Reflection - Thing 23

I am very glad I decided to do this program. A couple of my library friends told me about it. One decided not to do the program, one started but hasn’t gotten very far into it, as of yet. It has given me an opportunity to at least skim the surface of 23 useful technologies that I would not have had the chance (or taken the chance) to do otherwise. I consider myself to be somewhat technology challenged so I have a tendency to shy away from this kind of thing because it is out of the realm of my expertise and comfort zone. This was a comfortable, self paced environment and the instructional blog was great.

I hope that the North Texas 23 blog page stays up on the internet for quite awhile. I plan on going back to explore some of the items and try to find ways to incorporate them into my library instruction and making our library more “visible.” Some of the things I would like to spend some more time with are podcasts, wikis and facebook. I really liked flickr, image generators, delicious, libworm, library thing and blog readers. I have a better understanding of RSS feeds and tagging now. A few things such as, digg, twitter and ning didn’t really do much for me, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to look at them and decide for myself.

I would like to see this sort of class offered on a regular basis and for those of us already familiar with the “23 Things,” maybe an “update” or “new uses for” refresher course sometime in the future.

Overall, I will recommend this to anyone who hasn’t had an opportunity to experience it.

Developing your own 23 Things - Thing 22

Yes, yes and yes. I would love to get the entire library staff involved in the 23 things. It could be a fun way to reinvent excitement for the library. Sometimes it seems like the library is the best kept secret, not only for the students but the administration involved in supporting our efforts. Technology keeps changing at lightning speed, so just staying up to date with new technology and new ways to use that technology is, in itself, “a job.”

More and more classes are becoming internet based so the library needs to use many of the 23 Things to reach the students that are not on campus. We also need to make sure all of the students know what the library has to offer both physically and virtually.

Podcasts - Thing 21

Podcasts are interesting and something I might want to experiment with in my library. My daughter’s school is using ipods for language and some of the other classes. She also said that in some of the classes, that she hasn’t taken yet, they do some of their own podcasts.

I looked at the “Teen Show” from the West Covina Library – LA County Public Library System. The teens put together book recommendations and synopses. The librarians also have interviews from a comedian and business women.

Mohawk College in Canada had some excellent podcasts called “Braincasts” with topics including social networking, facebook/myspace, fiction books and a “how to” podcast. However, it looked like they hadn’t done anything new in quite awhile.

Moraine Valley Community College had a “Good Reads” book reviews for the remainder of this summer. North Texas Library Systems Librarian Live had a “Going Green.

I think I would begin with something that seems easy, like book reviews of some of the new books or maybe some of the older good books that are worth reading again that some may have missed. Then maybe move on to something more instructional. I also think that keeping them short, perhaps 10 minutes or less would be good.

You Tube - Thing 20

Now I understand why my teen son can spend hours watching random you tube videos. It is fun and entertaining and I guess addicting, if you have the time to waste.

I watched:

How to Read a Library of Congress Call Number from the University of Arkansas. It was very good and informational.

The TLA interview with Stephenie Meyer was so so. The camera was very shaky and the audio was a little hard to hear and sounded a bit echoed.

UNT Libraries Portal to Texas History was excellent.

It looks like some libraries are posting summer reading videos. Some are good, some not so good. I think it is a good way to get kids into the library or at least make them aware of summer activities at the library. It might be good to have links directly from the library home page. Making a library video could be a good activity for the library teens. Some are very tech savvy and would enjoy it. Cincinnati Public Library had a good 30 second Creature Feature. LaPorte Community Library’s The Henry Hound Dog Show was funny. It was a little too long at 10 minutes.

It might be interesting to have short info or program library videos not only on the library home pages, but also the city or community websites and the home pages of colleges and universities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI6ciJA1A0c

I thought this was a well done community college video.

Google Docs - Thing 19

I am not as enamored with Google Docs as many are. I have had the opportunity to work on many different office/library/computer lab computers and so far all have had some sort of office suite for documents, power point, excel, etc. The Library office computers also have had a shared drive for documents that are shared between co-workers. So far, I have not had a problem with sharing documents for work related projects. That being said, I am sure it has valid uses for some. I will have to keep Google Docs in mind and maybe explore it a little more. I will have a student going off to college in a year, so the “Docs” may be a solution to possibly having to buy office packages that may not be included on the a new computer purchase. I can also see its usefulness for student group projects, in which several students are working and interacting on the same document

Wikis - Thing 18

I have not really spent much time on Wikipedia because I know it is not recommended as an authoritative site. I do know that many students, especially the younger students seem to think it is. It does look like quite a well organized site. I did learn something about the discussion and history tabs. As many have suggested it probably is a good beginning point to start your search for other sources that are being researched.

I put together my three page wiki. It was fun and not too difficult once you got the hang of it. I do have and extra page with nothing on it titled Deborah instead of Deborah B. I would like to experiment with using a wiki in my library instructions. One of the other posts suggested it was easier than power point.

LibWorm - Thing 17

LibWorm is an interesting site. I did a phrase search for Cedar Valley College but found nothing. This did surprise me since I know we have had articles written about us. I also searched Dallas County Community College District only to find two articles. One was an outdated job announcement posted on Ohio Net. The other was an article about Texas colleges losing health insurance, also outdated. e

I enjoyed browsing the Feed Categories, particularly Academic Libraries and Book Reviews. The Review a Day book was “How the States got their Shapes” by Mark Stein. The review made me want to go try to find it at the library. The News category had current date information.

The Subjects also had quite a few categories of interest including Young Adults, Collections Development, Readers Advisory and Reference to name a few. Looks like one can spend quite a bit of time browsing. It will take me multiple visits just to find the stuff I am most interested in. I found an interesting article in Nonfiction about LibraryThing from the K State Libraries (Kansas).

Library Thing - Thing 16

I browsed through the Library Thing. Looks like a fun site for librarians and book lovers. I added several of the books I have enjoyed recently. I joined the groups Librarians who Library Thing and Read YA Lit. However, I didn’t see a group for community college or academic libraries. That would be something I would like to see for ideas and other advice.

I thought the statistics tab was interesting. I also enjoy the recommendations based on your books list. It looks like a good source for book reviews and other recommendations.

This is a site I will continue to frequent, find new features and recommend to others. It’s a keeper.

I added Library Thing to my Delicious site along with several of the other “Things” we have discussed along the way.

Digg - Thing 15

This may be an interesting site to browse on occasion. For me I really don’t find it that useful, just another website to add to computer addiction. For my news/technology/science entertainment fix I would rather listen to the national and local news programs or scan the local newspaper. I currently subscribe to several magazines which I would much rather sit down with a cup of tea or coffee or during my lunch break and browse leisurely through. Books and magazines can be thrown in a tote bag and taken anywhere without having to find a wireless connection for your laptop. I guess I am still a little “old school,” and don’t really enjoy reading from a computer screen.

One of the stories came from Time Magazine “Summer School: What? No More Vacations,” which I had already read.

Delicious - Thing 14

I set up my delicious bookmarks. I’m not sure how useful it will be, maybe when sharing with other librarians who are using this tool. I sometimes use the computer at the circulation desk, so it may be handy to find the bookmarks I have saved on my computer at my desk and accessing some the library related items I have saved on my home computer. I set up bookmarks to Texas Library Association, Teenreads.com, Dallas County Community College and Deborah’s Discussions. I will explore it further...so....more later.

My link is http://delicious.com/dbogue.

Tagging - Thing 13

Tagging is a concept that I think is worthwhile to give it a try in libraries. It already sounds like some libraries are starting to use tagging as a compliment to subject headings. As with any new process there will be a period of implementation and getting used to the new system and terms. Tagging is more a free form style, so some items may be more easily found while some items the user may have to sift through more irrelevant things not necessarily related to the search at hand. Anything that may be more user friendly is always a good thing. I tryed my hand at tagging this post with tagging, library tagging, North Texas 23 Blogs, Thing 13, Deborah's Discussions. If I have time I may go back and try tagging some of my other posts.

Twitter - Thing 12

Twitter, twitter, twitter??? To twitter or not to twitter. Yes, I have heard so much press about twitter. It is hard not to be taken in by all of the hype. I set up an account as a directive of the NT 23. So far, I have been less than impressed. I tried to find a few people with out much luck. I am following several of the NT 23 blogs and a few have gotten to this point and had listed their usernames. Of the three that I had, I only was able to locate one. So, I am following that NT 23 participant. I am also following my daughter’s school and WFAA weather and one of their reporters.

I guess that if a mobile device was used it might be useful and fun for school/library events. Then you would be able to see things in more of a real time format. However, I’m not sure that my everyday activities are all that interesting for me to share with my “friends.”

I will give twitter a few more chances to redeem itself. Maybe I will learn something that I missed on my initial impression. Oh, my user name is DeborahBogue. Twitter me and help me change my mind.

Instant Message - Thing 11

I am really not a big fan of IMing. I have Aim on our AOL software and I do IM very, very infrequently. I would rather e-mail or call if I want to talk to someone. I can see that it would be useful for real time reference questions.

My daughter seems to like using IM with her friends either on facebook or AIM. Maybe it is a generational thing.

Ning - Thing 10

I liked the fact that you could browse many of the social networks without having to sign up or join. I am not a big fan of joining a lot of social networking sites. I browsed through some of the librarian sites – searching academics librarians produced one for a group of science librarians. Also, found networks for YA librarians. Wine 2.0 was interesting.

I doubt that I will join Ning. But it is fun and entertaining to look.

More Facebook - Thing 9

I’ve added a few friends and content to my page. Several I located by looking at friends of friends and searched by individual names. Added my HS and the Community College where I work. The surprising thing about my HS list was that many of the names I didn’t even recognize. I went to a fairly small HS so maybe some of the women must have used only their married names. I did find a few people that I haven’t heard from in awhile. Should be interesting.

Groups I am following:
Library Instruction Roundtable,
Library 2.0 Interest Group,
Children’s & YA Librarians &
Texas Library Association

Facebook - Thing 8

I had set up a facebook account many months ago at the encouragement of a friend. I wasn’t sure I really wanted or needed one at this time but he was sure I needed to set one up. So I succumbed to a little peer pressure. Later, I searched for a few friends, not finding them including the friend who suggested that I set up a fb, I quickly dismissed it, until now. It was amazing that I actually remembered the password.

I have a myspace account that I set up a couple of years ago when my daughter was a preteen and just starting to get into the social networking with school friends. I had fun with it for several months but it eventually lost its novelty. I rarely log in anymore.

Personally, I think that fb may befall the same fate as myspace. Professionally, it may be more useful in networking and advertising programs and events at your library especially to teens and young adults. I will have to wait and see.

Map of States Visited

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php

I thought the map was a cool addition to some of the other blogs, so I thought I would add one of my own. Love the image generators. I still need to visit/vacation in a few more states before I die and travel to some other countries other than Canada and Mexico.

RSS Feeds - Thing 7

The short video was informative and humorous. I added a few more sites to my reader. I had seen some of the icons on various websites and never really knew what they were for and never took the time to investigate. Now I will know what to do with them should I decide to take advantage of them.

Blog Readers - Thing 6

I guess I had better get cracking on the “things,” as I am only on thing 6 and so far we are up to thing 10. I am glad I decided to participate in this project because I probably would not have had an opportunity to play with some of these technology things or even know they were available to think about how they could be useful both professionally and personally.

I set up Google Reader and added some NT 23 blogs, news and lifestyle links. It is a convenient timesaver to be able to view the new entries at one time. I find it most useful for the blogs that I am following because new content can be viewed when the reader is opened. I don’t have to open each individual blog only to find nothing new was added that day. The news feed that I included, I am not so sure it is that helpful. Since I don’t always have time to view the reader each day, I had over 250 top news items to view and it required scrolling all the way to the bottom to clear the items count to 0. Some I had already read about in the newspaper or heard about on the radio or TV, so it was not always new news.

I will continue to explore other aspects and features and read some of the other blogs for more info.

More Image Generators

Gee Whiz, you can certainly spend quite a bit of time playing with these tools. Now I know what to do if I find myself bored with nothing to do. LOL!

Big Huge Labs - Jigsaw

Image Generator - Thing 5

Image Chef - Wave
All of these creation tools are too fun. I will just have to remember how to find them when I want to use them.

Flickr- Thing 3 & 4

Flickr is a fun and interesting tool for photo sharing. It would be fairly easy to find any type of picture that was needed. I have never really used any type of photo sharing venue. I like to take my own photos, but I’m sure at times a photo would be needed that was not available in your own library of photos.

The flickr spell feature was fun, but I was not sure how to copy/save the whole word. When I copied it to my file it only did one letter at a time so I only did a couple of letters then gave up on that.

Captioning your photos could be useful for newsletters or websites. I could sit and do that for awhile.

Big Huge Labs looked fun and interesting but I would have to create yet another account, this time on Yahoo. Maybe I will sometime.

The photos are what I found when I entered the word Bouvier. Bouvier des Flandres is the breed of dog that we have. The bottom pic is the one that looks more like my dog. The other photo is of Jacqueline Bouvier aka Jackie Kennedy.

Library 2.0: Thing 2

As I look over the list of 23 items that we will be learning about, playing with and thinking of ways in which our libraries can stay relevant with using these technologies it is important that we, the librarians be aware and up to speed in using and implementing these technologies for our users. With new ways of teaching and learning being used for distance learners and letting users know about programs and other offerings.

As Stephen Abram suggested we need hands on involvement and to think and reflect on how this will be or can be used in each of our libraries.

We are attempting to make connections, collaborate with other libraries, keep up with our new generation of tech savvy users at the same time as educating but not scaring off our older users.
We will need to keep our box of tech tools open and ourselves be life long learners

First Blog

Well I am finally getting started. Hopefully, I can catch up and keep the pace. I had a little trouble getting started. I was never able to create an account from the getting starting link on the North Texas 23. I tryed from two different computers. I instead searched google gmail accounts and set up a gmail account then went back to the blogger.com link.

I am slightly on the technology challenged side, but am looking forward to learning more. I will be looking for ways to use this information both professionally and personally. I am also excited to see how others are using this information too.