Monday, March 31, 2008

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Thing #23--I'm sorry we're at the end.

I have learned so many new things, and had fun while I was at it. I wasn't sure I would be able to fit in the time to do this, and there were some times I didn't. I didn't often have time to write very much on the blog--that was the hardest part. But what I gained doing the things was the point anyway. Learning to set up the blog itself was great, and how to add slide shows and videos will add greatly to the Library blog I plan to set up. While doing the Things, I added library elements that I can transfer very easily. I would definitely participate in another online course. As I said in another posting, the newsletters really added to the lessons, and it would be great to have a newsletter every once in awhile with new Things to do. My words of wisdom would be "Just try it!"
Mary Jane

Thing #22 Staying Current

I do hope to have a Library blog that will link to our "always outdated" web site. It is so much easier to keep up the blog, I'm finding out. At least I hope when I am working on other projects, that it will still be easy for me to do it. It would also be good to have links, such as the 23 Things blog has, to give our patrons an opportunity to try out new things. What Did I Learn Today? is my motto.

Thing #21 Other Social Network Sites

I guess there is some Thing for everyone. I could relate more to these--they were more "my age". I still don't have the need for everyone to know every thing about me--what music I like to listen to, what books I like to read. And I'm not all that interested in others interests, either. I do think that when I retire, I may like to join some of the library-related social network sources and keep up on what is going on in the ever-new library world. I liked Gather and Minnesota Readers and Minnesota Life. If I had time to, these are the ones I think I would join. I have and continue to use WebJunction. It isn't always updated as well as I would like. I was looking for some beginning computer users handouts, and the ones on WebJunction were pretty old. I set up a Ning account. I didn't have any trouble posting the badge or the widget, but it was nice to have the heads up, just in case.

Thing #20 Libraries & Social Networks/Newsletter 8

I'm so happy to be able to blog again. I've been forced to do too many everyday library tasks to continue the Things. I have been reading the Facebook articles off and on however and thinking about them. This is really a teen thing, for sure. Newsletter 8 came also during my hiatus (I love the newsletters, can you keep sending them, so I can keep trying out the new things?) . The newsletter brought me back again to YouTube, where I watched some of the Award winning videos. And I went to makeuseof.com--that's a keeper. Some of the library MySpace pages seems too pathetically trying to be hip. But I found a useful presence for some. I know the idea is to just to have kids be aware of libraries at a minimum. The Pew Internet study reinforced some of my own observations about the social networking sites. For instance that they are used for sharing artistic creations; girls blog more than boys; boys used the sites more for viewing videos and posting their own videos. In our library, I can see that when boys are communicating on these sites, it's usually with a girl, other wise they are playing games, or watching the videos. I also think that for the more technologically aware, e-mail is the new snail mail. I just hope that kids will wise up at some point and realize that what they post on the Internet IS world wide and possibly can be seen by many and may be used against them.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Thing #19 Podcasts

I added a couple of the RSS feeds of Podcasts on the list to my blog reader account. I'm not interested in doing podcasts, but for those who are, this is another of the many ways of expressing oneself.

Thing #18 YouTube

I didn't really want to spend the time looking for a video. But I did want to set it up and post to my blog, so I picked a video already posted on Thing 18. I am so glad for the instructions on how to create and add so many features to the blogs. I do plan to have a library blog when this is done. It is so much easier to maintain than a website. I'd rather just have a web page and a link to the blog. The learning experience on the 23 Things is just great!

Conan the Librarian

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Things #16 and #17 Report Calculator and ELM

I appreciate both of these Things. I would use the Research Project calculator and I would recommend it to students. I didn't spend too much time on the ELM productivity tools, because I use them regularly and have participated in holding a workshop on using some of them. They are wonderful tools. There is access to so many areas through them. Another good tool for librarians is the Minitex reference librarians. They are very helpful when we seem to be stuck on a question.

Thing #15 Libraries and Games

This is not my Thing, for sure. I have enough trouble keeping track of my real life, much less a virtual life or two. On the other hand, maybe I could be on a virtual beach right now, reading a virtual book. Say, maybe I'd better think more about this. However, I know it is a popular thing to do, and I did do the Pirate game for awhile. I guess libraries can put in a presence here, also, as some are doing. I had a preconcieved idea of this before I read the Thing topics, so I'm not as judgemental as I was.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Newsletter #5

The newsletters are very informative and fun to read. They really reinforce the Things. I went back a few Things and created a trading card, but it didn't fit in my blog very well, so I went back and created a puzzle from the picture I had selected. I read again about the collaborative sites and though I still haven't added to the Wiki, I may do that yet.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Thing 14 Library Thing

I seem to like anything with Library in the title, and this was fun to read about and try out. I just can't imagine who thinks up these things. It could very well be the next step in library cataloging.

Thing 13 Productivity

I haven't been very productive while I've been trying out all of the gadets and widgets and productivity tools. But I have a really spiffy Google page and with the calendar, I should be able to keep track of everything. I looked at Backpack and some of the other online tools, but I wasn't interested enough to download them now. Dreaminder is offline at the moment, but I may take a look at that one when it's back. I downloaded CutePDF, which may be helpful. There were quite a few interesting ideas on this Thing.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Thing 12

This Thing took a lot of time to read through all of the social media sites. I wasn't too impressed by them, except that if you really want people to know your opinion about everything, these would be right up there on your list. Newsvine was interesting to me, because I do read a lot of news. I'm not that interested in knowing how many people are reading the same things I am, though. I'm not sure how useful they would be in a library setting. Someone else will have to tell me how that would be beneficial. I think they would most lead people to read fluffy stuff--"news of the weird" type of stuff. I'm not inclined to take my time to read that.

News #4 Slide Show

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Keeping Up Issue 4

I have tried the Meeting Wizard, which is really great. I'll probably try the other versions of this also. The other potential meeting participants, also library directors, thought it was cool, too. Unfortunately, we still can't come up with a day for a meeting to which everyone of us can attend. I wish there was a wizard for that

2008 Art Show