I thought this was funny, especially with all of the struggles we've gone through with computers over the last few weeks! I hope you enjoy the "Medieval Helpdesk"!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thing #23
There were days when I was sure that I would never reach this Thing!!!
I discovered so many things that I had no idea even existed! It was fun to find ways to create posters, learn how to post blogs, add videos to blog posts, and so much more. I'm not sure that everything "stuck" in my brain, but I am sure that after this introduction I will be able to "relearn" if necessary.
I enjoyed the fact that all of our staff worked on this project. We shared tips and helped each other solve problems to complete each Thing. We also had someone to share our frustrations with when things just wouldn't go right! It makes me feel better when I can "vent" to someone who understands what I'm going through.
There were many things in this program that I was curious about before but never took the time to learn about. Or maybe I just wasn't sure where to go to learn about them! I had heard about blogs, RSS feeds, Flickr, wikis, etc. and it's great to now have some idea of what people are talking about when they use these terms!
Thanks to Pam for forcing me out of my comfort zone and making me learn something new!
I discovered so many things that I had no idea even existed! It was fun to find ways to create posters, learn how to post blogs, add videos to blog posts, and so much more. I'm not sure that everything "stuck" in my brain, but I am sure that after this introduction I will be able to "relearn" if necessary.
I enjoyed the fact that all of our staff worked on this project. We shared tips and helped each other solve problems to complete each Thing. We also had someone to share our frustrations with when things just wouldn't go right! It makes me feel better when I can "vent" to someone who understands what I'm going through.
There were many things in this program that I was curious about before but never took the time to learn about. Or maybe I just wasn't sure where to go to learn about them! I had heard about blogs, RSS feeds, Flickr, wikis, etc. and it's great to now have some idea of what people are talking about when they use these terms!
Thanks to Pam for forcing me out of my comfort zone and making me learn something new!
Thing #22
I browsed some of the directories of podcasts and listened to several. There are some interesting podcasts available, though I don't think I have time to listen to all of them! I tried one on Harry & Bess Houdini, which was biographical information, and a science one from NOVA about possible life on Mars. I listened to and subscribed to the Book Talk Radio Broadcasts from the NLC. I found some interesting books and authors there that I wasn't familiar with.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thing #21
YouTube is a fascinating site. I have used it to search for old songs, scenes from "The Muppet Show," skits from "Saturday Night Live," performances of Christian music for church, performances by a magician who wanted to do a show at our library, etc. etc. Yesterday I watched a couple of videos that a friend posted so that everyone could see how his father was doing in physical therapy at Madonna in Lincoln. We had a patron in one day with her son and grandchild. The son was visiting with the baby but Mom was still at home working, and he wanted to get on a computer so he could put a video on YouTube so Mom could see the baby waving goodbye or something. What a neat way for people to keep in touch!
There is a LOT on YouTube that is not fit to watch, but I guess you just skip over that. I think kids need some education about using this site, and perhaps supervision while using it. But that goes for everything on the Web!
There is a LOT on YouTube that is not fit to watch, but I guess you just skip over that. I think kids need some education about using this site, and perhaps supervision while using it. But that goes for everything on the Web!
Thing #20
I looked at Picasa under "Photos and Digital Images."
It says, "Google's photo sharing service comes with excellent software for editing your pictures" and I found this to be true. The editing is very easy to use, and I like that the software is free. I tried out the cropping and some of the other editing features, but would like to try to make a collage too.
I could use Picasa to edit photos taken at library events to improve the quality of the pictures. I would like to get photos of library activities posted on our web page. We have a photo release form for patrons to sign. I guess I need to know if we take group photos of activities and no one in the photo is identified, can they be posted without permission from everyone in the shot? I try to take photos of all of our kids' programs, but then they sit on the computer and we don't currently use them for anything. I think that kids would enjoy seeing themselves on our web page, and maybe it would increase the number of visitors to our page.
It says, "Google's photo sharing service comes with excellent software for editing your pictures" and I found this to be true. The editing is very easy to use, and I like that the software is free. I tried out the cropping and some of the other editing features, but would like to try to make a collage too.
I could use Picasa to edit photos taken at library events to improve the quality of the pictures. I would like to get photos of library activities posted on our web page. We have a photo release form for patrons to sign. I guess I need to know if we take group photos of activities and no one in the photo is identified, can they be posted without permission from everyone in the shot? I try to take photos of all of our kids' programs, but then they sit on the computer and we don't currently use them for anything. I think that kids would enjoy seeing themselves on our web page, and maybe it would increase the number of visitors to our page.
Thing #19 - Presentation (once again!)
I've decided after spending all that time getting frustrated with the Googledocs presentation troubles I had, it is my computer that doesn't like Googledocs. I opened the presentation on another computer and it seemed to work fine. So once again I am going to try to publish the presentation here in my blog:
Thing #19 - Presentation
I went into Googledocs and created a presentation using one of their templates. I was going to embed it in this blog. However, after spending 2 hours on it I have nothing to show for my time. The application kept locking up my computer, which was very frustrating. I was hitting "save" every few seconds because I never knew when it would freeze up. When I finally got it done, I embedded it in a blog post. However, when I tried to view it almost all of the images I'd put in were gone. I closed out Googledocs and went back in to try to copy the html again, but now the images are gone from the presentation also! I know that they were there originally because I saved it to my computer as a powerpoint first before trying to post it to my blog, and the powerpoint is still there and looks fine. I'd go in to Googledocs and start over but I don't think it's worth it. I guess you could say that this was a learning experience, but what I learned was that I have no use for Googledocs! The concept sounds great, but the actuality left a lot to be desired as far as I was concerned.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Thing #17 (more)
I had some other thoughts on wikis.
One of the articles I read mentioned having patrons annotate the library catalog. I think there are people who would enjoy doing this, but it would need some oversight.
Having library policy available as a wiki would be great. It would be easily accesible to staff members at all times, and also could be easily updated by the director. Whenever a staff member had a question, the most current policy would be there to read. As we are currently operating, the policy may change but the printed copy is not necessarily reprinted so no one is sure if they are doing the right thing!
I also like the idea of the library web site being the online hub of the community--a place where Little League schedules, etc. could be easily accessed. We had a call last summer from someone wanting to know the schedule of games for a tournament at the softball complex, but we couldn't find anyone who had that information. If the people involved in the activity are able to add the information themselves, the wiki would be a great community resource.
One of the articles I read mentioned having patrons annotate the library catalog. I think there are people who would enjoy doing this, but it would need some oversight.
Having library policy available as a wiki would be great. It would be easily accesible to staff members at all times, and also could be easily updated by the director. Whenever a staff member had a question, the most current policy would be there to read. As we are currently operating, the policy may change but the printed copy is not necessarily reprinted so no one is sure if they are doing the right thing!
I also like the idea of the library web site being the online hub of the community--a place where Little League schedules, etc. could be easily accessed. We had a call last summer from someone wanting to know the schedule of games for a tournament at the softball complex, but we couldn't find anyone who had that information. If the people involved in the activity are able to add the information themselves, the wiki would be a great community resource.
The Wovel
I staff member sent me the link to this article from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98503490&sc=emaf
It's an interesting concept--a novel that is posted online a chapter at a time. Readers vote for changes in the plot line and then the author writes the next chapter using this input. It's sort of like adult "choose your own adventure" books! The author is using Dickens' serial type writing as a guide. I might need to look for one of these and try it out!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98503490&sc=emaf
It's an interesting concept--a novel that is posted online a chapter at a time. Readers vote for changes in the plot line and then the author writes the next chapter using this input. It's sort of like adult "choose your own adventure" books! The author is using Dickens' serial type writing as a guide. I might need to look for one of these and try it out!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Thing 19
I like the idea of being able to send a document to someone else and not have to worry about them having the correct software to read it. This has been a problem for me in the past.
Also, posting something that others could open and edit sounds good.
And being able to access my documents from any computer without carrying around a flash drive is intriguing.
There are many people who could benefit from not having to purchase expensive software. And it seems that once you purchase software, they upgrade it and you are left behind!
Thing #18
I posted to the PBwiki site and added some favorites. It's interesting, but I don't know when I would have time to read all of the postings! I think that's the problem with many of the Things we've done so far--not enough time to read and keep up with everything.
I went to the PBwiki support center link and tried to watch some of the videos, but I kept getting a message that the video was no longer available. That was no help at all!
I thought it would be great to set up a wiki for our family Christmas celebration next Saturday. I just got an email this morning from my sister-in-law asking everyone to decide what food they planned to bring and to "reply to all" so everyone got the response. After watching the wiki introduction video (about the 4 friends planning a camping trip), it seemed like a wiki would work well for this purpose. However, I think it's too late to do it now--maybe next year!
I went to the PBwiki support center link and tried to watch some of the videos, but I kept getting a message that the video was no longer available. That was no help at all!
I thought it would be great to set up a wiki for our family Christmas celebration next Saturday. I just got an email this morning from my sister-in-law asking everyone to decide what food they planned to bring and to "reply to all" so everyone got the response. After watching the wiki introduction video (about the 4 friends planning a camping trip), it seemed like a wiki would work well for this purpose. However, I think it's too late to do it now--maybe next year!
Thing #17
Wikis sound interesting. I liked the Book Lovers Wiki from the Princeton Public Library where adult participants in their summer reading program posted book reviews and rated their books. I think this might be fun to try in our library. Perhaps our teens would like to do this also. I would expect that it would need to be moderated so that you could keep someone from posting something inappropriate.
I think it might work to list the links on our library homepage in a wiki where they are grouped by category and patrons could add sites that they find helpful. Patrons could also help by deleting sites that are no longer good. (I hate it when I click on a dead link!)
I found it easier to browse the wikis that listed the contents in a vertical list. The ALA wiki for the 2008 annual conference had lots of good information, but for me it was difficult to browse since everything was listed horizontally one after the other. The topics appeared to be in alphabetical order (of course, since this was a librarian site!), but I personally didn't like it as well.
I think it might work to list the links on our library homepage in a wiki where they are grouped by category and patrons could add sites that they find helpful. Patrons could also help by deleting sites that are no longer good. (I hate it when I click on a dead link!)
I found it easier to browse the wikis that listed the contents in a vertical list. The ALA wiki for the 2008 annual conference had lots of good information, but for me it was difficult to browse since everything was listed horizontally one after the other. The topics appeared to be in alphabetical order (of course, since this was a librarian site!), but I personally didn't like it as well.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Thing #16
I read the different perspectives on Web 2.0 and there were some interesting ideas to think about.
In Anderson's article, he said we need to place "library services and content in the user's preferred environment (i.e., the Web)." How do we make everything available on the Web, as people seem to feel it should be--and for free! Doesn't someone have to pay for the databases, etc.? And there are still a lot of materials that are only available in print version (historical books, etc.) so I don't think we can get rid of our library collections and find everything online.
In the Schultz article, she said "tagclouds offer diverse connections, not focussed expertise" and "people will still need experienced tour guides." Many things we find on the web are good, but a librarian can add value by making sense of what is found there.
Riemer talks about better bibliographic services. He mentions user participation in assigning keywords ("tagging"), which could make the catalog more user friendly. Often it's frustrating trying to figure out what subject heading to search for--tags are what people are becoming familiar with using on the Web so these might make catalog searches more user friendly. I thought his idea about mapping geographic names in subject headings to latitude and longitude coordinates was interesting. That way users could easily access materials for nearby places.
In Anderson's article, he said we need to place "library services and content in the user's preferred environment (i.e., the Web)." How do we make everything available on the Web, as people seem to feel it should be--and for free! Doesn't someone have to pay for the databases, etc.? And there are still a lot of materials that are only available in print version (historical books, etc.) so I don't think we can get rid of our library collections and find everything online.
In the Schultz article, she said "tagclouds offer diverse connections, not focussed expertise" and "people will still need experienced tour guides." Many things we find on the web are good, but a librarian can add value by making sense of what is found there.
Riemer talks about better bibliographic services. He mentions user participation in assigning keywords ("tagging"), which could make the catalog more user friendly. Often it's frustrating trying to figure out what subject heading to search for--tags are what people are becoming familiar with using on the Web so these might make catalog searches more user friendly. I thought his idea about mapping geographic names in subject headings to latitude and longitude coordinates was interesting. That way users could easily access materials for nearby places.
Thing #15
I browsed on SlideShare and there are so many powerpoint presentations available. If you attended a workshop and wanted to access the slide presentation from home, it would be great. However, most of the presentations I looked at were meaningless without a presenter explaining the slides. I'm not sure that it would be a good use of my time to just sit and browse on this site.
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