Sandbox

After much frustration and lots of help from Ellen I finally entered the blog on to the Favorite Blog page in the Sandbox.

That finishes 23 Things for me!

Week9

I just realized I was using the Maryland Libraries numbering system in my last two posts.

I'm familiar with YouTube courtesy of my grandchildren. The most recent video I viewed was men dancing on a treadmill-this was actually brought to my attention by our own Jim DeArmey.

Podcast experimentation was not possible because I was required to download ActiveX which I didn't want to do-although I tried and the computer froze so -so much for that.

I looked at Project Gutenberg. What's available is amazing. I hadn't looked at this site since it's early days. It could be very useful at the information desk when someone needs, for instance, the letters of Charles Darwin that are not available in our collection. Voila-there they are on Project Gutenberg.

Overall my goals for the program have been accomplished. I wanted to be familiar with the latest terms and formats and I've done that.
I found the directions for some of the exercises to be less than helpful to someone who needs very specific directions.
I see in looking at other's blogs that things like favorites and rss feeds have been linked to the blog page. I didn't do that. Was I supposed to?
This is an example of less than specific directions.
I still have to do the Sandbox exercise and I'd love to add an avatar but will need someone to guide me through these. I'll try to get them done before the program ends.

Week 18

I'm moving on having not done the Sandbox exercise. That will have to wait until I have someone who can work with me. I found the directions totally useless and not intuitive at all.

I looked at Google Doc and like the idea of online application. I think they can be huge timesavers and eliminate cutting and pasting.

Wikis Week-16

I looked at several wikis on the Discovery Exercise list. My conclusion is that, like blogs, they are a vehicle for people who need a place to show off what they know.
Seriously, the library wikis were typical library material in a different format, lists, assignments, best practices, etc.
The one useful wiki was the ALA New Orleans one where the person posted his conference schedule and other pertinent information for anyone who might be trying to locate him.
As for sites like Wikipedia-they have no credibility at all in my humble opinion since anyone can change or post anything. A recent example was reported in the mainstream media about wikis being used to alter information. A dangerous path.

Sign-ups

I'm finding the constant creating of accounts and sign-ups very tiring and am feeling discouraged at this point as a result. Account creation overload is a problem.

Week 6

Added Del.icio.us to my computer.

Explored Technorati. The thing that struck me when I looked at the most popular blogs was the use of the term "favorited." This colored my opinion of the entire site.
Looked at the Learning 2.0 blog entries and found lots.

Read :
Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries. by Maness
The paper defines the terms in the title and explores what they mean for libraries. It was obvious that the author's conclusions were based on academic library experience. While some of his conclusions may also be applied to public libraries I felt they were too narrow to be of interest to me.

Into a New World of Librarianship by Stephens.
This article was much more interesting to me. His principles can be used by public librarians. I'd love to see a BCPL discussion at some level about user content development.

catching up

Tried MERLIN again this morning. Still down if I'm trying the right site.

Checked library-related blogs. Basically thousands of them. Those I looked at were a waste of time. Either not updated for several years or nonense, i.e. Barbarian Librarian.
Finished assignments for Week5 and have begun Week 6. I've done the Del.icio.us part and the icon sits on my tool bar. So far I have not found anything I'd want to tag.

Still working

Today's activities:

-Tried to access MERLIN but it's down
-Looked at several image generators: LogoMaker,CoolText, Logoease.
-Signed on to Library Thing. this might be something I'll use.
-Set up a Parkinson's Disease search engine with Rollyo

RSS

My RSS feed is set up. I'm subscribed to BBC-World News and Google News bundle. The news is always on my desktop so that means I'm spending even more time looking at the computer. This is becoming a big problem since I'm already an e-mail addict! Even though I am retired I do need to get on with other things. Ah, the curse of technolgy.

RSS and del.icio.us

Spent an hour on this assignment at home.
RSS really interests me since I'm a news junkie. No luck with the tutorial.The sound was in and out and I couldn't understand anything. The instructions are overwhelming so I moved on to explore del.icio.us.
I successfully set this up but have no idea why I want it. Bookmarks work fine for me. There must be something I'm missing.
Still trying to change my blog url. No luck so far.

assignment for week 3

Anything technology related that interests me--- hmm.......
This morning I heard a report on NPR about world currency. The economist interviewed spoke about the possibility of a smart card with currency loaded that could be used anywhere in the world. Just think - no more changing currency from one non-euro country to another.
I did explore Flickr. Interesting and useful for photo buffs.

July post

Posting for the month.
I had no idea part-timers would be paid to do the 23 Things. That's great! It shows BCPL's commitment to staff development.
I'm curious - how many people follow blogs regularly? Are there some that are worth knowing about?

Figured it out

I'm quite proud of myself. After 2 false starts I figured out what I needed to do. I did frantically e-mail my liaison but in the meantime the lightbulb went off and I did myself.