I think I'm in an organizational mood this week. I chose Backpack to explore.
I was impressed with its simplicity. It looks like it's designed to work like a spiral-bound notebook, only more organized. You can add pictures, links, documents, and check-off lists to a single page. There's a fantastic looking calendar there as well, but you have to be a paying member to utilize it.
Backpack is a great example of a 2.0 tool that probably wouldn't work well for us. The calendar is shareable. But so are our Outlook calendars. The pages are sharable, but we have our wiki and our server. But for personal use, or for work projects one wouldn't need to share with others, this would be a great way to keep organized. And it's something we can recommend to our patrons who want to keep track of their reading but don't like the social aspects of LibraryThing.
I was pretty psyched to see Pandora on there! Again, this is probably not a very good example of library-related 2.0 tools, but it's one that I've used for a couple years after our legendary Sam strong armed me into trying it. (I'm gonna get an F on this assignment!) It's like readers' advisory for music. You type in your favorite song. Or your favorite artist. And Pandora will create a playlist for you based on hundreds of different musical attributes. You listen as you work or play on your computer. If you like a song, give it a thumbs up. If you don't, thumbs down, and Pandora uses that input to further tailor your playlist. I have found so many great bands and performers this way - and it's so much more refreshing than traditional radio! No ads, minimal repeats, no managers or publicists in station pockets, no annoying DJs (unless you're annoyed with yourself.) Most definitely recommended.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thing #19
I admit it. I have a Myspace. I resisted for years. I mocked it. I rolled my eyes. But when it came right down to it, when I needed a promotion tool, where did I go? Yeah, that's right. Hypocrite Mel.
I haven't done much in the way of spamming other's spaces to get friends. Most of my Myspace friends are my buds in real life. But there's a patron or two, some authors I really like and want to keep up with, and a couple of strangers. I'll do more with it someday. :-)
So, I went exploring. The first place I went was bookspoke. I read a little bit about it and discovered on their "if you're a writer" page, that they're also a vanity publisher. That made me think twice about joining because, chances are, their social networking site is a way to snare unpublished writers into using their services. Better to use Shelfari or LibraryThing.
I thought it was pretty spiffy that there were age-appropriate SN sites out there. I kind of wished for a thirty-something one. (Okay, I know I'm not quite there yet, but give me a few months!) Stereotypical teenagers got on my nerves back when I was one, and it's just gotten worse over the years. And so has the spelling. Gather has a more mature writing base, but a lot of people on there only post for points which can be redeemed for gift certificates and that can be just as annoying.
Facebook was interesting, but I don't know if it's really for me. I found a few high school classmates and lots of people who were at ISU when I was there who I didn't know. Facebook seemed a little cold to me, but it was refreshing not to have a bunch of ads shoved at me.
I thought it was interesting how many of the friends and comments on the library Myspace profiles came from published writers, intending, I suppose, to reach library patrons and readers through the library.
Surprisingly, I have a bit of a pessimistic streak when it comes to libraries and Myspace. I'm not too confident that we'll reach the army of teens using our computer lab to check their profiles. We have to hit a certain level of cool. Or, in other words, we have to be serving them adequately already for them to want to add us and keep track of us. I think we can do this other ways. Who I think we will reach are the non-teen Myspacers as well as local writers seeking to promote themselves to our patrons. Folks who already use us and love us. And that's something valuable. We can blog. We can post schedule changes and program announcements in bulletins. We can announce new releases and, maybe, link to ibistro.
I haven't done much in the way of spamming other's spaces to get friends. Most of my Myspace friends are my buds in real life. But there's a patron or two, some authors I really like and want to keep up with, and a couple of strangers. I'll do more with it someday. :-)
So, I went exploring. The first place I went was bookspoke. I read a little bit about it and discovered on their "if you're a writer" page, that they're also a vanity publisher. That made me think twice about joining because, chances are, their social networking site is a way to snare unpublished writers into using their services. Better to use Shelfari or LibraryThing.
I thought it was pretty spiffy that there were age-appropriate SN sites out there. I kind of wished for a thirty-something one. (Okay, I know I'm not quite there yet, but give me a few months!) Stereotypical teenagers got on my nerves back when I was one, and it's just gotten worse over the years. And so has the spelling. Gather has a more mature writing base, but a lot of people on there only post for points which can be redeemed for gift certificates and that can be just as annoying.
Facebook was interesting, but I don't know if it's really for me. I found a few high school classmates and lots of people who were at ISU when I was there who I didn't know. Facebook seemed a little cold to me, but it was refreshing not to have a bunch of ads shoved at me.
I thought it was interesting how many of the friends and comments on the library Myspace profiles came from published writers, intending, I suppose, to reach library patrons and readers through the library.
Surprisingly, I have a bit of a pessimistic streak when it comes to libraries and Myspace. I'm not too confident that we'll reach the army of teens using our computer lab to check their profiles. We have to hit a certain level of cool. Or, in other words, we have to be serving them adequately already for them to want to add us and keep track of us. I think we can do this other ways. Who I think we will reach are the non-teen Myspacers as well as local writers seeking to promote themselves to our patrons. Folks who already use us and love us. And that's something valuable. We can blog. We can post schedule changes and program announcements in bulletins. We can announce new releases and, maybe, link to ibistro.
Thing #18
Since we started L2.0, nothing has sent me into the throes of technolust faster than Zoho. When I'm at home, on my computer, I have at least five programs open at all times. Minimum. When I'm working on a book, I keep track of notes in multiple word documents and I can never locate the tidbits I need when I need them (and I'm SO not paying upward of a hundred bucks for notetaking/organizational program for writers). There's even a Zoho wiki option so you can have your own private one, or share one. I'm most excited about the Zoho Notebook. I can have separate books for separate projects or subjects and I can see them all at once in the "my books" list. No more little word documents to keep track of. And I can move pages around, shift text from page to page until the notes are in the order I want them. Shoot, I could probably outline novels this way, a page a scene.
I don't know that I'd use Zoho writer for writing the actual manuscripts, though. Although I love the idea of backing up my work online, I don't fully understand the privacy issues involved yet. One of the main concepts of online productivity is document sharing. And I don't know that I'd want to share my crappy rough drafts with people. It doesn't seem like a blog or wiki where everything you post is public. But yet, other than Zoho Wikis, I didn't see sharing options. I'll have to play around with it a little more before I'm confident enough to switch entirely.
I don't know that I'd use Zoho writer for writing the actual manuscripts, though. Although I love the idea of backing up my work online, I don't fully understand the privacy issues involved yet. One of the main concepts of online productivity is document sharing. And I don't know that I'd want to share my crappy rough drafts with people. It doesn't seem like a blog or wiki where everything you post is public. But yet, other than Zoho Wikis, I didn't see sharing options. I'll have to play around with it a little more before I'm confident enough to switch entirely.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thing # 17
I like our wiki! Adding to it was a lot easier than I expected it would be, so I sort of went nuts and added the whole Money section to the circulation manual. It kind of gave me a giggle when PBwiki asked if I wanted it to clean up the Microsoft Word text. Because I'm a big geek that way.
I tried searching for "claims return" just to see what I'd get. My only result was the missing/damaged/lost outline. I then searched for a more general term. One that I knew was in there at least once. "Money." I got 8 results ranging from the text in the two of the check in sections, and the rest from the money sections.
I think this'll be a great way to put all of the stuff that we have scattered across the server and put it one place for everyone's reference. I know I have things that I use every day that occasionally comes in handy for someone else on staff, but most people are too considerate to go spelunking in my folder. For example, the Smyrna Gift slips we use for donations we want to catalog. Or the materials from the readers' advisory for paraprofessionals presentation I gave a few years ago. I would love to stick that on there for people to add to!
Oh, I did notice that it doesn't log you out when you close the browser. So I'll have to remember to log out beforehand.
I have a feeling, though, that the only way for us to get the staff members who aren't participating in 2.0 because they're uncomfortable with technology to use the wiki is to make the information contained in it only accessible through the wiki and nowhere else. If it's in paper form in their work area, those folks are going to use that instead, potentially using an outdated policy or form. Although, I hope they prove me wrong! We'll definitely be working on it at Smyrna! :-)
Again, I would love to see a book talk resource, and I think a wiki would work just as well as a blog would, if not better. It would be searchable, could be split up into genres and subjects, and more than one person could post their thoughts and ideas instead of being stuck with one opinion from one person in a review of a book.
I tried searching for "claims return" just to see what I'd get. My only result was the missing/damaged/lost outline. I then searched for a more general term. One that I knew was in there at least once. "Money." I got 8 results ranging from the text in the two of the check in sections, and the rest from the money sections.
I think this'll be a great way to put all of the stuff that we have scattered across the server and put it one place for everyone's reference. I know I have things that I use every day that occasionally comes in handy for someone else on staff, but most people are too considerate to go spelunking in my folder. For example, the Smyrna Gift slips we use for donations we want to catalog. Or the materials from the readers' advisory for paraprofessionals presentation I gave a few years ago. I would love to stick that on there for people to add to!
Oh, I did notice that it doesn't log you out when you close the browser. So I'll have to remember to log out beforehand.
I have a feeling, though, that the only way for us to get the staff members who aren't participating in 2.0 because they're uncomfortable with technology to use the wiki is to make the information contained in it only accessible through the wiki and nowhere else. If it's in paper form in their work area, those folks are going to use that instead, potentially using an outdated policy or form. Although, I hope they prove me wrong! We'll definitely be working on it at Smyrna! :-)
Again, I would love to see a book talk resource, and I think a wiki would work just as well as a blog would, if not better. It would be searchable, could be split up into genres and subjects, and more than one person could post their thoughts and ideas instead of being stuck with one opinion from one person in a review of a book.
Surprise!
They pimped my book cart! Or work cart. Just, you know, don't look at the stuff on top of the cart. I'm a little behind. *grin*
The shiny things on either side are chocolates, which we distributed and consumed after lunch yesterday. I really do have the best co-workers on the planet. Actually, they're less like co-workers and more family, with cheers, squabbles, and everything in between. I love you guys!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Thing # 16
Before this Thing, I had a fuzzy idea of what wikis were, but I didn't really stop to think about their applications aside from wikipedia. They always seemed too social for my personal use. Although, I'm pondering them in relation to my writing. Having a book talk wiki might be a fun promotion tool for an author. Or a writer who's trying to build name recognition pre-publication. And I don't think it's been done yet. At least not by a writer. Huh.
Oh, sorry. Tangent.
Library wikis! As far as I can see, there are two basic library wiki types. The internal staff-based one, and the external patron and staff-based one. From the examples I've seen, in the discovery resources and as well as the TLA staff development workshops at Brentwood, both types can be extremely useful in communication and resource management. I think my favorite was the subject guide wiki. Boiled down, it's like putting the book displays online for folks to access all the time, with card catalog information build right in. There were even librarian approved informational links on the same page with the books, combining print and Internet resources! *mops up drool* And when I went to the SJCPL website from the wiki, I discovered that they have a library video game club. With a blog. *sidelong glance at Al* Double Dash tournaments? DDR? I could see luring in the underserved YA population with video games, and staff could use their own equipment. The library wouldn't have to buy anything. Must file that idea for later.
Most of the wikis I found were fantastic. There were a couple, though, that I found to be lacking in cohesion. At least for my little pea brain. The Library Outreach Wiki, for example, seemed like an organized hodgepodge of things, sometimes in outline form, sometimes written out. All wikis are a work in progress, but the LOW seemed like it didn't really have a nucleus.
Because of the SJCPL subject guide wiki, I can really see how this little toy could help with readers' advisory. (Oh, come on, you knew it was coming!) I really liked the idea of the Book Lovers Wiki, but I would love to see the concept move away from reviews and more toward a conversation. I don't know if a wiki or a blog would be a better tool for that. But I'll bet we could integrate a book review wiki section to help manage our winter reading program. Just a thought. :-)
Oh, sorry. Tangent.
Library wikis! As far as I can see, there are two basic library wiki types. The internal staff-based one, and the external patron and staff-based one. From the examples I've seen, in the discovery resources and as well as the TLA staff development workshops at Brentwood, both types can be extremely useful in communication and resource management. I think my favorite was the subject guide wiki. Boiled down, it's like putting the book displays online for folks to access all the time, with card catalog information build right in. There were even librarian approved informational links on the same page with the books, combining print and Internet resources! *mops up drool* And when I went to the SJCPL website from the wiki, I discovered that they have a library video game club. With a blog. *sidelong glance at Al* Double Dash tournaments? DDR? I could see luring in the underserved YA population with video games, and staff could use their own equipment. The library wouldn't have to buy anything. Must file that idea for later.
Most of the wikis I found were fantastic. There were a couple, though, that I found to be lacking in cohesion. At least for my little pea brain. The Library Outreach Wiki, for example, seemed like an organized hodgepodge of things, sometimes in outline form, sometimes written out. All wikis are a work in progress, but the LOW seemed like it didn't really have a nucleus.
Because of the SJCPL subject guide wiki, I can really see how this little toy could help with readers' advisory. (Oh, come on, you knew it was coming!) I really liked the idea of the Book Lovers Wiki, but I would love to see the concept move away from reviews and more toward a conversation. I don't know if a wiki or a blog would be a better tool for that. But I'll bet we could integrate a book review wiki section to help manage our winter reading program. Just a thought. :-)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Thing #15
I grew up in a family who took the idea of "one day at a time" and turned it into a fine art, so it's always been difficult for me to look too far into the future. It's strange, then, that Dr. Schultz's article "To a Temporary Place in Time..." was the one article out of our discovery resources that caught my attention. Or, more accurately, my imagination.
Web 2.0. Library 2.0. These things aren't our future. These things are our present. Our patrons are already blogging, social networking, YouTubing, playing with pictures and Wikis, tagging and collaborating. Participating. Active. To reach them and keep them, we're going to have to learn this. We're going to have to be out there, participating with them.
Library 2.0 may be the newest way to provide services to our patrons, but it's also a fantastic way to communicate with them. We circulation clerks get to meet, greet, and serve everyone who comes into the building. What an opportunity to use our skills and personal knowledge bases! Unfortunately, we're limited by the building. We ONLY get to meet, greet, and serve the folks who come into the building. Using library 2.0 tools and philosophies, we can reach a wider range of people. We can use our skills, the same ones we use at the desk, to serve cardholders who only occasionally visit, who can't always attend programming when we can offer it (Story time video feeds! Online book discussion groups!), and to introduce non-users to our services and staff, and entice them to utilize the library. We'd be at the desk, but we'd be free from the desk as well. Out in the community. I see this as essential for a library with a small staff who might not always be able to do this in person.
I think I've wandered away from my original paragraph, but as a 2.0 user who has been frustrated by the limits of her location in relation to how she performs her job, I feel that it's important for us to realize that 2.0 is here, right now. The society we serve is in the midst of it, and if we don't learn how to use these tools, we'll fall behind. If we can't engage members of our community in this way, we'll loose them. That idea saddens me because, if we do lose them, they'll never get to experience the post-2.0 possibilites that Dr. Schultz outlined in her essay. The 3D library. Librarians as user evaluated content providers. The library as an information spa - an elegant respite for the patrons in which they can escape the daily grind and relax. These are exciting possibilities! But for us to get there, we have to take the 2.0 step. Even if we have to do it one day at a time.
Web 2.0. Library 2.0. These things aren't our future. These things are our present. Our patrons are already blogging, social networking, YouTubing, playing with pictures and Wikis, tagging and collaborating. Participating. Active. To reach them and keep them, we're going to have to learn this. We're going to have to be out there, participating with them.
Library 2.0 may be the newest way to provide services to our patrons, but it's also a fantastic way to communicate with them. We circulation clerks get to meet, greet, and serve everyone who comes into the building. What an opportunity to use our skills and personal knowledge bases! Unfortunately, we're limited by the building. We ONLY get to meet, greet, and serve the folks who come into the building. Using library 2.0 tools and philosophies, we can reach a wider range of people. We can use our skills, the same ones we use at the desk, to serve cardholders who only occasionally visit, who can't always attend programming when we can offer it (Story time video feeds! Online book discussion groups!), and to introduce non-users to our services and staff, and entice them to utilize the library. We'd be at the desk, but we'd be free from the desk as well. Out in the community. I see this as essential for a library with a small staff who might not always be able to do this in person.
I think I've wandered away from my original paragraph, but as a 2.0 user who has been frustrated by the limits of her location in relation to how she performs her job, I feel that it's important for us to realize that 2.0 is here, right now. The society we serve is in the midst of it, and if we don't learn how to use these tools, we'll fall behind. If we can't engage members of our community in this way, we'll loose them. That idea saddens me because, if we do lose them, they'll never get to experience the post-2.0 possibilites that Dr. Schultz outlined in her essay. The 3D library. Librarians as user evaluated content providers. The library as an information spa - an elegant respite for the patrons in which they can escape the daily grind and relax. These are exciting possibilities! But for us to get there, we have to take the 2.0 step. Even if we have to do it one day at a time.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thing #14
I hadn't heard the statistic about the number of blogs doubling every 6 months! It makes me wonder how many actually endure. A lot of folks who use the service where I have my personal blog will write for a couple of months, enjoy the novelty, and then let them lapse. Some folks have more than one blog for different things like my buddy L. She has a personal blog, a writing blog, and a research blog. That would be an interesting study!
I consider myself a fairly internet savvy person. Not an expert by any means, but not a newbie either. Technorati overwhelms me. I think it's the sheer amount of stuff: search options, live updated blog feeds, user ratings, authority, tags, recommended search terms, popular blogs...and it's all right there smooshed into the main page, hitting me in the face all at once. I think I've gotten used to the simplicity of google. Logo followed by search box. Technorati is something I'm going to have to play with more, after completing this exercise, to truly feel comfortable with it.
When I did my "learning 2.0" search in posts, I got just that. Individual posts that mention learning 2.0 in the text, some of them on blogs like ours - individuals going through a learning 2.0 course (although, some only mentioned it in passing in an otherwise unrelated post). It was interesting to see how similar and different other L2.0 courses are from ours.
Searching in tags got similar results as the "posts" search, but the entries had been tagged with learning 2.0, so the results were a little bit more consistent.
Searching the directory got blogs dedicated to the subject of learning 2.0. Our lpls blog was #10 on the list!
There wasn't one blog on the "Top Favorited Blogs" list that I regularly read. Taking the list as a whole, it was easy to see the type of person who regularly uses Technorati. There was a disproportionate amount of tech, gadget, and hacker blogs. My favorite title had to be Kahlee's Blog: Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard. And I shouldn't have been surprised that there's a whole site dedicated to lolcat humor called icanhascheezburger.
I found it interesting that some of the most popular searches included Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, and I wonder if "searches" referred to the amount of content provided by these sites during other searches, searches for these sites (which seems kind of silly to me because one normally goes to google or yahoo to search for things), or a combination of elements.
I would consider this the least pleasurable Thing we've done so far. It seems a little too complicated for my every day needs, although it's good to know about Technorati if I need to do a more specialized search.
I consider myself a fairly internet savvy person. Not an expert by any means, but not a newbie either. Technorati overwhelms me. I think it's the sheer amount of stuff: search options, live updated blog feeds, user ratings, authority, tags, recommended search terms, popular blogs...and it's all right there smooshed into the main page, hitting me in the face all at once. I think I've gotten used to the simplicity of google. Logo followed by search box. Technorati is something I'm going to have to play with more, after completing this exercise, to truly feel comfortable with it.
When I did my "learning 2.0" search in posts, I got just that. Individual posts that mention learning 2.0 in the text, some of them on blogs like ours - individuals going through a learning 2.0 course (although, some only mentioned it in passing in an otherwise unrelated post). It was interesting to see how similar and different other L2.0 courses are from ours.
Searching in tags got similar results as the "posts" search, but the entries had been tagged with learning 2.0, so the results were a little bit more consistent.
Searching the directory got blogs dedicated to the subject of learning 2.0. Our lpls blog was #10 on the list!
There wasn't one blog on the "Top Favorited Blogs" list that I regularly read. Taking the list as a whole, it was easy to see the type of person who regularly uses Technorati. There was a disproportionate amount of tech, gadget, and hacker blogs. My favorite title had to be Kahlee's Blog: Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard. And I shouldn't have been surprised that there's a whole site dedicated to lolcat humor called icanhascheezburger.
I found it interesting that some of the most popular searches included Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, and I wonder if "searches" referred to the amount of content provided by these sites during other searches, searches for these sites (which seems kind of silly to me because one normally goes to google or yahoo to search for things), or a combination of elements.
I would consider this the least pleasurable Thing we've done so far. It seems a little too complicated for my every day needs, although it's good to know about Technorati if I need to do a more specialized search.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thing #13
Delicious is a really interesting tool! I'd used Yahoo's bookmarking tool before, but it didn't have the tagging capability the way delicious does. Although you could separate them into categories, which was nice.
I did a little tag browsing. One of the most helpful ones to me was the imaging tag. I found all sorts of free stock photo sites. When I put up my personal web page for the contest, I threw it together with string and duct tape. Well, okay, wingdings and Paint. But still. I want to make it fancy schmancy but in a cheapo way. Some of the free photo sites are better than others, but I think I might be able to find something to play with.
I did find that a lot of the more general tags, like "books" "reading" "writing" were a little bit difficult to navigate. Books, for example, got me Amazon.com, a blog called "What Claudia Wore" and everything in between. Really, that's the main limitation I saw.
As far as on the job use, social bookmarking could be a really good way to keep all of the websites that our patrons use on a regular basis all in one place. Take the big mythology project: in Smyrna we have two different schools with lots of kids doing Greek mythology projects simultaneously. If the teachers let us know in advance we can have some reputable sites picked out and ready to go in addition to our print materials like pantheon.org.
Being the readers' advisory nut that I am, I always look for a way to incorporate the latest tools into it. We can use social bookmarking to put all of our R.A. resources in one place, systemwide, for the whole staff to use. Fantastic Fiction, AquaBrowser, Amazon, Library Thing, ETC. This way, too, if someone at a branch finds something nifty, they can bookmark it for the rest of us.
Normally I do the Discover More exercises for the 2.0 lessons. And I'll do this one eventually. But, although it is an extremely useful practice, I find tagging to be completely tedious and tend to put it off.
I did a little tag browsing. One of the most helpful ones to me was the imaging tag. I found all sorts of free stock photo sites. When I put up my personal web page for the contest, I threw it together with string and duct tape. Well, okay, wingdings and Paint. But still. I want to make it fancy schmancy but in a cheapo way. Some of the free photo sites are better than others, but I think I might be able to find something to play with.
I did find that a lot of the more general tags, like "books" "reading" "writing" were a little bit difficult to navigate. Books, for example, got me Amazon.com, a blog called "What Claudia Wore" and everything in between. Really, that's the main limitation I saw.
As far as on the job use, social bookmarking could be a really good way to keep all of the websites that our patrons use on a regular basis all in one place. Take the big mythology project: in Smyrna we have two different schools with lots of kids doing Greek mythology projects simultaneously. If the teachers let us know in advance we can have some reputable sites picked out and ready to go in addition to our print materials like pantheon.org.
Being the readers' advisory nut that I am, I always look for a way to incorporate the latest tools into it. We can use social bookmarking to put all of our R.A. resources in one place, systemwide, for the whole staff to use. Fantastic Fiction, AquaBrowser, Amazon, Library Thing, ETC. This way, too, if someone at a branch finds something nifty, they can bookmark it for the rest of us.
Normally I do the Discover More exercises for the 2.0 lessons. And I'll do this one eventually. But, although it is an extremely useful practice, I find tagging to be completely tedious and tend to put it off.
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