Thing 22

I have been thinking about this post for awhile- how will I continue to learn? I have to admit these 23 Things have pushed me into exploring some things I would not have otherwise (nor would want to- thank you, Twitter!) One thing I have always done is check out websites that I find on lists, such as "Time Magazine's Best Websites of 2008." Recently I found two good sites through that method- Weebly, which hosts free websites (my own ridiculous one included) and Geni, which helps you keep track of your family tree- this inspired me to actually start researching mine because I wanted to see how easily the site worked. Both of these sites are a cinch! They are fun too!

Thing 21

All this social networking malarkey drives me crazy!!!! ARGGHHHHH!!! If I was a teenager or a college kid I might enjoy this more, but this has been the portion of the 23 Things I have least enjoyed. Now since we all have 1.2 million different social networking sites that we use we need to keep track of them all. I liked the layout of PageFlakes. It seemed to make the most sense, but I know I will hardly use it because I'm just not that into all this social networking. Maybe I just don't have enough friends, but probably I don't spend enough time online just goofing around to make it worth my while.

I do think it's good for me to know about these things because then I am able to mention them to patrons who would use them. Also if I am familiar with them it is quicker for me to help patrons when they have a problem using these tools. I just don't think I will use it much in my own life.

The picture is Ruby romping with her hated niece, Harley. I like Harley, she's my granddaughter.

Thing 20

I think many people's first reaction to gaming in libraries is negative. It certainly has never been a "traditional" library service. But I think it's another way to move into the future and bring more young people into the library. They may come for the gaming and discover other facets to the library. It is also a way to be more "relevant" to the younger generation. I don't think anything that brings people (especially younger people) into the library is a bad thing. I'm sure it would seem odd at first to have gaming in the library, but it probably seemed odd when public computers were first avialable too.

Thing 19

I love the new lint. It's much cleaner and easier to navigate. I can customize it how I want it so that the stuff I want is right there in front of me! Yea!!! Good job, LINT team!!! I struggle to find things on our current LINT pages if I don't use them a lot, so I think this will save me a lot of time. It also appears we will have many more options of stuff we can do on LINT, which I think will be very useful. The first thing I did was change my password.

I didn't really have any reaction to the content management articles. I get what they're saying, but most of it won't really affect me directly, as I won't be responsible working with that end of things.

Thing 18

All the survey stuff kind seemed the same to me. Probably because I have never used any before so I didn't really know what I was doing. Survey Monkey- it's just a fun name. That made me want to use it. I found it very easy to get signed up and get going. What I discovered is hard is creating the different types of questions correctly. I messed up several times and had to restructure my questions. Granted my survey was somewhat nonsensical, but I made it worse by creating poorly structured questions. I liked that there were several choices of how I wanted my survey to look, and although I struggled with the design of my questions I don't think they could have made it any simpler to create. I was able to look at examples of the types of questions I was creating, which was very helpful. If I had created a survey on an actual topic that I had some idea of what I really needed to know and the type of information I wanted from people that might have helped. I will say Survey Monkey gave back great, easy to understand results.

I think that open ended questions are a double-edged sword. You may not want to use them because you may want to give people just specific options to choose from to determine a particular issue. People may not be as willing to answer them because they take more time than just picking from provided choices. I frequently leave comment boxes blank when I take surveys. On the other hand, you can probably get lots of additional information or ideas from open-ended questions than from other types. But this would also make analyzing your results more cumbersome. I really thing it depends on what you are trying to get out of your survey.

Thing 17

I joined Gather just to see what it was like. I liked it because it had something for everyone. I started perusing the pet groups and I joined one. I had friend requests almost instantly! This site seems more "grown up" than Facebook. There's not this constant stream of who's doing what all the time, which I find annoying on Facebook. But at the same time, do I really need to belong to another one of these social networking sites? I doubt it. Maybe if I was really involved with some hobby or something, or maybe if I had more time and didn't spend so much time with actual living pets and actual living people I would be more involved in these sites. But to tell the truth, it's just not all that appealing to me. As I've stated many times on this blog, if I were younger I would probably be more into this! And also, I just don't feel the need to connect with a bunch of strangers from around the world. So these sites are nice for people who don't work or maybe are shut ins or maybe just don't have realtionships with very many live people. But it's not really for me!

Thing 16

I set up a Facebook awhile back, mostly as a joke for my daughter. Then some of her friends wanted to be my friend, and then some real adult people joined Facebook and became my friends. So I've just kept my account going. I never changed my profile, which is all goofy because I initially did it as a joke. But I've grown to like my profile so I refuse to change it. I'm not a huge fan of sights like this, and I pretty much only hop on my Facebook when I get an e-mail notification that someone posted on my wall or gave me a gift or something like that. But I know that younger people live on these sights and if I were quite a bit younger I'm sure it would be more appealing to me because it is an easy way to keep in touch with your friends and see what they're doing. It's kind of crazy because my daughter will request to be friends with some famous person and they just accept anyone as their friend. I'm assuming some peon deals with that for them, but she thinks it's really cool. Most of the kids also have a My Space page too, but right now Facebook seems to be the more popular site. I also set up a Dogbook page for Ruby and she has some dog friends! That's why she's smiling in this pic!

I intially didn't join any groups because, as I said, I just set my account up goofing around. But now I have joined my high school class group because they are having a reunion and they keep bugging everyone to join their group. I think if MCPL had a Facebook it would be popular with younger teenagers, but who knows there could be a wider appeal. Since I've joined I've found out that more and more adults are on Facebook.

Thing 15

I have to admit I've never spent much time checking out podcasts, so this was a good thing for me to do. I looked around at the podcast directories, but didn't find anything that really appealed to me. I decided to look for library podcasts, specifically book reviews because we've knocked around the idea of doing that in our RA meetings. I decided upon Pierce County Public Library in Tacoma, Washington. They offer a wide range of podcasts- lots of book reviews, as well as plugs for various services and ones that focus on teens. First I listened to a review of the book We Are the Cat which is a book I read and liked. The librarian talked first about his own cats, then gave some information about the author and then reviewed the title. He finished up by referring listeners to their public blog on their website. I enjoyed it. Then I listened to a podcast about their reference resources. It was set up as a question/answer type interview between two people discussing life as a reference librarian and the resources that the library offers. It was pretty good too and I think it would be great for someone unfamiliar with these types of services. After listening to the podcasts I wanted to check out this library's website, so I did. It was a great website and they really focus on appealing to all ages in their community. They are also really focused on the future and what their patrons want- all the way to 2030! So I think their podcasts did a good job of presenting the library in a positive light and getting the listener interested in what else they offer. It also kind of made me want to do podcasts, especially book reviews because I found it so appealing. They used this medium well.

Thing 14

See, this video is proof of the vicious nature of pitbulls!!!! This pit's name is Sharky and apparently he and the chicks lived happily ever after because there are follow up videos and they appear to be living in peace and harmony! YouTube is fun and a great way to get lost for hours watching ridiculous videos. Why did I choose this video? I just thought it was cute. And it looked like Spring, which can't come fast enough! So early happy Easter. I didn't know you could embed a video into your blog. I'm not real sure why I would want to, except to be goofy. But it's easy to do and now I know.

I like YouTube better than the other video sites, but I think that's because I'm familiar with it and I have used it enough that it's easy for me to navigate around in. I think the only reason we might use one of these sites for the library is for promotional reasons. It's free, so that's good. We could promote the library and our services, programs, etc. Younger people spend lots of time on these site, so it could be an easy way to reach them.

Thing 13

LibraryThing is fun. It also sucks me in and could cause me to waste lots of time goofing around with all the gadgets and stuff to read. Since it's all about books, what's not to like? I got a little overwhelmed when I started looking at the groups area. There are so many groups that it's difficult to sort through them all. I thought it was interesting that there was a huge range of popularity to the books I chose. LibraryThing can be useful for RA, once you are familiar with navigating it. I also think the Author Chat area is cool. Lots of people would be interested in using that area, either to chat with an author or to promote their own stuff if they are accepted to host a chat. I also liked the "local" section, which lists all things book within a certain distance of your location. If we promoted LibraryThing, or introduced our patrons to it I believe it would be a big hit with a number of our patrons. It's also an easy way to keep track of what you've read and get ideas for future reads based on titles others have enjoyed.

One of the issues with all of the stuff we use on the web is remembering what's out there and when to use it. I would have to get in the habit of consulting LibraryThing for RA transactions. Right now I would probably think of it when I am at a loss as to what to suggest someone and my usual resources aren't helping me. As I use it more for myself I think it will be easier and more likely for me to use with patrons. I also need to remember to introduce it to some of our regular patrons who would probably like it.

Thing 12

I think these tools could be used to quickly locate information about a news item a patron asks about that I am unfamiliar with. It is also a quick way to keep up with what's going on that is of interest to a majority of people. There also seem to be lots of items concerning technology and what is the latest tweak, update, tool That is a good way to quickly keep track of technology changes. However, I know that I could easily become distracted and start reading everything. I know this could become a big time waster for me because I would start looking at all kinds of stuff, especially odd sounding items like "Samurai Archery, Sport from the 12th Century, Still Thrives." Do I really need to know about this? Probably not, but it just sounds so fun.

Thing 11

I have had a delicious account for awhile. I have to admit I don't use it much. I think if I were doing research and needed to mark specific sites I would probably make use of it a lot more. When I blog on my personal blog and the RA blog I usually label my postings. It just makes it easier to find specific topics when you're trying to remember something, and I think it looks cool- like I'm a really awsome blogger. I also like to be goofy with them on my personal blog. I don't know why, but I think certain lables are funny, like "pink cow."

We could use social bookmarking in the library to point out useful sites to patrons or to each other. In Adult Services we could definitely use them to inform each other of good sites we have found. However, as with most of the things we have looked at on 23 Things, it can get a bit overwhelming. I found the Manasha site overwhelming and I always feel the same way when dealing with tag clouds, so I avoid them. If I spent some more time using them I would probably get more comfortable.

Thing 10

I think Wikis can be useful because so many different people can add info to them. It can bring different perspectives to a topic that would not otherwise be there if only one person were developing the site. It is also an easy way to put information on the web without having to know a markup language, although there are many free sites now where you can put up a website without using HTML or the like. As with all thing Internet, a wiki is only as useful as you make it. It can either be helpful or a time waster depending on how it's used.

The most interesting thing I found in the readings about wikis is how the name came about. I always wondered where the word "wiki" came from. I don't think banning wikis as a source is a good idea, but I would be perhaps not allow them to be used as an "authoritative" resource. I think they can be good for gathering different ideas and leading people to other sources.I have edited wikis before and it is no problem- very easy. I just went into the wiki sandbox and messed around. I edited the first page.

Thing 9

All the changes I made to the Google doc are in purple. It was very easy, very similar to Word, which is handy since most everyone is familiar with Word. Zoho I wasn't as crazy about. It was a bit more difficult to manuever around in, and I think it was "junked up." By that I mean the toolbar was messy and had too much stuff. It was confusing to me and took me a little more time to get used to. I added a pic (of Ruby, of course) and made a text change in purple and size. I'm fairly certain the founding fathers would highly approve of Ruby being added to the document. It really brings it to life and speaks to the American people! I just liked Google better because it was simpler for me. Google is kind of like the Wal-Mart of the Internet- one stop shopping. You can do/find everything there- you never need to leave!

I think these tools would be very useful when you are working on a document with other people. I also think they would be helpful to allow someone to edit your document easily. You could also make use of them when you are working on something with someone who is not local. Also, it would have saved me lots of time from having to actually meet with groups when I was in SLIS!