Week 10: #23 The end is the beginning!

Can it actually be true? I've survived the 10 weeks and all of the 23 things! I am so happy and proud of myself!!! It's been such an eventful journey. I've learned so much and have really enjoyed reading the other participants' blogs.

Flickr is probably my favorite thing. Shortly after learning about Flickr, I told a customer about it who wanted to share photos with a friend in another country. That felt so great! I also enjoyed the photo editing tools and image generators.

All of the other things have given me insight and showed me things I didn't know how to use before. Some of them I probably won't use again, but it certainly doesn't hurt to know about them. My eyes have been opened to blogs and RSS feeds. It's great to know about services like Library Thing, Library Elf, Del.icio.us, and online web applications. I'm more familiar with how wikis work, and I understand why social networking is all the rave.

This training will definitely help me on the job and at home. It has given me confidence to answer customers' questions, but more than that, I am no longer a stranger to the new technology. Rather than shy away from something unfamiliar, I am now more likely to jump in and try it because, heck, I might learn something!

Thanks to everyone who made this possible. The staff videos were great and very entertaining. I also commend those who sat down to read all of our blogs each week and for sending the bling to keep us motivated. Now I think I will reward myself with a week-long trip to Walt Disney World! Oh wait, that's been planned for several months. But nonetheless, I will celebrate being finished with this program and enjoy myself at the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH! Look out, Mickey, here we come!!!

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media

I took advantage of the training available at my branch last year for Overdrive, so I was already somewhat familiar with the downloadable digital services we offer at HCPL. Alas, I have not used it much myself, but my husband was very impressed when I told him he could download movies at no cost from the library's website. We tested it out, and although it takes quite a while to download a movie, if you're willing to wait, you can't beat the price!

For this exercise, I searched for and found an audio book that I've already requested through our system and am patiently waiting to receive. Well, what do you know? It's available on our e-branch too! It shows that only one copy is available, and it's currently checked out, but I am first on the waiting list. I entered my email address to be notified when it's available for me. Burning this title to a CD is allowed, so hopefully I will be able to take it with me on vacation in a few weeks!

Up to this point, the only real experience I've had with the library's downloadable media is when I occasionally help customers who have asked questions about it. I usually refer them to the digital help page, which provides them with the info they need. However, I know that if I use it more myself, I'll be better equipped to answer their questions. It's a great service and one that we should make sure our customers are aware of.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts

I've heard about podcasts more and more lately, but admit that I haven't made any use of them myself. That is, until now...

The assignment was for us to find a "library related podcast" and add it to our Bloglines account. The first thing I thought was "Uh-oh, what was my log-in and password for Bloglines?!" I hadn't used it since that exercise in week 4, but luckily I got in on the first try. I searched and searched for something semi-interesting. I would occasionally run into things that required a fee for downloading the podcast. Oops! That's not what I wanted. I eventually found a library related podcast on Yahoo, which I added to Bloglines. It's called Digital Campus: A biweekly discussion of how digital media and technology are affecting teaching, learning, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums. It's relevant to this exercise and seems like something I will listen to occasionally. I especially like how I can listen to it directly at Bloglines without needing to download software.

Week 9: #20 YouTube, etc.

I discovered YouTube a year or so ago when I wanted to see if I could find classic (1970's) Sesame Street clips. I grew up watching Sesame Street and wanted to show my daughter how cool, clever, and creative it used to be. (In my opinion, it went downhill in the 90's after Jim Henson died at the young age of 53.) I love Kermit the Frog and the other Muppets! Needless to say, I was ecstatic to find all of the videos I was looking for--and then some! You can find your favorite band's music videos from the days when MTV actually showed videos. YouTube is great for communication and sharing for fun. It also preserves and disseminates information, such as historical and political videos, for current and future generations.


Don Music writes "Twinkle Twinkle" (starring Kermit & Don Music):



Or go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Ugqh471IE

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps

Another online account? Why, I ask, WHY??? Okay, I created a Zoho Writer account for the sake of this exercise, but I probably won't use it again anytime soon. I like that Zoho offers many of the same features of Word, so I didn't have any trouble trying it out. It's a very versatile tool designed to be used with other web based applications, like blogs and wikis. It's easy to see the advantages of having an online word processor that allows portability of your documents without having to carry a floppy disc or a USB drive. So my initial skeptisim has turned to optimism. Zoho and other web-based applications are obviously around because they meet a need. I just wasn't aware of them before. Yippee! I've learned yet another piece of useful info!

Week 8: #18 Social Networking

I know lots and lots of people--friends, family, customers--who use social networking sites for various reasons, but I've not yet signed up for one and don't plan to anytime soon. I did take the Facebook tour to familiarize myself with how it works. It looks like a great way to connect with other people and keep them informed about things in your life. But honestly, I don't have time to devote to building up a site like that. If I ever did, I would probably use Yahoo since I already have an account.

Like everything in life, you have to be careful what you make available for others to see. I have not allowed my teenage daughter to create a MySpace account although some of her friends have them. If she wants to communicate with them, she can use the phone or email. Call me old fashioned. I consider it a compliment. :)

Week 7: #17 Technology

What a perfect week to blog about techology! As of this blog posting, Horizon has been down for three days. We apologize to our customers and assist them the best we can. In spite of it all, they have been really understanding. We can't help what we can't control. I feel really bad for the circulation staff who has cartloads of books to check in when the system comes back up. Technology affects each of us daily at home, work, and school. The majority of the time, it makes our lives easier. But when it fails, we suffer greatly because we have become so dependent on it. When the library's system crashed, I was reminiscing back to the days of card catalogs. I remember when computers first entered the library scene. I was reluctant to use them because I thought they would change everything traditional I had grown to love about libraries. I can admit now that it was change in the right direction. Even with the problems we've had over the past few days, I wouldn't want to go back to card catalogs. We must trust that the system will be up and running soon. In the meantime, we'll roll with the punches, laugh about it, make adjustments, serve our customers, and move on.

Week 7: #16 Wiki

I'm glad to say that this exercise was very easy. My daughter uses a wiki for one of her classes, so it is not entirely new to me. I was hesitant to enter my name and email address to log in because I thought we were allowed to be anonymous throughout the iHCPL training. After logging in, I placed my blog on the favorite blogs page. Wikis are great for groups of people who want to share information with each other or the public. They can serve specific purposes like the ALA 2007 Conference and my daughter's class. Or, like the St. Joseph Public Library did, a library can create a wiki for the public by categorizing books, links and other information by subject. Patrons find this kind of arrangement very user friendly.

Week 6: #15 Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

As the library constantly evolves to meet the needs of its patrons, library employees must be knowledgeable about the technology in order to assist them. Furthermore, the tools we provide to our customers must be designed with the user in mind. The five perspectives on Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 were very interesting. I found John J. Riemer's "To Better Bibliographic Services" especially relevant. Customers want a user-friendly catalog that gives them unambiguous results that match their searches; otherwise they will become frustrated and won't use them. They especially like being able to do things for themselves, like place their own holds and renew their items online. Allowing customers to leave feedback by posting comments or ratings is a way for them to share their experiences with other users. I recently discovered that Pasadena Public Library uses a ratings feature similar to Netflix:

http://halos.halan.lib.tx.us/screens/ratings.html


Can HCPL incorporate something like this into its catalog?

Week 6: #14 Technorati

I think my brain is feeling overloaded with all of the new technologies we've been introduced to these past several weeks. Technorati is a tool used to search blog posts. I got over 6,000 results when I typed in "Learning 2.0" into the keyword search--way too many! I was more pleased with my results for "ihcpl" in the basic search. I like how you can view posts, blogs, videos, and photos related to your results by clicking the corresponding tabs. I decided not to "claim" my blog because I don't want to create another online account. I can see how useful Technorati can be when searching for blogs with certain content.

Week 6: #13 Tagging and Del.icio.us

It's not hard to see the value of Del.icio.us. There have been times when I've used a computer away from home and wanted to look at a particular website, only to find myself thinking, "I have it bookmarked at home!" I am definitely going to set up an account.

With Del.icio.us, your bookmarked sites are mobile. How cool is that?! As mentioned in the Us.ef.ul beginners guide (which does give very useful tips to the novice user), it would be great for students doing research for the same reason. They can bookmark the sites they are using, and then use computers in different locations without losing their information. Of course, this service would benefit library patrons too, many of whom don't own their own computers. It's just another great service that I didn't know existed until now. Actually, I had heard of it before, but didn't know what it was or how it worked. I'm learning so much!!!

Week 5: #11 Library Elf

I attempted to get onto Library Elf this morning and was not able to. I was relieved to find out through the email we received that the problem was not my computer or my connection. Luckily, a coworker (who was a little bit ahead of me in the iHCPL program) showed me her Library Elf account a few days ago. It's really neat, so when the site is working again, I will definitely check it out and blog about it. It seems like a service that I would use.

Week 5: #11 Library Thing

I couldn't figure out how to get a nice little widget on my sidebar, so here is what I wound up with. I can see how LibraryThing would be useful to people who read a lot. I'm not sure that I will use this much after this exercise. It's yet another log-in and password to remember.

Avatar me!

Oh my gosh! I'm so cute as an avatar! This one was just for fun.

Week 5: #10 Image Generators

DW motivator poster
Originally uploaded by Tinkerbell's Flickr photos

There were so many to choose from, I used Flickr's Motivator for this exercise. It was so easy! I uploaded a photo from my computer, changed the color of the background, added the words, and wa-lah -- my poster was created! I was able to link the image to my Flickr account and then blog it from there. Now I'm going to go play with some of the other image generators.

Week 4: #9 Finding Feeds

So much information, so little time! I've never really experimented with feeds before these exercises. I guess this is supposed to help simplify our lives, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the "stuff" out there. I viewed the four feed finders suggested on the iHCPL training blog. I wasn't really sure what I should be looking at or looking for. My initial thoughts are these:

Feedster's website was colorful, but the posts on the homepage seemed dated (a week or more old), although it was supposed to be "new posts on popular topics." When I put in a word to search for feeds or blogs, I often got results that were completely unrelated or got no hits at all.

I liked that Topix was news-oriented, and the layout of the webpage was easy to navigate. When I input a search topic, I received relevant hits.

Syndic8 looked very confusing, but I wanted to see what it had to offer. It had a very busy looking homepage with some info that I could have lived without (10 newest users ?), so I ignored everything else and went straight for the "search for feeds" box. I got a lot of hits, and I liked that it had links to all of the different newsreader accounts, including Bloglines, so you can add a feed immediately.

Technorati is well laid out in an easy-to-navigate format with very current posts on the homepage. However, it was updating so rapidly, I almost had trouble keeping up! I got a lot of hits for the searches that I did, as well as related tags that really helped expand my searches.

I've learned a lot this week. It's easy to become overwhelmed with all of the different sources for obtaining information out there. Newsreaders like Bloglines keep our favorite feeds and blogs organized.

Week 4: #8 RSS & Newsfeeds

Ahh, yet another online account to keep up with. This was easy once I got the hang of it. I had the tutorial open in another window/tab so I could go step-by-step. Some of the feeds I added were news related (national and local), Houston's weather forecast, and a few iHCPL participants.

I can certainly see its usefulness. You don't have to go to each site throughout the day. Bloglines updates your feeds when something new has been added, so all you have to do is keep up with one site. However, I subscribed to iHCPL's blog and it was not updated with the Week 4: #9 assignment on Bloglines as of the time of my writing this post. It's on the main blog, but was not showing that a new post was available to view on Bloglines. Is there a lag-time?

Week 3: #7 Photo Editing Tools

TSRR cropped photo
Originally uploaded by Tinkerbell's Flickr photos

I took this at the Texas State Railroad in Rusk, Texas, on Thanksgiving weekend, 2006. The train and adjacent state parks (Rusk and Palestine) are no longer part of the Texas State Parks system, but the train is still operating. Spending the day riding the steam train is a fun way to experience living history. See the website for more info:

http://www.texasstaterr.com/

I uploaded this photo to Snipshot and cropped it. (There was a man--my husband--standing on the far right side, and now he's gone!) It's a very easy online photo editing tool to use! You can email your editied images or save them to your computer.

Week 3: #6 More Flickr Fun

I played with some of the mashups from the "Ten Best Flickr Mashups" article at http://www.webmonkey.com/06/08/index4a.html. I especially enjoyed Spell with Flickr (probably because I love Scrabble, and this site puts my words and phrases into neat little tiles). Thanks to my sweet hubby, I was able to get the above image onto my blog! I'm learning all kinds of new stuff!

Tagnautica was fun too. To test it out, I input words like Tinkerbell and Disney World, and got an array of tags that are arranged alphabetically in a circular pattern around the original word I put in. You can then click on one of the tags to be taken to a new set of words. If you click on the word in the center, you can view Flickr pictures in that cluster.

By experimenting with some of these, one can see how mashups are taking internet browsing to a different level.

Another Flickr Picture Test

Rio Frio
Originally uploaded by Tinkerbell's Flickr photos

I uploaded this photo to prove to myself that I've gotten the hang of it.

This was taken recently at Garner State Park. I love camping because I can get away from work and responsibilities and just RELAX!! Doesn't the Rio Frio look cool and inviting?

Week 3: #5 Discover Flickr

Tinkerbell
Originally uploaded by Tinkerbell's Flickr photos

OMG! I did it! I found this pic online, saved it, uploaded it to Flickr, then blogged the photo. Fun, but a lot of steps involved.

Thanks for your help, JL!!!

Week 2: # 4 Online Safety & Sharing

Finding time at work to view the tutorials and do the exercises is one of my biggest challenges. So I'm already a little bit behind. Ho hum...

I definitely think the Internet is awesome. I use it everyday to keep in touch with family in other cities, pay bills, buy stuff, view weather forecasts, to keep up with current events, and plan trips. But it can also be a very scary place where people you don't know will take advantage of you if you aren't careful. Always protect your personal information and don't click on or reply to any email that comes from a source you don't recognize. When in doubt, just delete it! I tend to be a very cautious and private person, so I have never met anyone online; however, I know people who have. You just can't be too careful these days.

Week 2: # 3 Learning Habits

I love to learn, but it can be such hard work! However, when I'm motivated, I will usually stick with it and see it through because I'm a hard-core goal-setter. I prefer to watch and observe before trying something myself. But as I practice a new skill, I gain confidence and then enjoy teaching it to others. That's one of the best things about working in the library. I am constantly learning new things that I can use to benefit our customers. It's so cool! I'm sure this program will present some challenges, but I will do my best to do my best!

Whoo! Up and running!

Okay, this is a test of my first blog ever! What fun! This will be a great opportunity to learn some new technology, which I generally shy away from. I'm a creature of habit, so it's easy for me to fall into a comfort zone. I'm looking forward to this experience. This will also be a great way to learn some things about my fellow HCPL family members. I've enjoyed reading may of your blogs already.