23 Things Withdrawal

It's been a week since my last post. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss it! I keep thinking of web 2.0 tools that I can use to may life (personal and work) easier. My mom is moving. And I think my siblings and I need a wiki to "be on the same page" about the details surrounding the move. I think about projects here at the library- like instant book club title selection. There were 3 of us working on the project and it would've been so much easier when compiling/editing the final list to have a wiki, rather than e-mailing and making sure we copied the other person, etc.

Thing 23! Final Thoughts

I'm done!!! My final thoughts? This was A LOT more work than I thought it was going to be, but I learned SO MUCH. This was totally worth it!

I now have a basic understanding of many all the web 2.0 "tools" available. I will know what patrons, colleagues, and yes, even my own children are talking about when they discuss RSS feeds, Facebook, Digg, and instant messaging.

What I found really fascinating, was how libraries are using these tools. I used to ask the question why? Why would my library system even WANT to create their own Facebook and MySpace, for example? Now I understand. Why would we librarians be interested in things like Digg and creating wikis? Now I see how these tools could be really helpful and save a lot of time.

Most of all, working through these 23 things has launched me into this "2.0 world" and made me more comfortable with it. Although I have by no means mastered many of these tools, at least I know what's available out there. I know that now I will continue to use some of these tools in both my personal life and definitely at work.

Thing #22: Staying Current

I think the only way that I will be able to keep up with my blog- is to dedicate 15 minutes of my work day toward the blog and/or staying abreast of whats new in the 2.0 world. This is a challenge when I work at one of the busiest public libraries in the metro area! But that is how I got through the 23 things: dedicating at least 15 minutes a day to reading, understanding and blogging about library 2.0.

Music Player

Find more music like this on 23 Things on a Stick

23 Things Badge

Visit 23 Things on a Stick

Thing #21: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Of the other social network sites listed on this "thing", Web Junction for Minnesota is the most intriguing to me, as a librarian. I think this would be a great way to connect with/ share ideas with other librarians.



Webjunction's article "Building a Social Networking Environment at the Library" reinforces the issue that I brought up in my thing #20 blog: first and foremost, the library needs to educate people on social networking- because so many people are still not aware of what they actually can do for them and they are suspicious: the challenge lies in "convincing the doubters."

I joined Ning and added the 23 Things Badge and also the music player widget. (I'm still working on actually getting the music to play!)

Thing #20: Social Networking Sites

I set up a Facebook account a few months ago- in order to access our library system's teen Facebook page. Today, I added a few friends! My two nieces and a co-worker were kind enough to be my friends! (I feel so popular!) I also joined the Library 2.0 Interest Group.

Why is Facebook the fastest growing social network? It seems to know exactly what it's users need in a social network site: very easy to use- easy to request friends, easy to add posts. Very user friendly. All of the teens in our neck of the woods have a Facebook account. You have the security of knowing that you have to approve who gets to be your friend (this puts me at ease as a parent of a Facebooker as well).

As a parent of teens, these social networking sites used to FREAK me out! It took me a long time to get past these feelings of fear when talking about these sites. Now I realize that they aren't bad. In fact, it is the way many people communicate/relate now. And it's OK. In fact, our library system now has a Facebook and Myspace account for teens to use.

I do think that there is a need for educating parents on what these social networking sites do and that, if used safely, is a safe things for kids to use. I guess the telephone was "suspicious" to many folks when it first became available to people a century ago. Anyway, the question is: is it the library's role to educate parents on these new social networking sites: how they work and the advantages as well as the dangers?

Thing #19: Podcasting

I created an account with Podcast.com. I was especially interested in listening to book reviews, so I "browsed" New York Times amd National Public Radio podcasts for book reviews. The NYT has an interesting weekly podcast where they feature a new book and also summarize each week's bestsellers. Cool.

I also stumbled into the podcast for the trailer for the HBO John Adams series- and I added this to my Google Reader RSS page. The challenge now is to get the link on my blog.

Thing #18: Youtube

Hey! I successfully imported/embedded a youtube video (see below)! I could waste a LOT of time looking at youtube! I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to embed a video into my blog. (A lot of these 23 things activities are easier than I expect them to be!)

As far as Youtube's usefulness to librarians and library users: this is a GREAT tool: for kids doing research on events in history (such as looking at a clip of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech). A few years ago, when youtube was a relatively new phenomenon, a patron needed a clip of "I Love Lucy" show chocolate factory episode for her film class. A co-worker of mine showed me youtube and the patron was THRILLED.

My niece made a mini film for her Spanish class and she posted in on youtube for everyone to enjoy!

Thing #18: Youtube

Thing #17: ELM Productivity Tools

I work with many of these ELM tools everyday. But I didn't realize all the things we can do with them.

I found the create a folder and/or website tool helpful- especially if you wanted to share a list with a colleague or patron. (I can see this tool being particularly useful in a college library setting where reference librarians may be helping students find sources for a topic).

Net Library is something that I use both personally (downloadable audio) and in helping patrons find e-books when they can't find a hard copy in the library. Before, the "Favorites and Notes" feature was something I never even noticed.

Thing #16: Student 2.0 Tools

One way that I can see these time management tools being used in the public library- is to help people (students and parents) who request books on this topic of how to approach doing a research paper. It's another source that they might be interested in.

These tools might be something to mention to teachers and classes when we do school visits or library tours for classes.

Thing #15: Online Games in Libraries

I have to admit, this is NEW territory for me!! I looked at the Second Life Video tour. The concept is similar to the SIMS games that my kids play. But the virtual classroom idea is interesting to me.

We have started offering gaming nights for teens here at the library. A couple of our fun, techno-savvy librarians have organized and hosted two very successful Guitar Hero nights here at the library. This is a great way to bring teens into the library.

Thing #14: Library Thing

I actually have worked with Library Thing before. I actually created an account months ago (pre-23 things) to access a co-worker's Library Thing storytime books page. This is a tool that can be VERY useful to librarians, as we are constantly creating and looking for booklists to help our patrons.

One of the features I love about Library Thing is that you can actually have a picture of the book cover on the screen- very helpful when you are trying to remember a storytime title (I often remember the cover and/or illustrations more than I remember the actual titles!) And a helpful tool for getting storytime theme ideas and/or remebering titles you've read before.

Thing #13: Online Productivity Tools

I set up an IGoogle start page. This could be very useful to have everything in one place- news headlines, weather, sports updates on my favorite baseball team, and gadgets such as the countdown clock could be helpful too (as I'm scrambling to get through my 23 things!)

I also set up an account with "Remember the Milk." This seems useful to me as well! The thing is, there are SO MANY of these tools out there! It's a bit overwhelming! I guess it's just a matter of finding out which ones work best for you and which ones are easiest for you to work with and actually make your life/work better.

Thing #12: Do You Digg?

As I look over the various social media sites, I'm starting to understand how these might be useful to librarians- it's a way to find out, quickly, what the "buzz" is on various topics- so that we might be better prepared to know the latest issues/news stories that our patrons are interested in. This is helpful because the amount of news and info available online is overwhelming. I often want to know what people are talking about/ interested in NOW- and these social media sites are a way to see what people are interested in NOW.

I set up a Digg account and shared a New York Times article about Federer winning the U.S. Open. It was very easy to do.

Thing #11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

After setting up an account with Del.icio.us, I can see the potential usefulness of using tools like this- instead of the bookmarking on my browser. The use of tags makes this VERY useful- especially for us librarians!So far, I have added a few sites with book discussion guides (for when we do book club kit selection each year). But I though of another way to use Del.icio.us that would be useful: the other day, I was helping a patron find consumer information on central air conditioners. I remember doing this same search for other patrons, and then for myself also when I was faced with selecting an air conditioner and furnace for my home. I remember NOT finding much consumer info/ ratings in magazine articles. But I did find several websites were helpful- and I wish now that I had written these down! Now I can simply tag these sites and refer to del.icio.us when this comes up again. One of many potential applications.

Thing #10: Collaboration: Wikis

I recently did a bit of research on wikis and presented a brief introduction to wikis at one of our monthly reference workshops, so I've been learning about and exploring wikis over the summer.

At first, I had NO idea what a wiki was! I viewed the Common Craft video "Wikis in Plain English" on Youtube and found that very helpful in getting a grasp of what wikis are. I explored several wikis, such as ALA's Every Child Ready to Read wiki, Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, and Megalibrarian (I found several good storytime and craft ideas in this wiki).

Finally, I actually CREATED my own simple wiki on Wikispaces.com, so that I could actually show the other librarians I was presenting to- how to create, edit or add to a wiki. I thought it might be useful to make a wiki where the librarians doing storytime at our branch could collaborate on/ get ideas about various themes and titles to read. I thought a wiki would be more practical than all of us e-mailing and copying eachother on e-mail, etc. I created a simple wiki using a table format with theme at the top and then title ideas for that theme in the lines below.

Thing #9: Collaboration: Zoho vs. Google Docs

I tried Zoho out- editing the Declaration of Independence document. (I haven't been able to successfully get into Google Docs). I honestly don't really know how we would ever use this here at the library. To me, it just seems easier to send e-mail attachments. But then, it may just be the nature of our work- in other professions, such as book editing or advertising, these collaboration tools might be very useful.

Thing #8: My Creation from Picture Trail

Thing #8: Experimenting with Picture Trail

I chose Picture Trail to experiment with for this "Thing 8: Share Your Creations." I found Picture Trail very easy to use- very user friendly for beginners like me. It was easy to upload photos and to play with the different ways to display my photos. I chose the "cube" style.What uses might this have for personal or library use? I think the possibilities are endless. Big Huge Labs, for example, offers posters, trading cards, and other features that especially our younger patrons would love. I was reading how other librarians have used the trading cards to motivate young readers. Lazybase (or other tools like this) could be useful to librarians- where other librarians have access (or can edit also) to a list of books, for example. That might be something we could create for our reference librarians in our librarian system- to help us in reader's advisory, for example.

Thing # 7.4: Web Conferencing

It was interesting to listen to Tom Peters talk about the use of web-conferencing by librarians and in libraries. He pointed out that basically this is a way for people to meet online in lieu of an "in-person" meeting. Libraries can use web-conferencing for meetings, workshops and even for public programming for patrons. This is an interesting idea: providing mini "webinars" for patrons interested in learning to use various library services and/or resources. I can see that being a well-used service in our busy metropolitan branch, with our patrons being very computer-savvy and interested in learning to use our databases, MNLINK database for ILL requests, and other resources. Web-conferencing and workshops might be a good way to meet the needs of our home-bound patrons who want to participate in our programs, but have difficulty getting to the library.

Thing #7.3: Text Messaging (SMS—Short Message Service)

I've often asked friends and family who are avid texters, "why text?" I never really understood what the advantages were to texting (over e-mail or even phoning!) After reading the material in this section, I have a better understanding of what texting, or SMS is. I can see that it is a more private, less disruptive and less time-consuming than a phone call and a more efficient, to the point way of communicating.

The article on using SMS in libraries was interesting to me. I think it's a great idea that patrons would have the option to be notified that their items are in - via texting. Also, providing reference services via texting is a great idea. Again, it might be a challenge to come up with enough staff to provide these services like SMS reference and IM. But with the rise in texting (and perhaps the fading away of traditional e-mail), we librarians will need to be open to meeting the needs of customers who prefer to communicate with us in these newer ways.

Thing #7.2.c Setting up an AIM Account

I just set up an AIM account with AOL. I tried it out with my tech-savvy niece and it was fun! I am looking forward to trying it out with my co-workers when they set up their instant messaging accounts.

The one aspect about IM that is strange to me is it's "live-ness" - it's like a real conversation. When I think about what it would be like doing the IM reference I've read about in this "thing", the nature of it would be more like a face-to-face reference interview. Definitely different than e-mail reference.

Thing #7: Commincation Tools

The e-mail productivity tips were helpful. I see now that I probably do spend way too much time on e-mail - composing longer responses when I could respond in a shorter, more-to-the-point reply.




Instant messaging- this is something I see my kids/nieces do all of the time. I didn't see how we would have the need to incorporate this into our librarian workday, (as other communication tools seem more practical for us)- until I read the Library Journal article "IM Me". Some libraries are using IM Reference- a sped-up version of e-mail reference. It seems to me that you would have to have a librarian assigned to IM reference at all times, in order to catch all the IM requests in a timely manner and respond "live." Our library branch responded to e-mail reference questions for years (now another branch handles it) and so I can see how this could be incorporated, if we had enough staff. I also found it interesting that some library systems are using IM as a main way of communicating between librarians (instead of/in addition to phone calls and e-mail).




It is good to be aware of how instant messaging works, because many (most) of our young patrons who come in to use the internet use this. This may be the form of communication that these young users will prefer to have with us in the future, as they become adults. Something to think about.

Success!

With the help of my 19-year-old niece, I finally successfully imported a slideshow of my photos from Splashr to my blog!!! (Click on "My Presentation" below). I'm so excited! In the process of trying to figure all this out, I found out that there are tons of "gadgets" to add to my blog and I'm looking forward to finding out more about them.

Vik

My Presentation

Thing #6: Online Image Generator

My creation
Originally uploaded by lizzygonzalez1

My Creation!

I'm on to working on Thing # 6 and I have successfully "Hockneyized" one of my photos (while working on Big Huge Labs). While looking at Big Huge Labs (an online image generator), I played around with other features such as Warholizer, mosaic maker and trading card maker. I created a trading card of my son-very cool! I can see the potential for using these tools for special effects on a library webpage and/or the library's facebook or myspace accounts. The images created on Big Huge Labs could also be printed out and used for displays and bulliten boards in the library.

Thing #5 : More Flickr Fun: Using Splashr!

I actually had fun with this "Thing". I chose to experiment with Splashr, one of the Flickr "mashups." I can see how this tool could be used as a fun and creative way to display photos of library events on the library's website, Facebook or MySpace account. I experimented with my own pictures of a recent family reunion. I played around with the different options on Splashr and chose the "desktop" display for the photos. Having a little difficulty uploading it to my blog. But I should be able to figure it out. I've decided to make a collage of family pictures on my home computer desktop, using Splashr. Very cool.

Thing #4: Flickr

After hearing my co-worker's fabulous presentation on Flickr at a staff meeting, I have the confidence to give this a whirl! I successfully created a Flickr account and imported a photo from Flickr to my blog. I can now see the benefits of using Flickr: it is a way to save photos online, without having to worry about losing them. This is much more efficient and safer than storing them in boxes at home or in your home computer.

Star the Magician at the Library

Star the Magician at the Library
Originally uploaded by lizzygonzalez1

Thing 3: RSS: Setting up Google Reader Account

I set up a Google Reader account. It is nice to have all my favorite sites (news, weather) as well as my new blogging buddies' blogsites all on the same page and notifying me only when there have been updates. This makes a lot of sense- as I'm not wasting time anymore going into everyone's blog to see if they've got something new. This is DEFINITELY something that I will use. I'm curious to see if I can somehow incorporate this into my MSN homepage at home?

Thing #2: What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?

Trying to grasp what Library 2.0 is!

As I'm reading the information on "thing #2", I'm starting to grasp what this library 2.0 thing is all about. It's kind-of an abstract concept (which explains why it's so hard for me to grasp it!) As I read Sarah Houghton's definition of Library 2.0, I see that our own library system is applying some of these ideas in our programming and services. She writes, “Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. " This includes offering Wii/Guitar Hero nights for teens as well as creating a MySpace and Facebook account for the library.

Working at one of the busiest libraries in the Twin Cities, I struggle to find time to work on the "25 Things." Stephen Abram's interview was interesting- describing his take on "library 2.0" and how to set aside even as little as 15 minutes a day to focus on this. I'm going to make this my goal: 15 minutes a day to focus on "25 Things."

I have to admit, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this thing!

Thing #1: Getting Started: First Blog

May 13, 2008



First blog posting. This is new terrritory for me, but I am looking forward to learning more about this blogging stuff.