Thing #23 - I'm Done!!!

This learning experience was fun, but time consuming. I wish I had more time to complete the optional exercises in each Thing. Sometimes I was able to do them pretty easily, but other times I just needed to keep going.

My favorite part of this learning program was setting up my own blog and each of the components that we added to it. I feel like there is a little part of me on the Internet now.

I learned a lot from this learning program. I would definitely do it again. I do think that some of the directions could be better written. There were a few Things that took way more time than they should have because I was trying to figure out exactly what they were asking me to do. I saw this with other staff too. I loved seeing the staff get really into this exercise. They jumped in at full speed! Even the staff that said they were not tech savvy got really into it. How great is that!

Great program, but I'm glad I'm done.

Thing #22

Our library has access to Overdrive. There are many titles available to download - ebooks, audio books and movies. I browsed around in the audio books that are always available. This is a nice collection especially for those that don't like to wait. Unfortunately, I don't have high speed at home, so I won't be able to download the audio I found that I'd like to check out, so I will read the book instead!

Thing # 21 - Podcasts

This was a fun exercise. I found some podcasts of teens doing book reviews at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. They were so cute! It gave me the idea that maybe our TAG group could do something like this for our Teen MySpace page.

Ode to Joy

This is my friend Matt's band, Odin's Court. So cool that he's on YouTube!

Thing #19 - Squidoo

I explored the site Squidoo for this exercise. It is a great place for small businesses, non-profits and a place for people to share what they know about different topics or advertise their business or non-profit. The first thing I clicked on was about energy saving tips. Good information. This is how they describe themselves:

Your signpost about something that matters to you.
A place to recommend your favorite stuff.
A popular way to get found more on the web.
A free (yes, free) way to earn a royalty. For you or for charity.
Word of mouth at your fingertips.

I loved the Stupic Library Tricks lens especially the YouTube videos of Library Book Cart Drill Teams. Ha! I didn't see any libraries with a lens. Maybe we should have one!

Thing #18 Google Docs

I love Google Docs. I used it to put my previous comment on my blog. Cool!

I love the idea of being able to carry your documents from one computer to another. And, that you don't have to worry about different versions of the software they are using. There are so many times when a customer has typed up their work on a different version of MS that for whatever reason won't open on our computers. I think this would make things so much easier for them. Now the hard part is getting them to use one of these free apps. We are all so trained to use the MS products.

Thing #17

This exercise was really difficult to follow. The directions were terrible! They say wikis are easy to use or user friendly, but it took 2 of us to figure out how to add a link to the page. And, I know HTML! Like I said before - wikis are not my favorite.

Thing #16 - Wikis

I'm not crazy about wikis. They are just too much in flux for me. I noticed that a lot of wikis haven't been updated in a while. Maybe people think wikis a great tool, but then they don't have time or get bored with it and don't go back to update it? I think the idea of a wiki has value, but I'm not sure it's something I want to create on my own.

Thing #15 - Library 2.0

It's scary to think that people are already talking about Library 3.0 and Library 4.0 when we haven't reached Library 2.0 yet. I think our library system is on the right path, but we still have a long way to go. We still need so many things - federated search, RSS in our catalog, tagging in the catalog, a library Flickr account....

We do have a Teen MySpace page though! :)

Thing #14 - Technorati

Wow, people have a lot of time on their hands. I don't know how people can spend so much time talking about nothing, which is how I feel about many of the blogs I saw on Technorati. When I looked at the top searches for today, I had no idea what or who most of them were! I must be living under a rock.

Honestly, I'm not sure how we would use this in the library world except of course to see what other people are blogging about libraries.

Thing #13

I created my own Del.icio.us account

http://del.icio.us/maryanne6828

Not much on it at this point. I need to re-train myself to use this instead of my bookmarks. Old habits die hard. I like the idea of Del.icio.us though. It will be great to access it from anywhere.

This could be a great tool for our Reference staff especially when they work Sundays. It's nice to have all the websites you use to answer customer questions in one place. Perhaps the Reference staff could create a site that they each add things to.

Thing #12

I created a Rollyo for St. Mary's County News. At first, I felt like this was a waste of my time. I've been putting off this "Thing" for a while. I just had no interest in doing it. But, I finally did! I can see how something like this would be useful on the library's website. I'm sure there are other sites we could have a custom made search engine for, but I thought St. Mary's News would be helpful to our customers.

Thing 11 - Library Thing

I can see how Library Thing could be addictive for book lovers especially librarians, however it's not for me. I just don't have the time to catalog all my books!

I love how some libraries are incorporating Library Thing into their catalogs. It allows people to see tags attached to the books they love. You can then click on the tag to find similar books. Tagging is a great thing. I wish our catalog had this feature.

Thing #10

It was fun creating my avatar, but....my computer kept locking up. I used www.meez.com.

Thing 9

Merlin - Merlin is a great site for the MD learning community. I love the learning links.

Feedster - reminds me of google. A big blank screen with a search box. If you don't know what to search for your in trouble. Half the time I fit into this category. I'd rather have some links to jump off from.

Topix - Not sure what this is about. It seems to give you headlines in your community. Just as easy to go to somd.com

Syndic8 - I didn't even bother with this one. If I don't like the site design, I don't waste my time.

Technorati - LOVED IT! I love the tag cloud. Loved that it has videos & music right there on the home page. I found a crazy Harry Potter video by using one of the tags in the Tag Cloud. I love seeing what other people are looking for.

Thing 8 - RSS

Well, I don't know about it being Really Simple. For me the hardest part was finding a blog of interest to me to subscribe to. I wanted to find a unique blog, but I ended up with the usual ones.

I did manage to add a blogroll to my personal blog. Basically, this is a listing of all the blogs I subscribed to. See to the right.

Here is the URL to my blogline account:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/mabowman

I like that I'm able to see everything I'm interested in on one page, however I think I prefer going to the actual website. You might be missing something really interesting by not going to the actual website.

We already use this technology in our library on our Staff Intranet, so really it's nothing new to me.

Good exercise, now I'm ready to move on!

New York Times Article on Librarians

See we ARE cool!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html?ex=1200974400&en=8cb7403e5f48a28c&ei=5087&excamp=mktat5

Thing 7 - Technology Today

On cnn.com there are several good articles today abour technology. Here is the link to this section of CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/

One of the articles today 8/3/04 is on Microchips in humans. Scary! Is this our future? I hope not. It seems like a good idea when you think about Alzheimer's patients, but then where do we stop with it? Interesting article - here's the link.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/08/01/chips.humans.ap/index.html

Another article talks about Cab drivers threatening to strike because they don't want GPS installed in their cabs. Personally, I think they should have GPS and be tracked. It will probably save us a lot of money. I often feel like the driver is taking me all over the city to get 4 blocks. But, then I can understand why they feel it is an invasion of privacy.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/01/gps.taxi.strike.ap/index.html

What next???

Bird in the Water

Bird in the Water
Originally uploaded by QsySue

I used the flickr Color Fields Colr Pickr to find this photo - pretty cool. This seems to be the easiest Mashup tool to investigate. I tried to look at the montager, but it never loaded on any of the computers I was using. The Trading Card Maker looks pretty cool too, but I didn't take the time to figure it out.

Mashups are something fun to look at, but I don't think I want to create my own.

Poppy Field

Poppy Field
Originally uploaded by Steve Sawyer

I love poppies! Here's a good photo. I could look forever at all the photos of them on flickr.

7 1/2 Habits

I would say the hardest habit for me is #6 - using technology to your advantage. I will often ask a person to help me with something before looking for an online tutorial. For example, I was working on a word document that had a checkbox field in it. I couldn't figure out how to modify it. I struggled forever, until I finally asked a co-worker for help. She immediately went to an online training program on word to find the answer. She found it right away! If only I had thought of that!

The easiest habit for me is #7 - Teach/mentor others. I find that co-workers are often asking me how to do something, usually on the computer. I like to help them figure it out.

First Post

Yeah, here's my first post.