The end of 23 Things

I think this whole process has been a wonderful learning experience! By carving it up into bite-size pieces, even a neophyte like me could work through each part, one step at a time. I looked at the whole process as a dare - if the rest of the staff could do this, so could I as a representative of the over-60 crowd!

I love to listen to books on CD in my car, and now I'll have a whole new way to find books after I've 'read' my way through the ones PLCMC has. The idea of a podcast that I can listen and learn a language is exciting. The RSS feeds are useful, and having them all together in Bloglines makes it easy. There are so many parts of these exercises that I probably would not have bothered with if I had to just find out about the information on my own. I get frustrated easily, and when something doesn't happen just the way I think it should, I shy away from the activity. Knowing I could count on many of my colleagues to help out got me through some of the more frustrating parts.

I appreciate the time that Helene put into this, constructing the podcasts and putting together the parts of each exercise. This was the perfect format to get many of us to actually do hands-on work on the computer to figure out how to upload pictures, or find out why anyone would bother with something like rollyo.

This has added another dimension to my library work, making it fun while we kept our eyes on the MP3 player waiting for us at the end.

Thanks for a fun way to learn about Library 2.0!!

NetLibrary

I was able to get into Mary Kyle's class yesterday so I was able to get all of the information in person from her. I'm still confused - it sure seems like a lot of steps before I'm going to be able to listen to a book on my almost-earned MP3 player. I can see lots of customers deciding it isn't worth all the trouble! Of course, the under-30 crowd already knows how to do all of this so it won't be a problem for them.

I do think we should be able to allow customers to download books in the library. If not, this is a perfect example of how we teach people to be so self-sufficient they won't ever need to come into a library again! Many people don't have high speed connections at home, so downloading in the library would be a great service we can offer that no one else can beat. It's a great example of using tax dollars to give a great service back to the public.

I can't wait to try downloading on my own to see just how difficult it is.

Podcasts

I really like the whole concept of a podcast! I learn best if I can listen and look at something at the same time, so this really works for me. As I poked around in the lists of podcasts, I found several for learning languages which would be terrific to record on an MP3 player and listen to. Also cooking podcasts - how easy to listen while one is playing around in the kitchen.

The podcasts that Helene recorded to describe the various steps of this whole exercise have been very helpful. I think it would be a great idea to record simple explanations of how to use various library materials so customers could listen. The next step in all of this is to figure out how to record a podcast, and start experimenting with some that we think the public would be interested in.

Trip to Florence

It's been over 2 weeks since I posted anything to my blog. I went to YouTube and immediately had to look at the video about Bush and un. It was pretty funny and the guy playing Bush had many of his mannerisms captured pretty well.

Then I went to the travel section and found two videos showing scenes from Florence. One was shot while the person doing the filming was walking across the Ponte Vecchio, and the other was shot as a panoramic view of the city. Both were interesting to me because I just returned from a trip to Italy. I don't know how much I'd have enjoyed these if I was just browsing through the web site.

On my trip one woman used her video camera constantly. She could post her shots on this, and then tell the rest of us how to access it. That would be great for those on the trip, but I don't know how much anyone else would enjoy it.

This site is good for people who like to fool around with filming skits and people doing strange and idiotic things. I've had several links to short takes like these sent to me from friends and family. It's a good way to share short bits of film, and the funny ones are fun to watch.

I'd come back to this site to see what else is here, and to see what sort of stuff creative people are producing.

newsvine.com

This is a strange web site - you pick the news stories you want to read about, and then you can vote on whether a story is newsworthy/important. You can also add your own comments, and write your own column. Hmmm - I feel like I'm back to the Steven Colbert comments about wikipedia - I can make the news be the way I want it to be rather than finding an unbiased report about something that happened.

I looked at several of the other sites in the list of winners on the web 2.0 list, and I can't imagine using any of these. Some of the parts of the 23 Things were interesting, and I can see where some of them might have uses, but I sure don't spend the necessary time on the web to figure out how all of these fit together.

I'll sign off for now - puzzled and scratching my head....

I really like this Zoho Writer! What a great idea to be able to access a document without having to load the special MS Office software. It was easy to register with the site, and even easier to put a document together. This has all sorts of possibilities which I think would work well in a variety of circumstances. Kudos on this one!!

PLCMC learning on pbwiki

I'm sitting here waiting for someone else to get through editing whatever they're posting to this site before I can add my blog to the list. As I wrote earlier, I can see where these wikis would be a good way to pull together information for various projects that several staff are working on. If we can all make corrections on one document, or add a string of thoughts without sending separate emails, I can see where all sorts of teams could use wikis to organize their information. I'd like to try setting one up to see how it goes.

Wikis

I liked the idea of a wiki for the SSPs, and I'm really disappointed we haven't been able to get that going yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works as we all post our reports. From what I just read it sounds like a terrific way to keep all the information together, and let everyone have access to it at the same time. If this works the way we're hoping, then we could try wikis for other things. As mentioned in the SSP blog (to which I couldn't post a response just now) a wiki for keeping track of technology classes, information and handouts would really be helpful.

SSP 3.0.B is dealing with what we're going to do about technology classes, and how to pull all the handouts and class information together. Maybe one of the goals of this piece of the SSP can be to get a wiki like this set up.

The other side of a wiki, however, is highlighted by what Steven Colbert did with wikipedia on his show The Colbert Report. He opened a show talking about the wiki and how the great thing about wikipedia is that now we can make something true because we want it to be true. He went in and changed some information about elephants, hit send, and there was his information online for everyone to read. I read later that whoever monitors wikipedia went in and deleted Colbert's information. But the point is that if people are changing entries at will, there's bound to be a loss of some credibility. Maybe it's the old librarian talking, but why would I take something as true just because a bunch of people have compiled whatever they knew about a particular subject? There is something to be said for authors with strong credentials, who have proven themselves in a field before accepting what I read as true. Of course, I'm also amazed by the things people will call the library and ask about. I would always want to look it up for myself.

Social tagging

I see that I forgot to add a blog piece about social tagging. This, to me, made all sorts of sense. I was one of those strange folks who absolutely loved taking cataloging in library school. We'd have these wonderful, wide-ranging discussions about the proper Dewey number for a book, and could argue the entire class period to try to get it straight in our little public-service heads. How simple it would have been with social tagging! We could just tag a book with whatever we wanted, and we could the let web/computer hook it all together! Too bad that cataloging professor is no longer with us - he'd probably love the idea.

And what a great way to remove barriers. To get into a library catalog now, you have to fool around with all sorts of search terms to find the right combination to unlock the barrier to the information you need. Social tagging could eliminate that to a great extent. Maybe in the future while we libraries carefully catalog our materials, we'll also encourage social tagging so people could find materials however they think about them.

Of course using social tagging for web sites, blogs, etc is a great way to tie things together. How easy it is then to find what you're looking for.

Library 2.0

After my reaction to technorati yesterday, today I'm happy to say that reading the various pieces about Library 2.0 made lots of sense to me. The article about icebergs mentioned teaching as a way to eliminate barriers in the library - showing people how to use what we've got. Of course we've always done that, but I think it was a badge of honor (at least when I first started 28 years ago) to make things as complicated as possible so we were the keeper of the keys. If someone asked the correct question, we'd help them.

Now we're much better about this, and the 2.0 articles about user convenience, eliminating barriers and generally making it easy to use a library are terrific. The idea of a VR info coach is great! We tried offering half hour research consultations and had few takers. The concept of the librarian coaching people through the various sites, databases, etc sounds exactly what we try to do when the high school students come. Putting it into their terms, however, and trying to reach them wherever they are is certainly the way to go.

I was also very interested in the description of what Library 3.0 would be like. The writer said that storefronts can draw customers in if they follow some guidelines. The first was to be a "clearly defined environment." Right now, some of us are discussing what changes could be made in the interior of our Main Library. We're also working with a marketing consultant to develop a brand for the library. We've had Project for Public Spaces staff here to guide us in some exercises to try to figure out what we want in our spaces. All of this ties together, of course. Another piece of 3.0 is for the space to be more theatrical (experiential) and participatory. I think those ideas fit in with much of what we've been talking about doing at Main, so it was encouraging to read this.

I was able to get into Technorati today (yesterday I couldn't even get that far), and it is interesting to see how many blogs are out there. Not just interesting - amazing that all these people have all this time to write comments about anything that possibly interests them. I can see how some blogs would be good to get a dialogue going, and to find out what people are doing who live far away. But somehow - and maybe my age is showing - to read a bunch of blogs from people I see every day seems a little weird. I have visions of future generations not ever talking face-to-face, but just sitting staring at a screen typing non-stop, unedited outpourings of whatever one is thinking about.

I don't mean to sound like a complete Luddite - I do see some value in seeing what other libraries are doing with this concept of Library 2.0. I also wonder what Library 3.0 will be like, and whether we'll look back at these blogs sort of like I look back on the earliest computer that my then 4th grader lugged home back in the 80s.

I also wonder who has all the time it takes to read through all these blogs. Helene says she spends 9-11 every night reading blogs (Hi, Helene!). Yikes! What about the newspapers, magazines and those old fashioned things called books that I want to read? I realize the 'kids' are reading stuff online, and enjoy reading what others are thinking just like I like to read Newsweek to see what others have to say about current events. Maybe it's not so different. But sitting here typing away does seem awfully self-indulgent. That age thing again....

Del.icio.us

I can see where this might be a really useful tool for teachers/professors to use to tag various blogs or web sites or whatever on a particular topic for a class. Maybe we would use this in the library for various senior exit topics, or for current event topics. Maybe we'd tag several things and then send that information out. "Background information on the big news story of the week - click here to find related stories." The down side is that it takes so much time! OR at least for me, it does. I can see where those who have grown up with the Internet, and routinely play around in it for hours, could take something like this and create something really useful. I can almost seeing us move towards having 'digital' librarians who spend their time working with stuff like this to create useful products for patrons, just like regular librarians spend their time working at public desks helping patrons. Maybe this is how we set up staffing levels in the future - treating the computer like we do a public desk so staff create web stuff just like others create reading lists.

More catchup. I set up a bunch of RSS feeds but never blogged about them. It's taking me a while to get this all sorted out! I like the idea of having the RSS feeds going to one place so I can read what I want without having to click in and out of websites. What I don't like is the feeling of "omg, I haven't looked at bloglines for a whole week - it's going to take me hours to plow through all the stuff waiting for me". Maybe I just need to get over this - or just zoom through the feeds until I hit something important. Maybe I just need to be less uptight about all of this! I love being able to keep up with the Molly Ivins columns because she's far too liberal for the Observer to put her on their opinion page!

I'm still trying to catch up, especially after I realized that I hadn't posted several items in the 2.0 checklist. For one of the 23 things we were supposed to look at some of the 3rd party sites in Flickr. I did look around and I can see where some photos might be useful if you were looking for a picture to illustrate something. I also think that site has a gazillion pictures that probably mean a lot to the people who posted them, but not so much to anyone else. It's a great way to post a few pictures, and then send the URL to friends/colleagues/family so they can see what you just uploaded. As I found out, however, after trying to upload 120 pictures of a trip, Flickr just won't do that unless you pay to be a member. After uploading 20 pictures, I was told that was all I could do for the entire month! And this was on Sept 1.

So then it was suggested I try Bubbleshare, and it worked like a champ. Of course it took me several hours to figure how to upload, and then to actually do the uploading. Then once I got all that done, I went in to rearrange my album. 3 times I had to do that - by that time I was down to only 90 photos - but finally got it done. Whew! Who knew this would be such hard work?!