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.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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
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
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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!
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.
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.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
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.
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.
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.
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