Week 10: #23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning...

The final post. I think our branch is running with the 23 Things. We have blogs for several programs to supplement the information provided. Cy-Fair has an Academy of Lifelong Learning and several librarians are teaching a class for on the 23 for the Academy. This has been an excellent training. I think blogging has been the favorite activity because I will probably use it for the book club. I have been using some of the Web 2.0 technologies already like Flickr, MySpace, YouTube. However, the training has given me a greater depth of understanding. The key to the training is keeping up on new things and using what we know. I will use much of what I learned. Thanks for putting together this training. Well done iStar.

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media

Downloadable media is definitely growing. I will use it more as the digital libraries expand. Both Wowio and LibriVox have titles I would check out. HCPL's collection is much better. For now, it is easier to check out the books on CD.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I ran across the Baseball Historian podcasts using Pocasts.net. They have reproduced old radio broadcasts. Very cool. Once again, great for our Sports Page Book Club. Here is a link, and I added as a RSS feed.

http://www.podcast.net/show/44705

Week 9: #20 Discover YouTube and other video sharing sites

I love to use YouTube videos to highlight themes or people mentioned in our Sports Page Book Club. Here was a video of Alan Webb breaking Jim Ryun's high school mile record. We were reading Sub 4:00.

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

I sent this post directly from Zoho.

Zoho is new to me.

I plan to explore the features later. Question is....How long will it be free?

Week 8: #18 Social Networking: Making friends in the comfort of your own home

What a nice title for this week's activity. Social networking is about comfort and convenience. But it is also about how we communicate now and keep in touch. I like the fact that facebook arranges by affiliation. I have had a MySpace account, but reallly found I liked phone calls and email better. I didn't feel comfortable with that much about me out there. One trend I noticed is that more and more people are requiring the you to be their friend. They are not opening up their accounts, blogs, pictures for all the world to see. This is a good thing. Catster. Hilarious.

Week 7: #17 Blog About Technology

So after delving a bit deeper into Web 2.0, it seems to me that information is that information is more about repackaging and creating sense of your world. It may be blogging about a trip or mashing photos with a map. RSS and newsfeeds organize the news you need. The ultimate question for me is whether or not my attempts to orgainze the world of information to fit my needs is saving me time or is it just giving me more places to look. Can't say I have an answer yet.

Week 7: #16 So what's in a wiki?

I made my Wiki entry. I like the clean look and consistent navagation of Wikis. The ALA Wiki is well organized and easy to use. I think Wikis could be useful for organizations that do not have intranets. We are exploring our options at our branch.

Week 6: #15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Interesting articles. I liked the Iceberg article. I think the libraries have a place in Web 2.0. We just have to be out where the people are in the social networks, blogosphere and other places. HCPL is already providing unmediated services with self-check, online renewal and holds. But we cannot expect these customers to necessarily want our traditional reference services and book collections. People want more interactivity. They want to share their experiences. They want to blog. So I think the future is that libraries have to become a community. Just like we share resources, we need to share services. Imagine an online bookclub mediated by many library systems and any system can join. That way you can get a critical mass of customers who are not necessarily in your area, but share the same core values of learning and love for reading. These things are happening but not necessarily library systems leading the way. We have to realize that in the online community, our customer does not have to be in are area. Also, embracing the Web 2.0 may mean our webpages look different. I think Santa Barabara City College has done something interesting. Their web page content is thier blog. Check it out. http://library.sbcc.edu/

Week 6: #14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

I do enjoy Technorati. Technorati has a variety of search approaches to get at what you need from blogs. Not unsurprisingly, the broadest search is from the blog posts (12,803). Searching tags was much more focused, but you have to keep in mind tagging is human generated, so it doesn't mean better results (1,022). Finally, the blog search had 825 results. The popular was interesting and not surprising. It was not surprising because there were many technology related blogs on gadgets and customizing MySpace pages. The PostSecret blog was a little surpirsing. Tracking popular blogs is a pretty good way to follow culture now.

Week 6: #13 Tagging makes the web 2.0 world go round

I can see the advantages of a del.icio.us account. It is another tool that could lend organization to my world. It should be inherently fun for librarians.

Week 5: #12 The "Library" Elf will remind you!

I like the "Library" Elf.

Week 5: #11 A Thing about Library Thing

Library thing is wonderful for reader's advisory and tracking the books I have read. I plan to use it more in the future.

Week 5: #10 Play around with Image Generators

I created this avatar using Yahoo avatars. Here is the result.

I also created an avatar in WeeWorld.

http://www.weeworld.com/

Week 4: #9 Finding Feeds

I looked at all of the tools in the discovery exercise. Technorati was my favorite of the tools. In general terms, I would not use the feed finders too often because I have certain news sites I regularly visit, and I am not a big consumer of blog information. However, when I am looking for opinion on a new topic, Technorati was right there as a very useful tool.

Week 4: #8 Make life "really simple" with RSS and a newsreader

It has been a while, but I am back. Set up a Bloglines account and subscribed to several feeds, mainly sports and literature and HCPL photos. Pretty easy.

Week 3: #7 Photo Editing Tools

Motel Sign
Originally uploaded by staffo50

Pixer was easy to use. Great to have a product that requires no additional software.

Week 3: #6 More Flickr Fun

Most definitely Trippermap intrigues me. Now all I have to do is travel.

Week 3: #5 Discover Flickr

Alexander Hamilton Exhibition
Originally uploaded by staffo50

Blogged directly from flickr. Cool.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Safety first

It has taken time, but I am more comfortable with online transactions. However, I still pay most of my bills with checks. That will be next leap with me. I have dabbled with an online presence, but really, I don't want that much non-professional information about me out on the Internet. I believe the Internet is a fairly secure environment.

I haven't had any real embarassing incidents. I am very careful about reply to all. Mainly that is because I try to only communicate with key stakeholders and the senders of messages. I had a coworker who was looking for a job and sent his resume to the enire staff. You cannot recall that type of embarassment.

Getting Starting

I am excited to be starting the 23 things. I hope to reacquaint myself with some tools I have used in the past and some new tools. The iHCPL team has assembled a nice training and of course, Bling. You gotta have bling.