Thing # 22

I hate to say this (more negativity, watch out), but I still find our ebooks instructionpage difficult to understand. It's probably because I am an Apple user and I'm not able to practice at home. It seems like there are too many steps. We are getting special training soon so hopefully all will become clear. I don't feel able to give the customers the best service in this area. The music downloads seem cool.
The Gutenberg site is cool all over. I took off to their Sci-Fi list and from there to the Baen Free Library. To read a book online, just click on the title and there it is. It may not be worth reading, but it is easy to get to.

Thing # 21

I know, I'm being a really bad sport (my usual role), but I am up to the top of my ears in new accounts and I'm drawing the line at Yahoo! Podcasts. I listened to a few. Many of the book reviews didn't seem to want to play with the media player on the computer I was using. The library news "casts" were mostly boring or were going to take 40 mins. or more. I can see podcasts being very useful for communicating a lecture or other information to a wider audience than is able to physically attend. There is certainly a lot of fun stuff available via podcast. Keeping media noise out rather than subscribing to more would be my personal goal, but there's that bad sport attitude again. Send me a link for something that really hits the spot but please don't expect me to invite a regular supply of "casts" to flood my Bloglines account or my email.

Thing # 20

I set up ANOTHER account with YouTube so that I could post my current favorite Medieval Help Desk (with English subtitles), but I got caught in a loop on the YouTube site. You'll have to search for it yourself if you haven't seen it. It is very apropos for librarians, especially the technologically challenged. I also loved "March of the Librarians". The adjacent clip of a conversation with John and Misch (or thereabouts) was boring, but library related. It sounded like wanting to invent something like already exists in lii.
The important feature of my two faves is humor. Altho' humor can be tricky when used in public places since not everyone sees the same things as funny, I think it is important not to take ourselves (or the latest technology too seriously).

Thing # 19

You might think that for such an avid reader as myself that Library Thing would be a goldmine. You can see my minimal list at gualalagrandma/pointarena. Some of my choices are on the list of 100 or more people and a couple were listed by only 30. Does that matter? There was some discussion about one in particular but I didn't find the comments erudite or informative. I don't read the customer reviews much on Amazon either. Maybe I can spend more time with it at a later date. Since there are already so many books, so little time I don't know that I need any more ideas of what to read next.

Thing # 18

I created the following document in Zoho Writer. It was very easy to use and fairly easy to post to my blog as you will see. I would recommend this tool to anyone and might even use it myself, if I ever write a document again. I like it's look better than the word processing program that came with my iBook (don't tell Mr. Jobs).

Dear Mom,

You wouldn't believe what they are "making" us do at work these days. I think you left this earth at the right time. It seems like people have to cooperate all over the place. You can imagine how difficult that is for me to get behind. Squeezing words out of me is difficult enough without posting it on some site or other, with various possible means of comment or editing. Don't touch my stuff!

You probably haven't heard that cousin Jeff died a couple of weeks ago from a heart attack. He must have weighed about 500 pounds. Maybe he's where you are and you do know already. You can imagine how difficult this must be for your sister. It doesn't pay to live too long. Speaking of this your unfavorite-est son-in-law (I hope you've forgiven him by now) had a heart attack a couple of months ago. Fortunately his was a mild one and he got prompt, excellent care. He is back to his part-time job as a shuttle driver for the city of Frederick, MD. Chrissie is still looking for a suitable job, but she has interesting possibilities. I guess you don't have to worry about them yet. It must be nice to be in heaven where I assume one no longer has such earthbound worries.

I plan to bring an Easter lily to you and Dad. We'll be on our way to Santa Cruz for Easter dinner with D, J, et. al.

Love and kisses,

Lynne

Thing # 17

I added a favorite restaurant to the list, and I created an account. I don't think I got from one to the other without a break in communication so you probably won't be able to verify my presence there. You won't have missed anything important.

Thing # 16

I have drifted around a little in wiki world. I liked the idea of the community wiki that might yield the answer to the question, who is the best Toyota mechanic? Maybe we could do away with Bay Area Checkbook then. The user interface of the Rochester Community Guide is especially good, I thought. I also dropped into the libraryoutreach wiki and I found it difficult to navigate to the point of locating any actual content. One example I came up with in our system that might use a wiki is a Patriot Day community story site as long as it had an inviting and simple front end for the less tech-savvy customer.

Cooperative learning experiences seem to be the fashion in education so wikis are likely to feel comfortable for today's students and may even be the most efficient approach to team projects. I'm not sure when anyone knows when the project is actually complete.

I am a little uneasy about wikis to the extent that I am often not in a position to evaluate the accuracy or worth of an entry, but because it is there, I am tempted (just like our public) to accept it as verified fact.

Thing # 15

I read several of these articles and found them very interesting. In the "Away from the 'icebergs' " article I was intrigued by the argument against a "just in case" collection. I certainly see the author's point that it may not make sense to collect print in the traditional way given the drop in circulation rates (where?), but at our little branch we still have many students who are "have nots" who need print resources for school assignments and, of course, need it today. It will be our system's challenge to provide service in two different directions at once.

I also really like the federated searching concept presented in the article "Expose, expand, extend metadata using Web 2.0.

And then there was "a temporary place in time"-- all the Web 2.0 tools are going to be used by many and the library is going to have to figure out how best to position itself to offer the tour guides needed to navigate the diverse connections. We will be providing focussed expertise, tailored information, and "participatory relationships with customers". At the Steve Abrams workshop he gave the example of using IM with students who are too shy to approach staff in person but were able to open up online.

Thing # 14

In theory, Technorati seems like it could be really useful in locating information or contacts which/who have interests in common. Results for searching post, tags, and blog directory look very different. Looking at the popular blogs, searches and tags surprised me with the apparent uselessness of the results. Some of them seem to have been written by the same people who send those scam spams whose poor command of language make it obvious that the spam is a scam. Tagging looks like it should/could put one in touch with useful stuff as noted above, but if the blogger is creating her own tags, what's to prevent said blogger from using tags that will get hits but have nothing to do with content. I'm confused.

Thing # 13

It feels like I have been lost in a morass of words and links; however, I can see the usefulness to someone doing research. The tags provide what appears to be an infinite (but isn't) number of paths to related subjects, articles, people interested in the same subject, etc. Some of these paths are circular something like a maze. The multitude of connections reminds me a little of the good old days of catalog cards, subject tracings, and tracking references from known books or articles. With del.icio.us one can actually connect with the person or persons who wrote the article or blog or podcast or or or via the Web.

Thing # 12

I created a Rollyo called CleanerWorld. It is a very simple one limited primarily to news sites. I see the process of creating a truly thorough Rollyo as very time consuming. I didn't find many of the already created Rs all that tempting, but maybe I didn't spend enough time exploring them. It also seems as if it would need frequent updating if done properly. I would like to see a tool which would search the entire Web on a variety of subjects, according to one's interests, drop the info into a special email box prescreened for accuracy. I don't think it exists yet, but maybe it does. Maybe it is Thing #23. Eleven to go! but who's counting.

Thing #11

I looked at and spent some time with hipcal.com. I wish I had spent the time with blummy instead.
hipcal was acquired by Plaxo with the intention of strengthening Plaxo's calendar platform to "bringing lifestyle management tools such appointment management, iCal publication and subscription, and group calendars to Plaxo members". My life(style) is much too simple to need any of these tools. A PDA would take care of an online calendar and todo list. I can see the use in having a group calendar and address book in order to have shared contact information among a far-flung work group, for example. My simple needs can be met with a paper calendar and the occasional email to friends and colleagues.