:)

Here is the link: http://buy4cheap.brinkster.net/signs/confucius/quotes.asp?

Week 4 RSS Feeds

I found some very useful as well as entertaining feeds for work as well as ones for my hobby...gardening. Multitasking as usual, I initially made some feeds private and others I think public when I added them, so I'm including my list below:


14 feeds
About Literature: Contemporary (0) (0)
BBC News News Front Page World Edition (0) (0)
Bloglines News (0) (0)
Book News (10) (0)
Gardening Question of the Day (from the Old Farmer's Almanac) (0) (0)
Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week (33) (0)
LibraryThing (11) (0)
NYT Book Review (0) (0)
Organic Gardening (10) (0)
The Shifted Librarian (13) (0)
This blog thing Amanda is teaching us (0) (0)
Unshelved (10) (0)
USATODAY.com Books - Top Stories (24) (0)
Washington Post Book reviews (10) (0)

Flickr Photo Post

As you can tell, this is not an image taken at the Allen Public Library:) My digital camera is an antique by today's standards. After having a co-worker try last weekend to use her newer digital camera and no luck in having any of the computers recognize her drive,I decided not to bring my antique to work. I wasn't aware that Amanda's camera did work before I took this picture with my digital camera at home and uploaded it to my computer. I sent it as an attachment to my Yahoo account and the one here...just in case. I then created a Flickr account, uploaded my image, tagged it, added my blog to that account and sent the image as a test message. As you can see, there are many ways to upload images! There is a work around for almost anything:)

As a gardening enthusiast (both indoor and out) I thought I'd share a close up photo of one of my prized indoor plants! Enjoy.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits

Probably the hardest Habit is # 1, which is coming up with the end in mind. Why, I'm not quite sure. The easiest Habit is # 7... play. Lifelong learning is about playing. As adults, we sometimes forget that to play is also to learn and experience new things all the time, which is why I like to garden, I'm always learning something new.

From the Gardening Enthusiast

Spring is in the air and daffodils and tulips are emerging. Time to think of planting seeds for the Summer garden.

What a beautiful time of the year!