Week #9 Thing #23

I have finally reached Thing # 23. At the beginning of Learning 2.0, I never thought I would reach this point . I was very challenged by this 9 week program and have learned a lot by completing the exercises. I was introduced to features on the Web that I never knew : flickr, technorati, wikis, zoho, image makers, LibraryThing, Rollyo, RSS feeds, bloglines. All of these little programs in cyberspace may change or even disappear in the future. (One thing that is consistent about the Internet is that it is constantly changing.) Still, these types of programs are tools that will continue to be used in one form or another by the global community to access, organize , create, publish and communicate information. As librarians, we need to know how to use these tools to bring our collections and services to customers. We need to learn how to use these tools to help customers navigate their way through cyberspace to reach reliable sources of information and knowledge. I hope to continue to explore in more depth all of the programs I have been introduced to through Learning 2.0. I realize now , more than ever, that I function in a world where "literacy" includes more than reading and writing the written word. A literate person in the 21st Century must also have the necessary computer skills to access and use information available on the World Wide Web. Still, I maintain, there are dangers in spending too much of one's life in cyberspace. The sun is shining today. I hear the birds chirping and the scent of cherry blossoms is wafting through the open window. Goodbye, cyberspace ! Time for the real world.

Week #9 Thing #22

eBooks : the e should stand for easy. And that is not the case for many potential users. I think the concept of electronic books audio ebooks is marvelous, and I am pleased that they are accessible on library catalogs and on Internet sites like the Gutenberg Project. But the complexities of downloading these digital wonders make them accessible only to those users who have the knowledge , skills and computer mindset to do so. I have tried on several occasions to download books from SJPL digital library and have encountered lots of frustration. I often wondered if some kind of video podcast could be developed, so customers could follow instructions online as they attempt to download an ebook or audio ebook. I think reading books online is a last resort for most library customers. A customer needs a book by tomorrow. The library has no print copies available, but there is access to an electronic book. The customer is desperate, and will go for the ebook option ( if they have access to the Internet at home...). I don't envision the digital book ever replacing the material book. Audio ebooks appear to have a larger following. With the wide use of MP3 players, audio books fit the needs and lifestyles of library customers . The long car commute becomes more bearable if you can download an audio book and listen to it as you drive. For those customers who are vision impaired an audio book is a necessity. And for those joggers and walkers who need something to listen to while they work out, audio books are sometimes the answer. If only the downloading part was more user friendly.....

Week #9 Thing #21

I looked at 3 podcast websites. The one I liked best was podcast.net. This was the easiest site to use because I didn't have to sign on, register, subscribe or download anything. I just clicked on whatever podcast I wanted and it came right up on the screen. Podcast.net has done an excellent job on subject categories. I selected a "How To" subject and all kinds of stuff came up. I listened to a podcast series called "How not to be dreadful" , You can listen to Bill and Amanda talk on and on about how not to be dreadful when you are clothes shopping or attending holiday parties or dining at a restaurant. Another podcast I listened to was "Fitness Attack". This is another series podcast and I listened to a 60 second recording of how to stay on your diet and still indulge in a Splenda Parfait. The simple recipe was given on the podcast. A very suspicious podcast entitled "Unorthodox Hacking : Hidden Windows Passwords" featured a video of a questionable looking character giving all kinds of instructions on how to get into the innards of a computer and fish out secret passwords, etc. My favorite podcast was "French for Beginners". This was a series of podcasts ( at least 20 lessons) that was better than Berlitz. Since I have an interest in brushing up on my French ,I found myself sitting at the computer listening, repeating and thinking that this was absolutely fantastic. I guess I will be visiting podcast.net very often from now on.

I did look at PodcastAlley.com , but as soon as I read that I had to subscribe and download a podcast aggregator (what is that?), I quickly left the site. Yahoo podcasts looked better. There was an interesting podcast series on childrens books. But then, they asked me to subscribe and fill out more log ins and passwords and I decided enough of that.

I think SJPL should have a video podcast to promote the Summer Reading Celebration.

Week #9 Thing #20

Week #8 Thing #19

I already loaded my LibraryThing catalog way back in Week #6 ( see post for that week ). I jumped ahead because I was very excited about LibraryThing. I think LibraryThing is probably my favorite part of Learning 2.0. My LibraryThing catalog is located at :

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hawthorne

Untitled

Zoho Document


This is my Zoho Document. 

Week # 8 Thing # 18 Zoho

I created an account with Zoho and explored the site. I found it very simple to transfer my Microsoft Word word processing skills to Zoho . I felt confident as I created my document. The toolbar was similar to Microsoft and for some reason Zoho seems more user friendly than Word. What really impressed me was the number ( 58) of templates Zoho offers . Tickets, Invitations, Receipts, Flowsheets, Bills of Sale, Applications, and even a Student ID Card are available to the user. The "wiki" part of this site is that you can add a template to share with other Zoho users. Another advantage is that Zoho users can work on the same document from different locations. Zoho is a very useful resource; however, I would be reluctant to use it for any documents that contain sensitive information. Any document created on Zoho is out there in cyberspace and is vulnerable to hackers and spies. I will try now to post a Zoho document on my blog.

Week #7 Thing #17

I entered and linked my blog to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki. I was struggling and needed help with this task. Fortunately a colleague at work showed me how to make an entry to the wiki. The linking was the most difficult part of this exercise. The instructions on the wiki page are not specific enough for me.

Week #7 Thing # 16

WIKIS

Well, now I know the origin of the term "wiki" : Hawaiian for "quick". And saying "wiki" just one time is not enough. It is one of those cute little words that you want to say over and over : "wiki wiki". And quickly, quickly is how wiki wikis are built. I think wikis are wonderful. They are the perfect answer to keep creative collaboration strong and vital within an organization. I am so pleased that SJPL Youth Services has established a wiki for staff use. Now we can enter our storytime plans, songs, crafts, booktalks, book reviews, and special programming ideas. This is what we have needed for a long, long time. YS librarians need a central location where they can pool and share ideas and our new wiki is the place to do this. Mid Hudson Library System in New York State has a great wiki site for programming ideas. I spent many years working in a library supported by the Mid Hudson Library System long before the time of wikis. Instead of a wiki we had a central location for programming materials that we could all share. Approximately 70 small public libraries in the Mid-Hudson System depended on these materials for programming. But a printed catalog of all the materials had to be constantly updated, and paper copies of programming ideas were exchanged and often lost over time. It was a cumbersome way of sharing ideas. Now, with the wiki, ideas can be added quickly to a central location . Mid-Hudson Library System's programming wiki is well worth looking at :

http://support.midhudson.org/ezprogram/ezprogram.htm

Hopefully SJPL will be able to create an equally valuable programming wiki for staff to use and contribute to.

Week #6 Thing #15

"Away from the Icebergs"

Public libraries certainly don't want to go down like the Titanic. Rick Anderson has highlighted 3 issues ( or icebergs ) that could pose potential disasters for public libraries if they do not chart their future direction correctly. I recall vividly the very first course I took when I began my MLS. It was an introductory course to "Information Science" and our class viewed the video "Goodbye Gutenberg". It was our professor's goal to alert us to the fact that because of technology "the times, they are a changin" . This was way back in the early 1980's when technology was just beginning to impact the way libraries operated. OCLC and Marc Records were the latest and greatest back then ,and everyone on the cutting edge wanted to learn database searching and become high paid information brokers. Then the Internet hit, and all of a sudden the information domain was no longer exclusive to libraries. Today anyone with a computer and a good dsl line can access more information than any one library can have in a collection. The Internet, not the library, is now the first choice for most people to go to search for their information needs. So, Rick Anderson makes a very valid point when he states that the "come to us" model of library service is one of those icebergs that could impede progress. The "come to us" model of library service is no longer relevant. We need to bring library services to our users wherever they are and whenever they need us. The only way to do this is through technology. I think SJPL has done an excellent job of bringing library service to our users 24 hours a day through our website. Every time I assist a customer I take the opportunity to point out access not only to our catalog but also to the web links to information and the databases that customers can use at home. I like to do this because I always receive a "WOW" reaction from customers. They are so pleased that they can do their library research from home or from a remote location via a laptop computer. Access to SJPL's eBook and digital audiobook collections via the website is a real convenience and another example of bringing our services to the customer rather than making them come to us. This is the way we want to navigate public library service, so that public libraries do not face the same demise that many of the earth's icebergs face today : complete meltdown .




Web 2.0

"Into a New World of Librarianship"

In 8 brief paragraphs Michael Stephens does an outstanding job of summarizing some aspects of the new world of librarianship. Librarians are still bringing information and people together, but in a whole new way. Libraries and librarians are no longer the "keepers" of knowledge. We are now the navigators of knowledge and architects of information constructions built with technology tools. We gather our knowledge using technology. We organize knowledge through technology. And we make all of this accessible to users through technology. Tools needed to achieve this work are found in Web 2.0. Libraries need to plan their services and futures based on this new world premise. Still, I maintain, that there are important aspects of librarianship and libraries that are not part of this new technological world. I hope in their zeal to embrace technology, that librarians and libraries will not lose sight of their very special cachet that much of the human world still longs for. Libraries cannot forget those users who still long for the quiet sanctuary of peace and contemplation that a quiet study room or reading room offers. Libraries cannot forget that they are still seen as the promoters of literacy among all age groups. And libraries should always have books.

Week 6 #14 Technorati

Technorati is the center of blogdom. Any kind of registered blog you want to read is residing in Technorati. If you are a lonely person, you can sit and commune with other people's blogs. Listen to their rants, their humor, their passions, make cyber friends, etc. etc. Then there are blogs that are serious. You can find those too. The nice thing about Technorati is that you can broaden or narrow your search. When I searched under the term "librarian" in blog posts with "any authority" in "all languages"I got 122,809 hits. As I refined and narrowed my search to "librarian" with " a lot of authority" in "all languages" I got 2,329 hits. Then when I narrowed the search to "librarian" with "a lot of authority" in "English", then I got 2,177 hits. So, you can filter out the junk and pick up some quality reading / information. Tags and Directory searches seem to be more specific. Tags are not as reliable as directory searches.

Week # 6 # 19 LibraryThing ( I jumped ahead )

I love LibraryThing.
My catalog is at
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hawthorne

Week # 6 # 13 del.icio.us

Today I managed to create a del.icio.us account all by myself. I am just pleased and relieved that I was able to accomplish this without any assistance. I do all the Learning 2.0 exercises at home because I do not have time at work and I need complete uninterrupted SILENCE ! when I do this new stuff. Anyhow, now I will start exploring del.icio.us to see what powers it possesses. I have now a written list of user names and passwords ( all different, it seems ) to all these new accounts I have established. I keep this list at hand, because I will never be able to remember all the passwords. If I lose this list, I am doomed ! I sort of jumped ahead and established my LibraryThing account. I love LibraryThing because I love books. I could spend hours there.

Part II : I like del.icious because my special bookmarks are always there no matter where I may be. I just have to remember my username and password and then I can access my del.i.cio.us account.

Week 5 : Thing #12

What did I do wrong here ? I selected 5 excellent websites for preschool storytime plans. I put the URL's in the correct box on the Rollyo page. I THOUGHT I copied and pasted to put the little Rollyo search box on my blog, but I guess I messed up. I am a bit frustrated. This took a lot of time, and I still didn't get it right. I need HELP ! TRINA IS MY SUPER HERO ! SHE SAVED ME ! Here is my Rollyo Search box. Thank you Trina Richbourg. Now, I need to fine tune this search box. It is supposed to be searching specific websites that I assigned to it, but it is not doing that... hmmm.. back to the Rollyo homepage to see what I can do to fix this without ruining what has been accomplished so far. I think I see the problem. Rollyo provides you with a "starter kit" of sites to search. I do not want these "starter kit sites" and I can't turn them off. I need help again. My brain is just not trained to manipulate stuff in a digital based environment.

Select...storytime planspreschool storytimeSearch The Web

Week 5 : Thing #11

I selected Campfirenow.com as the site to explore. I listened to the site's tutorial that outlines the capabilities of this web based group chat program for businesses. Campfirenow.com would certainly be useful for SJPL staff. Let's say you are on a committee working on a team task. Usually the team members work at different library branches and often have different work schedules. How do these people work on a project on an ongoing basis ? Usually members have to check their schedules to see when they are free to meet at some designated location. Then there is travel involved . The team members meet together for a set amount of time and then leave. Oftentimes this one meeting is not long enough or ends up being unproductive. So follow up meetings or emails or phone calls are needed to conclude work on the task. Campfirenow.com allows team members to set up an online meeting room that can be visited at any time. You set up a chat room for members on Campfirenow.com and you can either leave messages or chat together online anywhere or anytime about your particular project. It is similar to online conferencing and is very flexible. A nice feature is that all your online communication is stored in files that can be accessed at any time. This eliminates the "Meeting Minutes" task. The whole concept makes a lot of sense. The only drawbacks for me would be learning how to move around the site and learning how to access all of its features. I think I would need a lot of orientation before I would feel confident using this tool.

Week 5 : Thing #10

Here is my image generator sample :


http://www.GlitterMaker.com/ - Glitter Graphics - MySpace Layouts

Week 4: Thing #9

Here are 2 library related blogs that I enjoyed reading:

http:// tinylittlelibrarian.blog-city.com

http://bookcurl.blogspot.com

Both of these blogs list other blogs that would be of interest to librarians working in the public arena.

Week 4 : Thing # 8 RSS & Newsreaders

I explored all the links in Thing #8 : RSS & Newsreaders. This was a very complicated task : way beyond my interest and capabilities. I can see why RSS is very useful for business , information brokers,academia, and news addicts. To me, it is just another way for the Internet to bombard me with more information and noise that keeps me tied to a monitor screen and ultimately eats up my precious time. I am not interested in spending more life time than I have to on the Internet, and I do not feel a need to stay on top of every little tidbit of news and blog trivia that is generated every day. I did set up a bloglines account at :

http://www.bloglines.com/public/trackers

I have one feed coming into that account. I will now move on to Thing #9.

Thing #7 : Technology

I am part of the Baby Boom generation, so I have experienced the sweeping changes technology has made in my life since the late 1940's. As a child I watched my favorite program ("Howdy Doody") on a 12 inch television in black and white. Our telephone had a dial and we were on a "party line". We had a special ring : 2 short consecutive rings. We had to listen carefully to those rings, because there were 4 other families on our line, and each one had their own signature ring . Yes, those were the days when we spent most of our free time outdoors. Indoors we played board games, read books and created fun using our imagination. I am so thankful that I grew up during an era when technology was not as intrusive as it is today. Life was quieter. We had time to think . Our eyes were free to look at the natural world. Our eyes and attentions were not focused on a monitor screen or a cell phone display. Our ears heard the sounds of the real world and we were not plugged into an iPod or MP3 player.

Technology has insidiously wormed its way into all of our lives. I am not saying this is a bad thing. There are certainly beneficial aspects to this age of the Internet. I think the 2 best things about the Internet are Email and Search Engines. Email allows me to stay in touch with the important people in my life. It provides me with instant communication. Best of all, I can send photos or documents without the hassle of dealing with the post office. I love this. Search Engines have provided me with an opportunity to to retrieve information ( not always reliable ) on just about any topic I may be curious about. Best of all, I can do my searching in the comfort of my home. Clearly, there are many other benefits I could list : Mapquest, online shopping, online banking, online business conferencing : concepts I could not have imagined as I grew up during the1950's and 1960's.


I also see the dark side of the Internet , and I have concerns about the sociological effects of this technology. Compulsive Internet surfing can become addictive. Chat rooms, role play gaming,online gambling, even eBay can become activities that take enormous amounts of time from our real life. How much time are we spending on the Internet ? Is the Internet becoming an alternate reality that we prefer to live in ? Are we experiencing our social contacts online with no real social presence ? How much of our private information are we revealing as we chat, shop and blog online ? How much of our lives are we living in cyberspace ? These are my concerns.

Thing # 6 : Flickr

Flickr Color Fields


Flickr Color Fields is a fun program to play with. I have always been fascinated by color, and so I spent way too much time looking at this. I could probably use this program to decorate my blog or do all sorts of creative artsy things.


Mappr

If you travel a lot and want to share your travels with others online you could create a geographic / photographic display of your travels with this tool.

Montager

This was fascinating : computer generated art using photographs. Once again an art/designer activity. Very clever. I tried several tags to see what kind of mosaic was created. I would use Montager to create a mosaic of best children's picture books for 2006 using photographs from the book covers. Now, that would be a great use for this tool.

As far as the Librarian Trading Cards and the Magazine Covers, well, it would be fun to have teens create their own trading card or magazine cover. I can see this working for a lot of YA programs.

Thank you for introducing me to these online "toys". I would never have discovered them on my own. But now, I need to get outside and take a good long walk, breathe some fresh air, otherwise I will find myself sitting here for hours playing with this stuff... Can't let that happen !!

Week 3 : Thing #5

paris_06_ 116,
originally uploaded by flash23.

"Cafe Cat"

I explored flickr and here is the photo and trading card I posted. It took me a lot of time to do this. I can only do this at home. I just don't have time for this at work. Flickr is fun, but how can I use it at work ? I suppose if you are creating publicity for a library website Flickr is useful. I enjoyed viewing the ways other libraries are using Flickr. It appears that it is used mostly to highlight programs libraries have presented.

Flickr

Week 3

I can't keep track of the weeks here, but I know that this is the next thing that I have to do.

I just went to flickr and after many tries I got this. Now I need to see if I can actually get the photo onto my blog.

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

Week 2

Lifelong Learning Habits :

"View problems as challenges "

As I have matured in my profession, I have learned to view problems as challenges. Early on in my career I did tend to panic or see a problem as a roadblock, but now, after encountering many problems throughout the years, I do not mind taking on a problem, analyzing it , and exploring creative solutions . To me, a " problem" is a puzzle to be solved. Today, I do not mind taking on a challenge.

"Use technology to your advantage"

I am still not comfortable with technology . I use it at work. I use it for communication ( although I still prefer to sit down with a good pen and paper for letter writing ), however, I find a lot of technology not intuitive and frustrating. I suppose I need to work on this. I will strive to use technology to my advantage at work ; however, I will not be lured into the addictive , often non productive aspects of technology ( spending hours of precious life time on the Internet ). There is a wonderful, real, natural life to be lived away from the virtual life of cyberspace.

Week 1

I am uncomfortable with "posting" anything about myself on a blog. I am not a "look at me ! look at me !" person and find no need to disclose anything about myself on the Internet. I am doing this exercise to learn about blogs. Blog has been created. On to the next task.