My Space (DCPL)

The DCPL My Space page is invigorating! The colors are vibrant but not overpowering. I read the blogs and learned a few interesting facts. The presentation was very informative and well done. This would be a great venue for "new lists." People are always asking for a list of new videos or new books this would be a good place to make these lists available and to publicize reading programs or upcoming events as Leslie has done with "Up River" and "Voices of Elmwood." Thanks for the good work My Space minions.

Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I checked out several podcast directories. The NPR podcast directory lists podcasts by topic or you can search by title or provider. There are 50 public radio stations partnering with NPR to provide podcasting.

I added a subscription to Google Reader for Cover to Cover, it is a National Public Radio book podcast featuring authors across the South. The authors "answer listener calls, respond to comment, give insight on their works and advise aspiring writers." It would be great to hear one of the Mossy Creek authors!

I read several of the beginning podcast instructions and even found an instructional video on You Tube. At some point I would like to try to create a podcast.

Technorati

Technorati tracks about 50 million blogs (wow)! New information is added just minutes after it is posted. I like the use of tags because it is plain language. Customers don't have to think about how to search a certain way just use plain language.

The various sections are categorized which makes locating information simpler. In the popular section it was surprising that Jennifer Garner beat out Jennifer Aniston in top searches. Although, I do like Jennifer Garner.

It would take a lot of time to explore this site adequately, but I do like the use of tags.

You Too Can You Tube

I think you could probably find a video on just about anything by typing in a keyword or if you know the title of the video that can be entered. There is also a way to browse the most viewed videos. Someone sent this You Tube video to me a while back and I checked to see if it was still there. It is adorable, a two and a half year old with vocal training, at least it seems like it.

I can see a site like this as a useful tool for brief training videos, in one of the previous posts an article mentioned sites should be user-friendly perhaps one click to information. Until that is possible brief training videos could be very useful.

Tagging, Folksomonies, & Social Bookmarking in Del.icio.us

I did not see any bookmarks in the PLCMCL2 account, but there were plenty of tags. The size of the tag reflects the popularity of the tag. Design and blog seemed to be the most popular tags. Clicking on the tag will give a list of links and the tags associated with the links.

This could definitely be a great tool for learning and research, the tags make it simple to find information for a particular category and the bookmarks can be accessed from anywhere.

Russell Palmer with Solinet did a Social Bookmarking workshop online about a year or so ago. He uses del.icio.us for any workshops he does and it is a good way to go back and review information or locate new information.

DCPL Staff Goes 2.0, Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries

Like it or not technology is here to stay, regardless of the customers who want the old card catalog back, although I haven't heard that in quite a while. The Internet is no longer "sites and search engines" but an "everything" network: work, education, entertainment and social networking.

The article "Into a New World of Librarianship" by Michael Stephens points out that all library planning should be user-centered. What do your customers need and want? Technology should not be implemented for technology's sake but should meet the needs of the customer. The services technology needs to be "user-friendly." One of the other articles proposed that if the services cannot be used without training - the services need to be fixed. One click information, wouldn't that be great?

Collaboration! Online Applications & Tools

Google.docs is a great way to create documents to access from any computer. I think I blogged earlier about suggesting it to customers as a way to have access to their documents from any computer since we don't allow flash drives, etc. at this time. It is also a good way to share documents with other users if you are working with a team.

Wikis has such a tropical sound. The wiki appears to be multi-functional, some of the sites listed contain conference information, book reviews, and our staff wiki has a variety of information. We could also use a wiki for our book discussion group, book reviews, news and events, photos, the list is probably endless.

Picture This

Flickr is really amazing! I uploaded some personal photos and can see how this would be a good method to share photos with family and friends who do not live nearby. Trying to email photos is sometimes a pain. Using Flickr would give them access to more than just a few photos at a time. The image generators are really fun, a person could spend a lot of time playing with them. I created my trading card, I initially chose the picture of the library with the arch and changed my mind at the last minute, however the description I wrote goes with the arch. Oh, well. The picture I am adding is in Egypt it is from http://liberato.org/2006/11/11/all-gizah-pyramids/. A friend is traveling to Egypt in May and I am a little jealous.

It's all about books, seriously

I actually explored Shelfari and signed up for Library Thing. Library Thing had quite a bit of information. In the Zeitgeist Overview there are several lists provided, including the 25 most reviewed books, top 75 authors, and top books. There are talk topics for those who want to discuss the books they have read and there are a variety of groups established: librarians, science fiction, non-fiction, to name a few. This site would be useful for Reader's Advisory, collection development and for small or personal libraries as a cataloging tool.

What a list of award sites. I looked at a few of them. Google docs made the list, we have been recommending it to people who are doing word processing as a method of saving their information and being able to access it later, instead of having them ask to use flash drives (which isn't allowed right now). It seems to be a good solution, several people have been really glad to know about it.

There were some genealogy sites that were interesting. Setting up the accounts is free. You can build your family tree, post pictures, and on the My Heritage site if you post a picture of yourself you can do a face recognition collage and see what celebrity you look like. On Geni you can build your family tree but only people in your family tree can see your profile. Amiglia is billed as Facebook for your family tree. There were many, many, many interesting sites. Too many to view in a short amount of time.

After a second attempt my trading card showed up. How cool!

Shelfari

I can see Shelfari becoming a useful Reader's Advisory tool, for my personal use and to recommend to customers. It is a good way to keep track of what you have read and to list what you want to read. Evidently in my exploration I added two bookshelves to my blog, eventually I will get the hang of it and consolidate.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds, what a concept! Instead of going to individual websites on an ongoing basis, those websites can be set up to come to you in one central location. There is a directory of free RSS feeds called Feedzilla where there are a variety of topics listed under different categories (even celebrity feeds) if you don’t have time to browse sites to add.

There are any number of ways the library could use RSS feeds. Using the news feeds would be helpful in selecting books for the “In the News” display. Including a site like Reader’s Club would help customers select new reads. Using RSS feeds on the library webpage would be a great marketing tool by providing feeds to library news, events, book lists, etc.

It would be great to tell all of our customers about RSS feeds, but I will probably start with a few friends and try to become more familiar with it myself.

7 1/2 Habits

A good paraphrase for the video would be "how do we learn, let me count the ways." Learning is a daily thing. In some form I think I learn something new every day, I'm not sure about retaining it (that might go along with the confidence habit).

In reviewing the list I made to determine what I felt was a like / dislike. I concluded that #3 would be a something I like and #4 would be not really a dislike, but an area to work on.
3. Views problems as challenges. Problems are actually opportunities. Coming up with a solution is often an exercise in creativity.

4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. I've always felt like I could do whatever I set my mind to do. But there is that retention thing.