Epilogue . . . 19 years later ;-)

So, we're now supposed to reflect on the 23 things program. I did a bit of that in my previous entry, but I can do some more. The program has definitely been valuable to me as I've helped patrons at the computers or people with questions like "What's Wikipedia?" It also helps with planning programs - I'll probably be doing one on Flickr for teens in the winter, and others in the branch are planning other technology related programs for various age groups, many using technologies we've explored in the 23 things.

Is this significant for libraries? I think so. Libraries are increasingly becoming places where people come to use technology as well as places where they come for books, and if we're not up on what's happening, we might lose that place. Also, libraries are doing so many innovative things with the various technologies in programs and community services, it would be a shame to be left behind. Anything that draws people into the library is helpful, in my opinion, and technology definitely does that. And besides, it makes me feel cool to be able to show teenagers something on the Internet that they've never seen before! :-D

Week 9 Thing 23 The End!

I made it! This has been a very interesting program, and I'm glad I participated. My favorite things to learn about are Library Thing (I'm still cataloging at home!), Bloglines, Flickr, and Zoho writer. Of course, it was also fun to learn about all the widgets I can use to make my blog look prettier! I've definitely benefitted at work - today a substitute called me to the desk to help explain how Overdrive works, and I just finished looking at that particular thing yesterday! I'm also getting news from YALSA and other library associations instantly through my Bloglines reader that I might not notice for a few months otherwise through reading professional journals. I would definitely participate in another program like this if it is offered in the future - I haven't done well with online courses before, but the hands-on nature of this program was really good for me. And now, I'm done!

Week 9 Thing 22 Learn About Audiobooks

This is an area in which I have little to no experience, mainly because my bad eyes and my microscopic attention span keep me from downloading materials from Overdrive for my own use . . . however, I was glad to look at the tutorial so I can use it with patrons - since we're getting a combined info desk soon, odds are someone will ask me at some point how it works! I found the title selection on Overdrive interesting . . . lots of classics and romances, a fair amount of children's material, a ton of mysteries, almost no graphic novels. It makes me wonder what the demographics are of people who are using the service and, for example, if there were more graphic novels, would more teens use it? It seems simple enough to use, set up almost like shopping websites, but I wonder how many patrons know it is available to them?

Week 9 Thing 21 Podcasting

I've had some podcasting experiences before in LATI, so this wasn't quite as foreign to me as some of the other technologies I've been exploring. That said, I'm not a huge fan of the medium - my attention is prone to wander, so if all I'm doing is listening to audio, I tend to do other things at the same time and stop paying attention to the sounds in the background . . . I subscribed to two podcasts, though, one created by teens at a library, the other teen authors talking about their books, which both seemed interesting enough to hold my attention for the 5 or so minutes required. (Incidentally, I also subscribed to Ask a Ninja, which had the added perks of hilarity, video, and ninjas. Ninjas make everything better!)

Week 9 Thing 20 You Tube

I've often wished that my life could be more like a musical - this YouTube video confirmed that it would be awesome.



I do enjoy YouTube for cheap entertainment, and some people have definitely shown gifts for creating art - or severely lame garbage, it's all there. I think it would be great fun to do a YouTube program for teens - use the library equipment to create a video. I've also seen librarians create virtual tours of the library, and YouTube would make it simple to post them to the library website. We could also create simple tutorials on using the catalog or research techniques, or have a contest for customers to create the best "commercial" for the library that highlights our services.

Week 8 Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards

My husband and I are getting ready to go on a trip for our anniversary, so I thought I'd check out realtravel.com for some ideas about where to eat and what to do. I really liked the site and that you could see how other people planned their trips, how they rated different activities and restaurants, and look at their photos. So I signed up for an account and then had a very difficult time finding Niagara Falls again. I did get back in the end, and saved a few things to my trip plan to look at in detail later, but it was a bit frustrating. All in all, I think it's a great concept, just needs to be a bit more navigable - the addition of a search box would be a huge help, rather than just clicking the map to get into the right country!

Week 8 Thing 18 Zoho Writer

I definitely enjoyed Zoho - easy to use, doesn't have those obnoxious auto-format tools that Word employs, and it's free! I'm a person who tends to lose/break flash drives and disks, so that's a definite perk - here's another alternative to emailing everything to myself! Haha, Bill Gates! I'm a huge fan of the free aspect of Zoho and Google word processing online.



Oh, and if you want to know how you did on the Harry Potter trivia quiz, I'll post the answer key post-release. :-)

My Harry Potter Trivia Quiz!

Here's my Zoho writer project - a trivia quiz the Teen Advisory Board and I put together for the release of Deathly Hallows. Come on, you know you want to try it!

Harry Potter Trivia
Who Said It?

Identify who is speaking and in which book. Each answer is worth one point.

1) "The fates have informed me that your examination in June will concern the Orb, and I am anxious to give you sufficient practice."

2) "But I am not a man, Muggle. I am much, much more than a man."

3) "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

4) "Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get the one that hits back."

5) "Thanks. I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."

6) "Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business."

7) "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!"

8) "What do they think they are doing, annoying senior Ministry members? No respect..."

9) "If she could have done one t hing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!"

10) "It's alright. Cheating's a traditional part of the Triwizard tournament and always will be."

11) "We'll be needing a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher . . . Dear me, we do seem to run through them, don't we?"

12) "I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do! If I have to coach you nightly I will make sure you achieve the required results."

Week 7 Thing 17 Sandbox

So, it turns out that, like RSS feeds, wikis aren't nearly as complicated as I thought they would be. However, I can still totally understand that they have the potential to make people nervous - what if I accidentally delete someone else's very well-thought out and meaningful comment? But I can see where they definitely have uses for planning - rather than compiling a huge email list, everyone involved just adds the wiki to their feedreaders and gets informed instantly when someone makes a change. As a person who finds out about most social gatherings through Facebook invites rather than phone calls or invitations, I can see that kind of use going over well.

Sigh of relief

Right, so the previous post refers to the fact that for about 5 minutes straight I couldn't get the post before that to show up . . . I thought I'd lost it forever! Turns out, it was just this computer!

HELP!

This is a test. Don't panic!

Week 7 Thing 16 Wikis

Wiki Wiki wild wild west . . .

Well, I feel that I have a better understanding now of wikis and how they are used effectively. I loved the Rochester NY wiki that showed visitors all of the cool stuff residents really enjoy. I know we just revamped our community information database, and it's definitely very nice, but I loved the idea of using a wiki for that information - that way the webmaster doesn't have to add every organization individually, information gets posted instantly, and if a change needs to be made it can come straight from the source. I also like that wikis give ownership to the users - perhaps that is why they maintain their standards so well, deleting spam and inappropriate content, because the users care about the site and take care of their own. I'm a big fan of Wikipedia, and while I certainly don't recommend it to children for a research resource, I sometimes mention it to adults looking for general information on a topic in addition to other more traditional resources, and I definitely use it myself when I need a definition while on-desk (for example, several months ago while reading a Library Journal, I hopped onto Wikipedia for a definition of "Library 2.0"!) At the same time, our branch manager started a wiki for favorite books which I have yet to contribute to, because I'm afraid of screwing it up!

Week 6 Thing 15 Library 2.0

The video was engrossing and definitely gave me some things to think about. I found that I don't really know enough about Web 2.0 to understand all of the articles (so much for feeling smart last week that I could use Rollyo!), but a few of the ideas that stuck with me were the ideas that users create value. Well, of course they do - why bother providing services if nobody is using them? - but I'd never heard it said exactly that way before. I also had a good chuckle when I realized that having a teen advisory board is a library 2.0 service - encouraging and accepting feedback from our users. Yay TAB! Something I hadn't really thought about before reading the articles is the fact that the term "Library 2.0" refers to more than the use of the web 2.0 technologies - it's a service model, librarian behaviors, the way we function as a library and the relationship we have with our customers. I can see that we are, indeed, already doing some of the things that the articles predicted - teen advisory board, implementing roving reference, there's even been talk of (gasp!) a MySpace page . . . I'm not sure that "To a Temporary Place in Time" isn't a bit over the top, but I think the writer was correct to assert that we're in for big changes.

Week 6 Thing 14 Technorati

Yay! I've spent more time on Technorati than I probably should have, trying to make it do what I want it to do, and finally success! I found several blogs on teen literature with reviews of books, which is what I was hoping for, as well as blogs on teen services. Yay! Then I subscribed to them on Bloglines, because I'm loving my feed reader. I also claimed my book blog on technorati, so maybe I'll get some hits that way - and of course, if you're reading my 23 things blog, you're welcome to take a look at what I've been reading.

A few things surprised me: first, how many of the top searches had to do with either pornography or Paris Hilton. Sigh. Also, the site seemed slow to work as I was adding favorites - even though I added some on Saturday, I added 2 this afternoon and was then cheerily informed "You haven't added any favorites yet!" Say what now? Granted, that problem resolved itself when I refreshed the page, but potentially confusing nonetheless.

Week 6 Thing 13 Del.icio.us

I really enjoy the idea of the site, but I don't have much use for it personally - probably because I'm not a big bookmarker. However, I can see great uses for it at work - the children's department could bookmark our favorite sites for fingerplays and rhymes, creating a collaborative list. We could create our own 'database' of author's or reader's advisory websites for reference use, and I know some innovative teachers have been using Del.icio.us to direct their students to specific groups of websites. All of this is grand, and I can see the site's uses for research, but it just isn't my favorite of the moment - maybe it's more of an acquired taste.

http://del.icio.us/5footlibrarian

Blogging

It amuses me that my blog looks like I know what I'm doing.

Week 5 Thing 12 Rollyo

Last night I mentioned to a friend that I was doing 23 Things and learning to use things like Flickr and Rollyo. He had never heard of the latter, so I explained it to him and he said "Whoa! That sounds nifty!" And then I felt smart. :-D

Since I spend a good bit of my on-desk time searching for fingerplays related to storytime themes each time I have a new box due, I decided to do make a Rollyo search for them, and I'm rather pleased with the results. My box is in the sidebar, but I'll put it here too, because I can!

Select...Preschool StorytimesSearch The Web

Week 5 Thing 11 Library Thing

Ooh, another toy I like - yay for the play week! I have a rather extensive library at home - pretty soon I'm going to need to buy more bookshelves - so this would be fantastic for me! I tried out the Book Suggester, and sure enough, it returned many books that I enjoyed, and not all of them were in the same genre as the title I entered, so it seemed to work pretty well. Sadly, I couldn't get the Book Unsuggester to work! Here's my catalog, and I guarantee that it will be growing as soon as I have time at home to sit down with the laptop in front of the bookshelves! I can definitely see the potential for this as a reader's advisory tool - we could even set patrons up with it themselves, or share our personal libraries with people who ask "Have you read anything good lately?" I've even read about some small libraries who use Library Thing for their computer catalogs, so it definitely has uses in the library.

Meez

Yay, I made a Meez! This blog is so colorful now! Find the Meez page here.

Week 5 Thing 10 - online image generators

My, these things are fun! I took a few closeup shots of myself so I could use the Warholizer on fdtoys, which was definitely my favorite site on the list. I was intrigued by a lot of the items in the Generator blog, but they weren't quite as appropriate, so there you are. I think this one has gift-giving potential! (Well, perhaps if I were to use a more flattering photo . . .)

Success!

I figured out how to add my blogroll to the blog! Oh, sweet victory! The tutorial neglected to mention (or I neglected to notice, either is possible) that before you're able to share your blog, you must go to the "Account" tab in Bloglines, choose a username, and allow your blogroll to be shared. Oh, I'm proud of myself now!

Week 4 Thing 9 - MERLIN etc.

Eek, I'm behind already! Yay for summer reading . . .

I was amazed at how much I already knew about technology as I explored MERLIN. Geocaching - check. Social networking - check. I'm all subscribed now, so I'll be getting updates as they come in - I've developed a healthy respect/potentially unhealthy dependence on Bloglines.

I tried using Technorati to find some reader's advisory blogs - I keep one, and I'd love to read similar efforts by other people - but no luck. However, I did find YALSA's blog, which I immediately subscribed to, so it wasn't a total loss! Syndic8 confused me, and I was able to find some posts about reader's advisory using Feedster, but not an entire blog devoted to that literary art. I can't be the only one! Maybe I just need to do a bit more in-depth searching on my own time.

Week 4 Thing 8 - RSS

Okay, so I've spent way more time on this than I intended to do! I found Bloglines to be really simple, and I'm looking forward to not having to check the Vampire Librarian twice a day to see if she's updated - I love my Vampire Librarian!

However, I ran into trouble when I decided it would be a good idea to subscribe to the comments on my blog, but try as I might, I couldn't get a feed to show up for just comments. The help section says I should be able to do it, but all I could get was posts, not comments. I even just entered my blog URL for Bloglines to detect feeds, and it could only find posts. I'm a bit frustrated and not sure what to do . . . anyone have an idea?

But back on topic, I feel much more confident now that I know what RSS is - funny how I'm not scared of it now that I know what it stands for!

Week 3 Thing 7 Anything about Technology!

I'm not sure if this is more about technology or about a sociological phenomenon, but isn't the cell phone culture we live in interesting? No one in my family ever had one until I was a teenager with my own car (Mom had this silly idea that I might need it if I ever got into a car accident . . .), and now we live by them. My husband and I don't have a landline phone in our apartment, and my mother and sister just moved to a new home, where they don't have a landline either! Everyone has cell phones - I do double takes in the library when I see 7 or 8 year old kids with phones clipped to their belts. And then there's the whole Bluetooth phenomenon - it's always comforting to see someone walking through the library talking to himself and then see that it's just the tiny little phone in his ear. So much better than the other people who walk around the library talking to themselves . . .

But it's not just the widespread nature of cell phones - it's the dependence we have on them. I know that I, at least, feel as if doom will strike me if I'm ever without my phone. I had one die on me when I was in college, and I was completely cut off from the outside world until I could get a new one. Nobody could call me because I hadn't bothered to give them my dorm phone number (I was never there, so what would be the point?) I couldn't call anyone because I didn't know anyone's phone number (Why bother? I'd put them all directly into my phone!) And while this is a part of myself that I don't like very much, I haven't done anything to correct it - after all, my new phone works perfectly!

My husband spent two years in Bolivia, and he said one of the sights he saw regularly was a farmer outside his cinderblock house, plowing the field with his donkey, talking on his cell phone. What a world!

Week 3 Thing 6 Flickr mashups

These things are fun! I liked the Warholizer feature on the fdtoys website, but I didn't have a portrait that would look good. I did create a blog header and a nifty motivational poster, both saved on my Flickr page and here in my blog. I could spend hours exploring this stuff! I have a ton of pictures on my computer at home just begging to be presented in new and interesting ways . . . incidentally, it would probably be convenient to include a link to my Flickr page, so there it is!

Week 3 Thing 5: Flickr

I can now Flickr! I posted three pictures of the art on the ceiling tiles in our teen room, which is by far one of my favorite parts of my branch. An art class at a local high school incorporated books into famous paintings as a project, and they look spectacular!

This photo is called "Picasso, Enrique, and Julia" because it includes the painting and two READ posters on the wall below featuring Enrique Iglesias and Julia Stiles.

I found it very easy to use Flickr - I actually already had an account but I had never used it before. I was able to create my page and change my alias very easily, although I had some trouble getting the pictures to upload the first time and had to start over. I also had to try twice to get the picture to upload into my blog - the first time I used "add an image from the web" in Blogger, and I think that was the wrong choice. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'll probably be adding more to my page!

Week 1 Thing 2

7 1/2 Habits of Highly Effective Lifelong Learners:
Begin with end goal in mind - specificity
Accept responsibility for your own learning
View problems as challenges
Have confidence in yourself as a confident, effective learner
Create your own learning toolbox
Use technology to your advantage
Teach/mentor others
Play!

How curious that one can be a lifelong learner without really thinking about it - I think I do a lot of these things already! Probably the easiest habit for me is viewing problems as challenges, because I'm a rather competitive person, even when I'm competing against circumstances instead of people. If things crop up that make my project more difficult to complete, I tend to hunker down and work harder so I can say "Hah!" at the end of it.

The most difficult habit for me is beginning with a specific goal. I'm great at developing plans, but it's sometimes hard for me to focus in on the details that define the goal enough to make a really good plan. As a result, I sometimes get frustrated with trying to follow through.

These are a few of my 23 Things . . .

Here's my blog! Every time I hear the phrase "23 things", the music from "My Favorite Things" starts playing in my head. Ah, The Sound of Music . . .