Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Yum -- I mean del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is by far the most useful tool we have discovered. With only MLIS my research project left to go, web research can be easily be aggregated in one place with del.icio.us, helping with my bibliography. Just as easily, I can see using it for work – creating a “work” tag so I can quickly sort my del.icio.us list.

Personally, of the Web 2.0 things we have tried, del.icio.us ranks in my top 3 so far, and way above the RRS aggregator (which I have not really check on since I created my account).

I did set up del.icio.us account (I’m sopranolibrarian, of course!) and my interest was with making connections. For example, I did a search for Girl Scouts and found a host of resources I’ve not yet discovered myself. Many items were posted by leslies_junk, so I went directly to view her (?) bookmarks and found several sites of interest for ideas for my troop. I can see opening an account for our troop leaders for additional resources. The possibilities are only bound by my own limitations :)

Friday, September 26, 2008

Tweet Tweet

This week I opened my Twitter account; I’m soplibrarian, if you want to check me out. Twitter, for me, is slow to start. Unless you are bold or have a community out there, you have to take time to build your connections. I’m just now beginning to enjoy seeing what everyone else is doing. Since I don’t have Twitter connected to my phone (which I prefer), I think the more immediate connections are lost on me.

I searched twitter for the TV show I was watching at the time (The Mentalist) and found several people that liked it as much as I did. I searched for Girl Scouts, but I didn’t find anything that led me to other Girl Scout leaders, which is who I really wanted to connect with. I did find my undergrad, Allegheny College, has a Twitter account.

I searched for libraries on Twitter and found quite a few. Libraries are using Twitter for book discussion groups, immediate reference, updates on events, meetings and services. At the LPI Library in Houston, several Twitter posts were about the library’s status with power. It was just another venue to reach out to patrons.

I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of Twitter – maybe because my followers and following are not extensive. I also am looking for ways to disconnect some evenings when I’m at home. Some days we are so connected, I come home and want to get rid of all technology. I think it’s a useful tool to get quick hits on topics of interest and expanding networks.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Library Thing

I learned about LibraryThing this weekend and fell in love. I put some of my favorite books in my booklist and checked out several of the discussion groups. I read some of the posts from Librarians who LibraryThing and the Historical Romance group, my favorite post being "What time period are you in now?" That was fun discussion.

LibraryThing reminds me a little of BookCrossing which is another booklovers discussion site for specifically for the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise and tracking it. There are discussion groups there as well.

For my Readers' Advisory class about a few years ago, we had to make a personal reading list. I've been trying to keep it current, now that I can read fiction again (which you can't do when textbooks are your life). So, everytime I run through the Main Circulation area of my library and I notice a title or I'm browsing on Amazon, I have a better place to put my reading wish list (and I can share it with family for gift ideas).

So many books, so little time....

Friday, September 19, 2008

Image Generators


Image generation has so far been my favorite Learn & Play activities. I am a visual learner, activities such as these are how I prefer to learn. I tried all the suggested image generators and I could have played all day! However, my other responsibilities have surfaced -- LOL. I'm sure the image generators suggested are the tip of the iceberg, but what a great place to begin.

I used the Generator Blog and found Glowtext to make my new header on my blog. Cool eh? I also found Superstickies which I want to come back to and explore more. I think I really liked the Generator Blog best, because it aggregates lots of fun thing in one place.

I used Letter James to create this photo for my daughter using her soccer jersey number (above).
Now if I can locate a tag line creator, I would be a happy happy soprano librarian.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

RSS Part II -- Care & Feeding

This week, in spite of the electrical challenges (remind me not to choose to live in a hurricane zone), I did explore ways to feed my bloglines account. As suggested, I have played with the search feature in Bloglines, I checked out Topix, Syndic8.com and Technorati. It was easy to lose part of a day in these sites, one thing can really lead to another.

Out of all, I liked Technorati best, because it was more human interest-y. I found more blogs of interest there and found myself wanting to make comments (aka connections) with folks sharing the same interests (parenting, travel, food).

Topix was good if you need to get your news up to the minute and over the net. I don't. However, just the home page was a good place to visit for aggregated new stories, including really unusual headlines from around the world.

Syndica8 .com I found to be cluttered and really community driven, almost too much for my comfort. I also didn't like the look and feel of the site. I also didn't quite understand how the site functioned and in the fast pace of my work, I didn't have time to try to figure it out. Sad, I know.

The past two "things" have made me more aware of the online community and how to feed my bloglines account (which I confess to neglecting, it may whither and die at some point). I did learn to have my bloglines account open when I am exploring.

And when I find something like Cakewrecks (thanks to Blogger's scrolling blogs), I have a place to store it and access it wherever I may roam.

Monday, September 8, 2008

RSS

This week, I played and learned about RSS and newsreaders. It's a really great concept if you are a person who visits the same web sites looking for new information routinely. I worked on this at home over the weekend, and my IE browser has this feature as well, under Favorites. I haven't been able to explore the difference yet. I set up my bloglines at www.bloglines.com/public/sopranolibrarian. I added the three required, except I don't like Unshelved, so I chose Dilbert instead. I also added a few more blogs from the top 1000 at Bloglines. Check them out.

I don't know that I'll use this particular technology in either my work or my personal life. The majority of the web sites I routinely use don't have RSS feeds. Bloglines was kind of difficult to figure out and I am having trouble making my blog and Bloglines talk to each other.

I can see libraries taking advantage of this technology, particulary in the reference area or in a reader's advisory capacity. Libraries can receive RSS feeds for reference updates and new books from publishers. They can subcribe to the New York Times Bestseller List and can pass that along to patrons or allow patrons to connect to RSS feeds based on new materials in specific interest groups.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Building Technology Bridges

This week I can write about any technology I want and I'm struck by technology bridges.

I came from vinyl 33.3 and 45 rpms. I still have them. My first car had an 8-track player in it and I owned Billy Joel's Glass Houses on 8-track. I copied all my albums onto cassettes to make them portable in my Walkman wannabe and for in my later car. Last year I purchased a car with only a CD player, so all my favorite road trip cassettes are history.

In 2007, the CD turned 25 and earlier this summer there was an announcement that MTV turned 25, both things I remember with clarity. We moved from Walkmans to iPods in the blink of an eye and now my CDs are only good for moving music to my MP3 player. I missed the boat on downloading music because I wasn't technologically ready and then the RIAA began prosecuting.

My husband and I were perusing our local Best Buy and I noticed the newest trend in purchasing music -- purchase a card with a code to download the album from iTunes. Great gift giving idea! I mentioned that I saw this as the beginning of the end of the CD, to which I was told NO WAY! It's much cheaper to subcribe to iTunes and download albums than pay for that card. Besides, too many people use CDs for file storage, they'll never go away. Bells went off -- haven't we heard this arguement before? Can anyone besidse me see this will be the technology we will use to bridge an older generations to the latest way of acquiring music?"

For that matter, aren't libraries and librarians are bridges between the old and new technologies, making information available to all? Aren't we participating in Learn & Play so that we can better meet the needs and expectations of our patrons? Aren't we connecting family, friends and coworkers with our blogs and other Learn & Play activities? We are a bridge, a human connection between generations and technologies. Way cool!

PS: I've been trying to find the first pop album printed only on CD -- I think it was Roxette. I can find the titles of albums first printed on CD (Dire Straits and Billy Joel), but they were also pressed to vinyl (I have Glass Houses on vinyl too). Let me know if you know.