Lost in the Library

Reflections and Summary on Learning 2.0 Experience

2006-10-01T15:52:00.001-07:00

Learning 2.0, the journey of acquiring knowledge, has been difficult, thrilling, exciting, and successful for me. I appreciate Helene Blowers, and whoever else has been involved in presenting it to us, for your effort and patience in leading us through the process. I'm so glad I took the challenge!

It was even more difficult for me because it came on the heels of two surgeries this summer and it was during the time when we at MOR, as the pilot for the new work plans, were busy getting our plans in order for the year. Also, I took a great deal of flack from my circulation department who thought "completing the study at home was totally unacceptable." In circ. we only have one internet PC, I'm never off the schedule allowing time to be on the computer, and it's always used by other employees. However, my goal was to learn new things and boy, did I! Because I did the entire program at home on a dialup computer, it took me longer I'm sure, but it was worth it.

Week 6 (tagging and folksonomies and Technorati) was the longest and most difficult for me because it was packed with so many exercises. I loved learning about: blogs, wikis, podcasts, bloglines, RSS feeds, netlibrary, flickr, image generators, YouTube, and Zohowriter. My favorites were flickr, image generators, and Zohowriter.

I am quite sure that even though I may not use the websites in circulation at the libary, I will definitely use them at home. Knowledge of the netlibrary download system will be of use to me when I'm on the circulation desk in explaining how to download audiobooks etc. to patrons.

Before Learning 2.0 I knew there was a vast amount of net techniques and sites, but never did I imagine what we learned. It was like opening up a whole new world, and we barely scratched the surface. I'm looking forward to experimenting and practicing all this knowledge. I agree with you, Helene, it is only the beginning and I’m enthusiastic about learning more through other discoveries. I would definitely be involved again if ever anything like this is offered, but I would prefer that we have access to PC’s with internet services at MOR.

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you, Helene Blowers for your hard work and patience in leading us in our quest for knowledge. I hope to meet you at Staff Day.

#22 NetLibrary

2006-09-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

Once again I created a free account through PLCMC with NetLibrary and then explored the lists of eaudiobooks. I must say that searching by my favorite authors and titles (mostly thrillers) and even subjects for nonfiction, I was not very successful in finding many books I would want to download and listen to.
Some of the ones I did find were: Cold Moon by Jeffrey Deaver; Golfer's Education by Darren Kilfara; Hanged Man's Song by John Sandford; and Shooting at Loons by Margaret Maron.
Hope I'm able to find more interesting titles once I get my mp3 player I've worked so hard for.

#21 Podcasts.........

2006-09-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

What Fun!!! I tried all the suggestions and had a great time. In Podcast.net I discovered Mortaine's Book Ramblings in which she reviews three books on 9-14-2006:
"Sex Lives of Cannibals"; "Lovely Bones"; and "Incompetence". Short, concise interpretations of the books including the "ugly" as she calls her criticisms.
http://www.podcast.net/show/80397#SODE13

In Podcastalley.com I discovered the library lady who read from the classics: Jane Austen, Mark Twain, etc. in click-a-story programs for children. How fun to have these on the computers for children at the library and at home.
http://www.fordlibrary.org/clickastory/

In Yahoo Podcasts I explored some music podcasts and ABC newscasts with Stephanopoulos(sp) that were interesting.
http://podcasts.yahoo.com/search?t=1&p=music

YouTube II Nancy Sinatra in "These Boots are Made for Walking"

2006-09-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

I also anjoyed searching through some of the music videos like Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walking". It's good music even though the dress is a little risque.

I could see libraries perhaps downloading categories of these videos so that patrons might enjoy watching them. However, it would best be used in the library as demonstration videos like the IMG video on self checkout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WRXiAdlz-8

YouTube posting of video Charley the Tuna

2006-09-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

I spent quite a while exploring YouTube, most of which I did not enjoy. Even the Disney scenes were dirty! However, I did enjoy the 1970's commercials because they were clean and brought back good memories of when I was younger and raising children at home. Charley the Tuna one was neat and also the Jello commercial. I tried to "embed" as the instructions said, but I have no iodea whether I did it correctly or not. It took alot of time on dial-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1MWOuHOy8U

#19 Flickr and Hipcal

2006-09-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

the road ahead
Originally uploaded by Henry Roxas.

Interesting photo "The Road Ahead" from the new feature in Flickr called "Interestingness."
I'm glad we got to review some of the tools like Flickr because it is just absolute FUN. I viewed lots of interesting photos from the last 7 days from animals to people to flowers to places. It is a wonderful photo management and sharing application site.

I also enjoyed exploring HipCal in the personal organization category. The site is quick to let you know that Hipcal has been taken over by Plaxo whose new calendar will be available by the end of the year. I explored by the demo sign-in and learned about putting various tasks on the calendar which has several formats such as a day planner, calendar, monthly, daily, etc. I can see it being used for college students, business, or anyone who is busy and organized.
Hipcal includes forums for chats about topics, bug reports to explain and get answers for problems in working with the site. I think it is a valuable tool for organization and its only drawback that I can see is the fact that they are changing ownership and revamping currently.

http://www.flickr.com
http://www.hipcal.com

Playing with Zohowriter

2006-09-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I had fun playing with Zohowriter and g-mail spreadsheets. These are great web based applications that eliminate the need to worry about software versions from PC to PC. Fun way to create test documents and save them online; share documents with friends; e-mail documents; export to favorite format; all for free! The g-mail spreadsheet is a good way to save files online and export them.
I compiled a few lists and a few plans for outings. Great for group planning events or trips, sports schedules, meeting schedules--the possibilities are truly endless. I can see committees or departments using this at the library.
www.zohowriter.com

Wild Dunes Plans

2006-09-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

Test 1

Plans for trip to Wild Dunes

October 5-8

Thursday:

Everyone: Arrive:eat lunch at condo: walk on beach;

Dine out seafood; play cards

Friday:

Everyone: have breakfast at condo; walk on trails

Guys: Play golf

Ladies: Shop; hang out ; see everyone's pictures of grandchildren

Dinner at seafood restaurent; play games

SaSaturday:

Everyone: antique shopping in Charleston

Lunch at Poogan's Porch

Dinner at Shem Creek

Movie

Sunday:

Everyone: breakfast at condo

Drive home

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Oct. 5th. Please use this document to add

comments, suggestions, plans, etc. Need to know about plans for taking snacks, games

Bring cameras and drive carefully!!!!

Amazed and Excited about Wikis

2006-09-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

Reading all the library wiki examples I am amazed at the endless possibilities for all libraries. Librarians can share ideas and implementations that have worked for them (including websites) with other librarians easily and often.
I especially enjoyed reading from the subject guides wiki from St. Joseph Co. Library with its categories like books (great for book reviews or finding "if you liked this book, try" or book club leaders); genealogy with gen. websites, links, subscription data bases; health including local organizations and services; government services; news and current events; cooking and gardening; recreation; business. education-- all in St. Joseph Co. What a wealth of information for residents where they can ask questions and share information.

The wiki established for a specific event like ALA was also interesting. Delegates could check the calendar of events, rules, contributors, conference questions, discussions, volunteers, and even the weather. This would probably be valuable for events at PLCMC like Novello and even Staff Org. could form a wiki about its events. I just think the tool is invaluable for organizations and even personal group trip planning etc. or hobby information.

Perspectives from OCLC

2006-09-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

I read the perspectives of Wendy Schultz, Michael Stephens, and John J. Riemer about the progression of libraries through the Library 2.0 concepts. In his article, "Into a New World of Librarianship," Stephens joins the rest of the authors in expressing his ideas about libraries and services being revamped to meet the needs of users through mainly technology, communication (I loved that he wants to use instant messages to users), and user-centric mindsets.
Of course, libraries have no choice but to progress with the times. I know even I when I want to know ANYTHING, I go to the web, but as a reader-for-pleasure I would hate to think that I would have to download all the thrillers I read of worse, buy them.
It was interesting to read that John Riemer in his article about changing bibliographical services, referred to Endeca-based NCSU tool and the fact that users may choose different ways of navigating.
It will indeed be interesting to see how libraries change to meet the needs of its users now and in the future and exciting to be a part of these changes.

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm

Technorati

2006-09-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Technorati seems to be an excellent tool for searching for blogs. It's also helpful to register your own blog making it available to other users.

http://www.technorati.com/faves

Week 6 Delicious Comments

2006-09-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed playing around with Delicious. It was great fun exploring the optical illusions in the Viperlib site. Using the tags and bookmarks is like having the "My Favorites" category on my computer, but my favorites can be viewed from any computer used. It seems to be a great way especially for reference librarians to have many subjects bookmarked, making research much easier and faster.
By the way, Helene, I loved your suggestion to use an unpublished draft in our blogs to keep track of logins and passwords. I was using Word.

http://del.icio.us/deweyalive/gardening

Search Roll

2006-09-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?q=free+cards&sid=211374

I can see potential for this tool at work or at home. It's kind of like "My Favorite Sites" but easier to get to with the url's listed in right there in rollyo. It could be used to compile lists of sites at work that we go to often like readers' advisory reviews or staff picks, sites of book searches, travel sites, free photos--the possibilities are endless! It's also great that these can be made public so that all the work is done for you in many subjects.

LibraryThing Link

2006-09-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=deweyalive

LibraryThing was kind of fun. I can see it as valuable in compiling lists of books for readers' advisory. Also it would be useful in keeping personal records of books read or to be read.
I'm sorry but I did not think much of Mobuzz and doubt that I'll ever use that site.

And more "playing". This is fun......

2006-09-04T15:35:00.000-07:00

Image Generator !!

2006-09-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.redkid.net/generator/drive-in/sign.php

More "playing" with Image Generators
from Mayday.....

Using Image Generators

2006-09-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

My creation
Originally uploaded by deweyalive.

Roman Colosseum

October 2005

Image is "Hockneyized" in collage generator

http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/

Still trying

2006-09-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid I got stumped on the exercise about the public bloglines account. I'm still working on it and hope to do this. I surely wish I knew someone in circulation in my branch that I could discuss and learn with.

This week was packed with new things to learn......

2006-09-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

Wow! I’ve been so busy doing all the things in week #4 that I’ve just now found time to post. Who knew that an amazing technology like bloglines and RSS and newsreaders existed?
I spent time setting up my blogline account, exploring the tools to find feeds, subscribing to feeds of interest, linking to coworkers’ blogs, Readers’ Advisory, and Unshelved, the fun feed.
I liked navigating through Feedster and Topix.net, and Technorati , but did not enjoy Syndic8.com. I read such articles as one about Digital Audio Books, visual and virtual references for the printed impaired; the weblog of Michael Stephens (book discussions),
My very favorite thing to do is go to Bloglines.com and explore feeds and subscribe to them. I spent a lot of time on the “About Gardening” feed.
I was getting frustrated reading instructions etc. on Learning 2.0 and then learned I could subscribe to this and coworkers’ blogs and it made it so much easier not having to go back and forth. And what a timesaver! I don’t know if I’ll ever have a chance to use this in circulation, but I will definitely use it in my personal life. How great not to have advertisements pop up or having to type URL’s to go to great sites! I’m learning so much.

Getting Somewhere

2006-08-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it took a while but I was finally able to post a photo on my blog. Yippee!
I also had fun playing with mappr, flickr, and flickr mashups. I especially liked the trading card maker, the button maker, and the great mosaics from pictures.
I'm still trying to talk coworkers into "having fun". I have learned some things and I'm looking forward to learning more.
Whew! This takes lots of time. One more week gone.............

Roman Colosseum

2006-08-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Roman Colosseum
Originally uploaded by deweyalive.

October 2005 Roman Colosseum

Are We Having Fun Yet?

2006-08-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Who said this was fun? I would love to be able to discuss ideas and progress with coworkers, but I know of no one in my branch who is becoming involved yet. I hope this gets easier because I have little idea what I'm doing! Four down and nineteen to go! Charge!! If I can try to do this, anyone can.

This is Scary....

2006-08-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here I am....finally. I have been excited about the Learning 2.0 experience. Even though I am not accomplished in technology, I am looking forward to learning what I can. I've always thought of learning as a lifelong journey and I try to never pass up an opportunity to learn anything new. While I know I won't be a star pupil here, I will be so very satisfied if I can only complete the 23 things and have some unexpected experiences along the way.

What is the easiest part in the learning process for me? I haven't found it yet. The hardest part is equiping the toolbox when I'm not sure what I need.