Thing 23 - Reflection

This was a great learning opportunity. While I was using some of the tools that were covered in the 23 Things many others were a new experience. I set up a Facebook account and was contacted by someone I hadn't spoken to in over 25 years which was quite a surprise. Hopefully, I can get more librarians in my library to work through a activity like this so that when a patron talks about Delicious they know that they are not talking about an apple.

Thing 22 - Developing your own 23 things

Staying aware of changing technology is not just a one time activity, but part of daily self-directed education. Just 10 years ago everyone thought that AOL was really great. How many people would say that today? In fact I just read and article on job searching and one comment in the article was that if your email was with AOL they viewed you as being out of touch with current technology. I am currently trying to get a 23 Things program started for the librarians. Unfortunately those that would most benefit are the most reluctant to embrace the opportunity.

Podcasts

I think that the time for podcasts has past. Video cameras are so cheap now (Flip Video cameras for under $100.00) and it is so easy to post videos that listening to people from a static screen seems very old tech. As I was exploring I also found numerous libraries with dead links to the podcasts. Many of the locations that I went too do not appear to be posting new podcasts.

You Tube

There are lots of great videos on YouTube. I actually came across a video about my library from 2007 featuring the prior manager, prior children's librarian, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JXPqNwSAc0



For a fun library video enter library, zombie, and allen county. The book at the end should be on the shelf in every library.

Google Docs

This is a very fun video from and article by Michael Stevens and his All Together Now 12 things activity. It is great to use in explaining how Google Docs can be useful.

Google Docs in Plain English

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/290000629.html

I have been using Google Docs for sometime and I find it very useful. I don't need to remember to drag along the flash drive so I can access a document. Okay the flash drive isn't very heavy, so it is not really a drag, but you do still need to remember to bring it along.

Wikis

I looked up Ning and LibraryThing in Wikipedia. The information was somewhat sketchy. I found that the founder of LibraryThing contributed to the discussion with suggestions for changes to the page for LibraryThing. The discussion page for Ning has a whole lot of people that in my opinon need to get a life, very long entries that go on and on.

Wikis for libraries are cool. We have used them for collaboration for something. We have just moved our library system rolodex of useful addresses and phone numbers to a wiki so that everyone can add new listing.

LibWorm

I was somewhat disappointed that the only result for my library system was from
2006. This for a library system with 5 libraries in a large city. The relevance of the some of the other search results was disappointing also. For example, I was looking for information or listing of programs for adults on social networking and the 27 results were very limited for the number of libraries that are out there.

LibraryThing

What a wonderful place to look for new titles. Also, for those of us that believe everyone should read all of great finds what better place is there to share our thoughts. I found it easy to post my title, add tags and share my thoughts.

Digg

You can really get sucked into Digg. For a sometime news junkie I found it hard not to keep clicking on the next article. I did find it rather irksome that many of the people had a difficult time posting a comment without using insulting language. I also tried posting a couple of articles but someone had beaten me to them. This would indicate to me that there are a lot of people posting all of the time.

Delicious

i think that Delicious is great. All of your bookmarked sites are available to you anywhere you have internet access. As are everyone elses.

Tagging

Tagging should have come after Delicious. Delicious is a great site to see tagging in action. You can tag your bookmarked sites to create your own personal organizational structure.

Twitter

I think that Twitter is fun between friends. It is a great way to let people know what is happening in your library, especially teens. But when Chase Bank wants to tweet me the glow has gone off of tweeting.

Instant messaging

I can see the benefits of instant messaging for reference by enabling patrons to have easy access.

Ning

That was quick and easy. I found an interest group with a quick search for north Texas gardening. The Clark Gardens in outside of Weatherford has a community. If you have never been to Clark Gardens you need to go in the spring when the irises, roses and daylillies are all in bloom. It is a great place to walk the rest of the year with all of the trees and water features.

Facebook part II

I think it is really important when getting into social sites to step slowly and see how comfortable you are when sharing. It is much easier to add friends later than to go back try to limit access to your page.

Facebook

Facebook is a great place for sharing pictures, videos and stuff going on in your life. But I do limit my sharing to those I know.

RSS feeds

RSS feeds are fun you can pull all of the information you love to read sent directly to one place. Then you have that "moment" when you realize, wow I really spend my day looking at all this stuff. Time to cut back!

Google Reader

My experience with blog readers is that is easy to keep adding blogs that you think are good but the quality doesn't hold up and eventually you realize that you are getting a lot of junk and random musings that aren't very interesting. So yes it is my fault for signing up for them and then not deleting the bad ones.

Images can be silly

Flickr mashup

I was a little challenged on how to get the spell image to the blog. I didn't think it could be as easy as taking the code and posting that and having the image appear. The fun of simplicity.

Flickr mashup

Post to Flickr

I found it very easy to upload pictures to Flickr and I already had a Yahoo account so it was even easier.

Learn about Learn 2.0

While the Stephen Abram comments are interesting they are also getting dated. Amazing how quickly things change. Instead of IM I think today he is probably Twittering.

John Blyberg cuts right to the point. Library 2.0 does require a mindset change. The challenge is to get librarians that see their retirement on the just over the horizon to learn a completely new set of skills and terminology. Do they want to stay relevant or do they want to just work out their days? This also applies to any age group that does not view being a librarian as being in a job that requires constant retraining. Being a librarian is way beyond Dewey today. It really is about change and leaving a comfort zone.

Web 2.0 is about collaboration, but there is also responsiblity that goes with that I am not sure is always practiced. We are putting ourselves in a position of trusting people we know and complete strangers with personal information and insight about our lives with postings to You Tube, Linkdin and other social sites.

Getting started

This should be fun it is always great to learn new things. How about 23 new things?