Good Reads

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

I did start up pages on Google and Yahoo. They were both pretty easy, but I prefer Google because it seems easier to use. I've starterd using the Google calendar for home use. There are tons of tools and widgets but so for the most useful has been the RSS feed/Gogle Reader. I already have the Outlook calendar, but that is my work email & calendar. Online calendars are useful for organizing work and personal schedules especially the reminder when it pops up on the monitor. For me the To Do Lists are more trouble than they are worth. I tried MapMyRun. It was hard to use for mapping a new route but it has a lot of pre-mapped routes for walking, running, biking, etc.

Created by OnePlusYou

Thing 13 Library Thing

This Thing could be very useful for smaller private or special libraries an large personal libraries. In a standard public library. you could set up reading lists of similar authors or subjects either for local school assignments or for patron reader's advisory using tags. Now it is done orally, through coppied lists or one of our databases. Library Thing offers an alternative for computer literate patrons. However for paatrons with poor computer skills or no readily available computer, the old ways still work. Our Library already has a page for local events, but it is seldom updated due to the lack of time from budget cuts and added responsibilities to all staff. My personal library is small due to my life long reliance on public libraries, so I have little need to organize it.

Thing 12, Wikis

I like the concept of having documents that can be edited by a group rather than using email which often leads to information being lost or side tracked in an email stream that is out of the main course. We use sveral Wikis at SJCPLS for committee work. They can be used to create and edit documents, to debate topics, or get feed back from the public if they are linked to to the web site and or catalog. I dont think limiting information by format is a good idea, but I also think that you should use more than one source for any information that is important to you, especially a research topic. I added to neflins23things pbwiki.

Thing 11 Social Media

I don't see much use for this as a tool for the public in the Library. There are way too many different interests to cover them all in a single Social media site. Within Library staff it could help employees keep up with recent stories concerning libraries. I see this more as a productivity detractor unless it is finely tuned to only bring up articles about topics specific to your job. I have read articles I have seen on these sites, but usually they weren't work related.

I created accounts on Mixxit and Digg. Mixxit allows you to fine tune your interests more easily with tags.

Thing 10

Delicious is a useful tool on many levels. It was simple to set up and seems to be easy to edit. At work I use at least three different computers and I have different Favorites lists on each. This tool will help me consolodate them so I can use them at any computer. I can see how this could be useful for research so you can keep a readily available list of resource you hav or may use. It also makes other researchers' sites avilable if they use Delicious, make them available & tag them appropriately. Even though our Library has a link on its home page to "Great Websites", by putting them in a Delicious account it could make them accessible to more people than just our patrons. It could introduce many more people to our web site and all it offers.

Thing 9

Well I finally finished Thing 9. Maybe things will move along faster from here. Personally there are several uses for these Things. Not the least of which is sharing photos with family and friends in unique ways. I already have a Flicr Badge, so I did a slide show in Smilebox & it was very easy. I would recommend it to others with the caveat that you can not save/use your slide show in a blog etc. without paying for it. The only other sharing tools I've used are Flickr and Google Documents.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Thing 8

So I read about Instant Messaging, watched the video and signed up for Google Talk. Then I read about Text Messaging, Web Conferencing, WeJunction, and the OPAL Archive. I even signed up for a Meebo and a Twitter account. I'm starting to lose track of all my sign ins and passwords and have to write them down-not very secure to have your passwords written down for someone to find.
It seems like simplifying my life this all just creates more stuff to read and do during the day. It's not making anything easier.
I can see where IMs can help with Reference. I've done my time with Ask-a-Librarian, but it only helps if that's all you are doing. If you have to answer phones, deal with patrons in person, and IM it will affect the quaility of the product you are putting out.

Heee's Baaack!

Sorry if you couldn't find my blog yesterday, but I somehow got caught up in Google's "Spaminator". It classified my blog as a spamming blog and removed it from Blogspot. I had to email them to check it out to make sure it wasn't a spam blog. The process worked and now I'm back.

Thing 7 addendum

Here is the site where I created my trading card. http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php It was listed on the flickr account page I used to create my Thing 7 post but it did not include the information in the post.

About Thing 7

I posted may last entry directly from my flickr account. Pretty cool, I didn't realize I could do that.

Thing 7: Online Image Generators

My creation, originally uploaded by Markus Family in Florida.

I've created a Trading Card that could be the first to a series that could be awarded for completing individual Things. The sunrise symbolizes the beginning of a journey to and through wonders and vistas available through Web 2.0. (Hey I know it sounds hokey but if you can’t wax poetic or spout B.S. on a blog what good is it  )

Thing 6

We'll that last entry didn't post like I thought it would so here's something else from thing 6. The states I've visited are in blue.

States I've Visited

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

I can see where thes tools could liven up a library's web page and draw people in to spend more time. This could help with programs an other events.

Thing 5

Dan hard at work, originally uploaded by Markus Family in Florida.

If this works you'll get to see a picture of me at work. I actually et up this account in December to get pictures to family so they could upload them to digital picture frames. There seemed to be a lot of steps to set this up and post it to my blog. Hopefully now that it is set up adding additional pictures will be easier. I can foresee using Flickr in the Library to help advertise programs.

Thing 4

This was a fairly easy Thing once I realized that the RSS feeds I subscribed only show up in my Google Reader account NOT on my blog (duh!). I'm signed up for all of the blogs I'm following plus some other sites of interest.
We'll see in a couple days if they are working.

Thing 3

I searched Technorati and Blogpulse with the terms Florida and Librarian. Unless you are already familiar with Boolean searches or go to the Advance Search page you will come up with many responses that don’t come close to finding what you want. With the Boolean/Advanced Search you still get many unrelated blogs. Technorati offers a simple way to filter your results. Blogpulse forces you to do all of your filtering on the advanced search page. Searching the phrase Florida Librarian resulted in two 2 item lists which were unique. Other searches I did resulted in similar results. I did discover that Technorati allows you to search by a specific language. In Technorati my name listed Zero results but in Blogpulse I got 29 results in a language I didn’t even recognize, my best guess is that is either a Eastern European or a Middle Eastern language.

In short if your searching blogs for information you need to be as specific as possible.

Can You Say Hyperbole

This tid bit also is from the Thing 3 readings on Technocrati

“Earlier this year I wrote on my blog [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/06/my-vision-for-s.html], ‘Honestly I am not envisioning anything other than this; every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet.’ That's where we are headed and blogging is a big part of that.”
Fred Wilson
Managing Partner
Union Square Ventures
www.avc.com/a_vc

I'm sure this will come true as soon as we can get iphones all of the starving, destitute and oppressed people in the world. Maybe we will be able to deliver them in our flying cars.

Scary Thought for the Day

From the readings on blogs from Techocrati comes this tid bit

“Although today's form of blogging is a volunatary form of self-expression, in the future our experiences, actions, locations, and preferecnes will be auto-recorded directly to the web.”
“The future of blogging will be an auto-synching of our lives directly to the web —often a quiet recording in the background”
Jeremiah Owyang
Senior Analyst, Social Computing
Forrester Research web-strategist.com/blog

I can't think of anything scarier than this view of the future.

Thing 2

I neglected to title my last post.

Thing 2 is a lot of heavy reading designed to explain why Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 are/will be great opportunities for libraries to maintain their stature and place in society. I agree that Libraries must understand and use every new technology to further their mission and importance in society.I do have an issue with the blog 11 reasons why Library 2.0 exists and matters. It states that "If we are going to play host to non-authoritative content (which it is when it comes from our patrons), then how do we designate that? L2 ushers in an era where this becomes something libraries need to do. There is a lot of fantastic non-authoritative data–we just need to get off our high horses and decide to make it available. The matter of how to mark it as non-authoritative is still pending, of course." There may be "fantastic non-authoritative data" but as I see it there is much more that is less than accurate and much less authoritative. Libraries have to vigilant about playing host to non-authoritative data because simply labeling it as such will not dissuade may people from treating it as FACT.

100% Bartram

100% of Bartram Trail's staff have established blogs for NEFLIN's 23 Things.
Way to go staff!

Registration

I just completed the 23 Things registration, but I don't know if it worked. My blog isn't listed at http://neflins23things.blogspot.com/

First Post

So far the Thing #1 isn't that hard. I got through registration with no apparent problems.