23 Things Summary

I found this whole experience really fascinating and it was good to familiarize myself with concepts I hadn't heard about before (Rollyo e.g.) and also to reacquaint myself with some other things that I had learned about before (like blogs and wikis and OverDrive). I wish I could have spent more time on each one and I worry that I will forget all that I've learned if I don't continue to use it. But I feel more comfortable with all the various tools out there and it's made me think about how we might be able to use these things with our customers, especially when they are so used by young people. It is those customers we really need to woo if we want to still be in business in the future. Some of this has made me feel old - like when I think about how we did a lot of things in libraries when I first started out (many moons ago). But it's not because I'm not open to these things - I actually love them. It's more because it takes me a lot longer to master them and that didn't used to be the case.

The only frustrating thing for me was when something didn't work right - like when I couldn't get my document from Zoho to come over and when I had trouble figuring out how to get my avatar to post. But all in all, I enjoyed the process and I'd like to go back when I can and do a little bit more. I am certainly enjoying going to my bloglines and bringing up some of my favorite sites without having to remember which ones I want to go to. That was a real plus in my mind. I will also continue to think about how we might use some of these tools in our department to communicate or even do training with staff - I think that would be a lot of fun for us and hopefully would be fun for everyone else as well.

Week 9, Thing 22 ( OverDrive and Project Gutenberg)

I have used the OverDrive site many times and in fact, I demo'd the site last year for branch staff at our branch visits. I have used the site to download ebooks to my palm pilot and also audio books to an MP3 player. I wish that the site could be used with an IPod because I think would cause our stats to soar since most people are hooked into the IPod as their MP3 of choice. I am also aware of the Project Gutenberg site as well and just recently pointed a customer in that direction because she was not happy with the selection of classics that we have in our regular book collection. One of the reasons that I wanted to get a second MP3 player is so that I can use one exclusively for books and one for music.

Week 9, Thing 21 (Podcasts)

Again, as with You Tube, I was amazed at the number of podcasts that are available, how diverse they are and how much time one could spend exploring them. I went to my old favorite, NPR, and added a couple of podcast subscriptions to my bloglines account. I went with the Nancy Pearl book reviews and also the NPR movie podcasts.

Week 9, Thing 20 (You Tube)

I have visited You Tube many times before so I was familiar with the site. I started looking for some videos on yoga and found some really funny ones regarding Laughter Yoga. The one is with John Cleese and the other is just wierd but I thought they would be good for a laugh.

I tried posting from You Tube but it doesn't seem to recognize my blog account for some reason. So the best I can do for right now is to copy the embeddable code which seems to have worked.

Week 8, Thing 19 (Web 2.0 Awards List)

I looked at the Health sections here, specifically Healia and Medstory. Both very interesting with articles from all over the place. You could probably spend hours looking at site after site because there are lots of links to take you to other places. I have been familiar with WebMD but I think I will now check out these two other sites because there was a lot of information and many of the articles seemed to be from reputable sites.

Week 8, Thing 18 (Online Productivity)

I got to Zoho and created a document but when I tried to post it to my blog, it didn't work. Still not sure why not but as I am behind in finishing my 23 Things, I decided that this is something I need to go back to and not worry about right now. I like the idea of these online tools since they are free but I wonder how easy they are to use and whether they provide much support to users who have no clue how they work. With the Microsoft products you have the help function and tons of user guides. Didn't see much in the way of this for Zoho. But maybe I've missed that somewhere along the way.

Week 7, Thing 17 (Maryland Libraries Sandbox)

Wow, lots of staff out there working on the 23 Things. I posted my blog URL in what I hope was the right place and added a couple of my favorite books to another posting. They were two books by Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson and also Prodigal Summer. It was interesting to see what others had posted although for some reason, the display of some of them seemed chaotic - not sure why.

Also posted to Favorite Movies - one of mine is Party Girl with Parker Posey. Here's a link to IMDB so you can find out what this movie is about.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114095/

Week 7, Thing 16 (Learn About Wikis)

I have used the wikis we have here at CCPL for postings to other members of a team. I looked at the examples of the different ways you can use a wiki and I liked the best practices one and the one that St. Joseph County created with subject guides. The downside for me is keeping it up to date. Even as I was exploring some of the links provided by the wikis, there were ones that went nowhere and that would be frustrating to anyone trying to use them to find information.

Week 6, Thing 15 (Web 2.0 Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries)

I read a lot of the articles that were listed on the exercise page for this Thing. One of the statements that stayed with me the most was this from the article by Michael Stephens.

Librarian 2.0 controls technolust This librarian does not buy technology for the sake of technology. “Techno-worship” does not exist here. Without a firm foundation in the mission and goals of the institution, new technologies are not implemented for the sake of coolness and status. Technology is put to the test: Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek? These are some of the questions this librarian asks when planning for technology. This librarian creates and nurtures a living, breathing technology plan.

Don't get me wrong; I think a lot of this stuff is very cool and I like playing with it a lot. I just think that asking some of the questions ahead of time can make things better for our customers.

Week 6, Thing 14 (Technorati)

When I went exploring on Technorati, I found another blog that I then added to my Bloglines list. It's called Neat and Simple Living and is all about de-cluttering and getting organized. Maybe it will help me transform some of my cluttered habits... a person can dream can't they?
It was also interesting to see that one of the frequently used tags included learning 2.0. I wonder if with all of us tagging our posts with mdlearn2 we'll soon see that on the list?

mdlearn2

Week 6, Thing 13 (Del.icio.us)

I listened to the podcast tutorial from Otter Group on this site and I read all the linked articles but what I liked the most was when I went to the site itself and they gave you ideas for how to use it. The ideas that really grabbed my attention were how you could go to commercial sites and find things you liked and then create a wish list in del.icio.us so that all your friends and family could see what you wanted and buy it for you. The other way you could use it that I liked was when planning a trip you could bookmark all the sites you liked of places to stay or eat etc. so you could refer to them later. They would all be together if you give them all the same tags which is better than just bookmarking them on your browser. And the last way that you could use del.icio.us that I liked was to find recipes and then tag them so that you can refer to them over and over again. I will definitely come back to this and set up an account to use it in one of these ways.

Week 5, Thing 12 (Rollyo)

Rollyo wasn't working very well this morning. Maybe there were too many of us trying to access it at the same time. I am also not having a lot of success providing links to things in my blog. When I use the icon in the Edit HTML, it just doesn't seem to work. Others are using the Compose mode but when I click on that, nothing happens. I have asked for help but no one so far has been able to help me get it to work. So for the time being, I am cutting and pasting the URL so at least that is in the blog. I will go back and try and figure out what I am doing wrong later as I really need to catch up to the week we are on right now. I like the idea of Rollyo especially for sites that are hard to find and you want to be able to go back to.

See link to Rollyo at top of left-hand column

Week 5, Thing 11 (Library Thing)

What was interesting to me was the fact that when I tried to think of titles to catalog at Library Thing I went blank. Now, I have been reading for a lot of years and there are hundreds of titles that I have either read or listened to, but for the life of me, I couldn't think which ones I wanted to share. But finally, I just sort of jumped in and decided you know it really doesn't matter whether other people think my list is boring or weird or whatever, just go ahead and list them. Which I did. I even wrote a "review" of one just to say that I did.

See Library Thing Link at the top of left-hand column of blog.

Week 4, Thing 9 (MERLIN)

One thing that I was able to get from Merlin was a couple of new RSS feeds for my Bloglines account. There were a couple there that seem pretty interesting and although I might not be able to read it everyday, I think it might be useful to look at it when I can to see what all is going on out there in other library worlds.

Week 4, Thing 8 (RSS Feeds)

I had a good time with this assignment. Before I started I had a vague idea of what RSS meant but the short tutorials helped to clarify it all for me. I am addicted to NPR so I added some things from their newsfeeds including one on books as well as a podcast that they support which comes from Penn State University. That one is called Bookmarks and it has various people reviewing new books. I also signed up for the New York Times book review service and the PLA blog. Made me feel virtuous as though I was somewhat organized - an unusual feeling for me.

Week 3, Thing 7 (What Interests Me)

I have gotten a lot of pleasure out of using the OverDrive site that we have available to us through the Maryland Consortium. I never thought I would want to read a book any other way than in the purist way - THE BOOK. But I have to admit that it is kind of nice to download a book onto my Palm Pilot and when I have to wait somewhere, pull it out of my purse and start reading. It's more convenient than I thought it would be and my palm has a feature that allows me to make the print larger so it's not bad on my sadly aging eyes. I've also downloaded audio content to my small MP3 player. That's pretty cool as well. I can plug it into a listening station that I have or use an adapter in my car. And the choice of titles is pretty good if you don't mind sometimes having to join the waiting list. I am hoping to be able to use the MP3 player I get for finishing the 23 Things to have one for music and one for audio books.

Week 3, Thing 6 (Flickr Mashups)

I can't take credit for this - this is actually a mashup picture that I found on Flickr. I think it's pretty funny, though and figured others of you might also get a chuckle out of it...

Week 3, Thing 5 (Flickr)

This is one of my favorite things from Italy - a cup of cappuccino. Believe me when I tell you that Starbuck's pales in comparison. I have been several places in Italy but have not yet gotten to Calabria which is the region where my parents were born. I did try to put a picture of the small town of Mammola where they are from here, but I just couldn't get it to work. So I figured this was the next best thing, as it is one of the things I enjoyed every day that I was in Italy.

Week 2 Thing 4 (Posting and Tracking)

My blog is posted and I have begun the process of recording my progress in the Tracking Log. Looking forward to next week's assignment!

Week 2 Thing 3 (Setting Up a Blog)

Setting up a blog wasn't a totally foreign experience as I had learned to do this in preparation for putting together the new Orientation program. It's so interesting to read the blogs of other participants. You get a really good sense of the talent that we have here at CCPL. I especially think this is true of some of the younger staff. I don't want to sound like a dinosaur (which most likely I am...) but the younger staff see things in a totally different way from those of us who are baby boomers. I'm not saying that one is better than the other - just different. Blogging is fun - sometimes I'm surprised at what comes up in my mind to blog about. The challenge for me is to focus and then end the blog rather that record all the seemingly endless (and random) thoughts that come to the surface of my mind.

Week 1 Thing 2 (The 7 1/2 Habits)

I notice that in a lot of the blogs other learners choose Habit 7/12 as their easiest habit. But Play doesn't always come easy for me. Not that I don't like to play - I do. But it's not always my first choice - I suffer from the affliction of taking things too seriously. Probably what comes easiest for me is to accept responsibility in my own learning. I have always valued learning new things and I get easily bored if I don't have something new to look forward to. So this experience should keep me vastly entertained!

Probably the hardest habit for me is number 3: seeing problems as an opportunity to learn. When you tend to take things too seriously, then problems seem more like an albatross around your neck that you want to get rid of as soon as you possibly can. I have gotten better at this - they say you mellow as you age ;-) but it's still an area I need to work (or maybe play) on.