Thing #23

"And now the time has come...", wait a minute, it ain't over 'til it's over, and it ain't over yet!

Wow, what a ride, what frustration, what enlightenment, what techno savvy-ness and all-in-all what an education!! Thank you so much Howard County Library and Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0 for the opportunity to learn so much in such a short amount of time and to provide this program to assist in my lifelong learning.

Over the past few months, I found myself doing the lessons at home on Saturday mornings during my "quiet time for me" often spending way more time than 30 minutes on a Thing (sorry Jaye, it can't be done in 30 minutes, not with all the links!). I'm kinda' sad that I've finished the task and now won't have anything to do on Saturday mornings, but wait, there's a rumor in cyber-space that another program may be in our future. Well, count me in! (How about offering a free iPod to the finishers of the next program!?)

I really enjoyed learning the Things at my own pace and the podcasts were very helpful in explaining the topics in more detail. Some Things I really enjoy are RSS feeds and OverDrive and some Things that I probably won't use are online image generators and Technorati, but you never know. It's good to know that they are out there.

Thanks again for the opportunity to participate in the program, it still ain't over!!

Thing #22

I've been using OverDrive for quite some time now. I even have a movie on my home computer right now from OverDrive! so, I am pretty familiar with the process. I like to check out obscure things, usually movies, that I normally wouldn't check out of my regular library. It's never anything that I'm really looking for, just something that catches my eye, so, I check it out to see what it's about. I've come to think of OverDrive as my second hand library, because I find the oldest, wierdest things there, but I always enjoy them.

I downloaded an audio book to my MP3 player for the first time and I can see the title in my menu, but I can't get it to play. Can anyone out there help me with this? I will definitely use this feature more (transfer to a portable device) instead of just downloading items to my desktop computer.

Thing #21

I really couldn't find anything of interest to me on the Podcast sites. I did find something on Yahoo Podcasts, but after 20 minutes it still hadn't downloaded to my computer. Forget about it! So, I looked at the MERLIN podcast link and went for the first thing that struck my fancy. The blog about the Australian tv show "The Librarians" looked interesting. Hey, if the US (& England) can have a show called "The Office", I'm all for a show about librarians.

Too bad Yahoo Podcasts is closing after 10/31/07. I found it to be the easiest directory to navigate.

I created a feed for "It's all good" from the MERLIN blog site. A rather eclectic feed for libraries that I'm sure will have interesting info.

Thing #20

What can I say, YouTube is a lot of fun!! If you have some time to spare, this is the place to be. I'm usually very fascinated in what I find to watch, even if it's something very mundane. It's the sitting back and smelling the roses aspect of the videos that is appealing to me and they can also be very entertaining and educational.

I was a little bummed out that I didn't get to see my son's girlfriend do the Thriller dance at the University of Maryland 's halftime show this past weekend (darn you ABC for never showing the halftime shows), but not to worry, it showed up on YouTube! Thanks YouTube!! Enjoy the show, Happy Halloween and Go TERPS!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7VGKxnLgM

Thing #19

I looked at many of the award winning sites under various headings (i.e. fun stuff, health, classified and directory, city guides, music, professional networking, and lists & polls). Unfortunately, I didn't find anything that was either good or unique. (My AOL provides a lot of these services just as well as these sites.)

Under the Health category, I was hoping the PEERtrainer would help motivate me in my training, but it really didn't do what I wanted it to do. It could possibly be used by our Get Active group. The Medstory and Healia could possibly be used like our health databases, but I don't think that it really provides any information that our online health databases don't already furnish.

I was glad that our 23 Things had already been selected, since they really seem to be the cream of the crop. Great job Learning 2.0 team!

Thing #18

I explored Google Docs and created and published a spreasheet

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwEPOBggYNXxCCAxIHgXsMg

I loved the idea of being able to view your documents from any computer. This will help me to edit my spreadsheet no matter where I am, at work, at home, at an on-site interview, etc. This would also help me in scheduling interviewers and interviewees. I can let them know about the site and they can have a feed and then it's up to them to fill in the blanks or leave comments, etc. It would save me a lot of time in preparing the schedules. Yeah!

I also like the idea of the spreadsheets being automatically saved. That's another great time saver and headache eliminator!

The Google calendar looked intriguing, but then I became overwhelmed at all of the places that I have a calendar (i.e. hard copy at home, Palm, Desk Now). I'm not sure that I want to merge all of these into one place, and I definately don't want to take the time to do so. Being able to put a team's schedule and/or concert series on your calendar was neat. Google calendar definately looks cool, so I may come back to it at a later time.

Thing 16 & 17

I enjoyed learning about Wikis, and came to realize that they are only as good as the last person's entry. It's really for people who are team players and enjoy bouncing ideas off of each other and not for people that want to be in charge and have the final say. So, wikis would work for some things and not for others.

One way the library could use Wikis, is to put the book reviews that people write on their Summer Reading Game entries onto the library's catalog. I would find this to be very helpful in deciding whether this book is what I'm truly interested in reading.

I thought that it was interesting that some teachers don't allow their students to use Wikipedia as a source. It's all about facts and not opinions when it comes to research papers.

I went to SI's Wiki and edited the page per Jaye's instructions. One problem that I can see happening in the future with this page is that a long list of edits will appear and no indication of topics. (I.e. Where was Jaye's comment about ______?) It would be like the never ending email replies. You have to read through everything.

Thing 15

I boarded the library boat with Rick Anderson and had an enlightening journey. I loved his idea of the "just in case" collection. It reminded me of the jeans I keep in my closet "just in case" I lose those 5 pounds. Well, you know what? Get over it. It ain't happening! (At least I didn't purchase the jeans anticipating I would lose those 5 pounds. I guess my scenario is more of a weeding issue. I'll hold that thought for a future Thing!)

I couldn't help but have Lew's voice in my head as I read the Five Perspectives. He seems to be right on target with our Strong Foundations, Enduring Success. Thanks, Lew!

One point that I found fascinating was "..if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed - not our patrons." This really goes hand-in-hand with what do our patrons use already and how can we incorporate that into our library services.

Thing 14

Wow, what an experience this has been.....
I did not claim my blog, since I have privacy issues and I am so glad that I didn't because I didn't care for Technorati at all. I couldn't come up with anything relevant for "library accounting", unless you consider a Malaysian student stressing about her upcoming business exam, where you can find CFO jobs, or purchase Quicken relevant. I didn't. It seemed that no matter if I searched the blog posts, tags or blog directory, it was all worthless information to me.

Moving on to Exercise #2 - exploring Technorati top favorited blog, top searches and top blogs - what I learned is that there are scams out there, just like everywhere else. "Make money writing blogs". I hear you now, believe you later. As for top searches, I didn't see the advantage of their list over say AOL's. One disadvantage with Technorati's list, is that you shouldn't click on a foreign word that you don't know, unless you don't mind being brought to a porn sight. Seriously, I have to go take a shower and will not come back to this Thing again.

Thing #13

Del.icio.us can certainly be that when I use it to tag recipes to try, but for right now, I set up a travel itinerary. This will come in very handy as I plan for vacations. I certainly love being able to use numerous tags for a particular site. That was always my problem with bookmarks, too many categories and too few words to use. Thanks Del.icio.us! (And by the way, I hate the name and the spelling. Talk about typos. Yikes!)

Thing #12

At first I really wasn't getting the difference between Rollyo and a Feed Reader, but once I created one and did a search...WOW...was I amazed!! Talk about a time saver. I created one for genealogy and absolutely LOVE being able to search on multiply web sites at one time. I even found pedigree charts that I can help fill in. Won't there be happy customers out there in cyber-land?!

Select...los genealogy 101Search The Web

Thing #11

I can see how this Thing would be useful for book clubs and others that want to talk about books, but I'm not into that. I could possibly use it for my genealogy references. Currently, I keep a hand written log for my genealogy references and this Thing could be helpful for genealogists who share information with other family members or researchers.

Thing #10

I've been hearing so much about Pattie Boyd recently, that I've been wondering what it would be like to have someone famous write a song about me. Well, with the Bob Dylan Message Generator, I could wonder no more! But in the end, is it his song to me or my song to him?! Hmmm, I'll just ponder on that for a bit, while I reminisce about the very first concert I ever went to - Dylan at the Garden 1974 - can't get any better than that. Welcome to Columbia this weekend, Bob. Miss you.

Thing #9

Well, I've heard the term "merlin" mentioned so often at work, that I'm glad I finally know what it is! I subscribed to MERLIN and was happy to see Beth's entry on the site. (Thanks for representing, Beth!) I look forward to hearing from "behind the scenes staff" and more specifically from accounting personnel, to learn how their departments function/operate in a library setting.

I explored all of the search tools listed for this exercise and found Bloglines to be the easiest and most helpful for me. (I even subscribed to a few more feeds, but when do I find the time to go through them all!?) The Feedster and Topix results came up with way too many unrelated hits for my search. There's that darn Boolean searching for you. I'm not sure why blogs kept being pulled, even though I would limit my search to podcasts. I really don't want to read an average Joe's opinion on my topic. I discovered that I'm starting to get lazy with my feeds and enjoy the podcasts more than the print media. Is it quicker to go through? Possibly. I can turn away from the screen and continue to hear the news, so I can do something else (ie. iron clothes) while I go though the feeds. In that sense, I feel like I'm being more efficient with my time. Oh the life of a Type A.......

Thing #8

Thank goodness I attended one of Beth's RSS trainings before I did Thing #8. I felt a bit more comfortable tackling a topic that I had covered before.

What a great idea RSS feeds are!! I love the idea of the most recent information on a topic, website, blog, etc. coming to you. I would really like it if there was a pop-up or sound or something to alert you that a new feed is in your reader. (How about a different sound for each folder?) Talk about getting distracted when you're working online!

I have feeds for some of my co-workers blogs, which I know will save me time in the future. I like to check on how well everyone else is progressing, but many are still at Thing 4, so I won't waste time checking their blogs now.

Once again I had trouble setting-up an account (this time with Bloglines). It seemed to accept my AOL address, but it never sent me an email notification. Finally, after several attempts, I decided to use my Hotmail address and an email notification was quickly received. Go figure.

Thing 7

Doing Thing 5 and Thing 6 was very frustrating when I couldn't register for a Yahoo account. I don't understand why it said I had to register with Yahoo to be able to use Flickr, when actually I didn't. Ughh! After talking to Jaye about this, I now have a new mindset. So, let the training continue!

Thing 6

I created a trading card using a mashup, FD Toys' Trading Card Maker. At first, I entered the URL address of my Bighugelabs.com account on my blog, so that people could link to the card, but then I realized that it went straight to my account and not just the photo. Yikes! So then I just cut and pasted the photo to my computer and blog. Is there a one step process to adding these photos, etc. straight to my blog?

Thing 5

Found this photo of Columbia Winery on Flickr. I visited this winery in 2006 on my trip to Washington State and I was more impressed with their wines than with the wines from Chateau St. Michelle, which was literally right across the street from here. Oh well, and I was so looking forward to CSM.

I had trouble setting up my Flickr account or rather my Yahoo account. It wasn't accepting my zip code, so I never did register. Did anyone else have trouble setting up a Yahoo account?

Thing 3

The easiest Habit for me is #7 1/2 - Play! I love to play. I'm up for anything and enjoy trying new things. I strongly believe in the importance of being a lifelong learner. Since I am a curious individual with many interests, I thereby have many hobbies that make my life interesting and fun!

The hardest Habit for me is # 6 - Use technology to your advantage. I'm not the kind of person who keeps up with cutting edge technology. I don't have to be the first one on the block with the latest and greatest gadget (i.e. I don't even have a cell phone or cable TV yet.). Once something is tested and proven to be useful by others, then I may start to consider whether or not I need it. So, I will always be the middle or last person with the technology and have to play catch-up.