Happy Holidays!

Amazing what you can find just driving around and listening to the radio. I heard an OnStar ad where the driver and kids are looking for the North Pole. I also heard this group, Straight No Chaser. I found some of their videos on You Tube, which are really enjoyable. I've embedded their "12 Days of Christmas" as my musical holiday greetings to all.



Happy Holidays!

10 Random Things -- a superscript

Our Digital Strategies Director at CML issued this challenge: Why not blog ten random things about you and twitter me the link and that way I (& others) could also get to know you better.

So on my long drive over the river and through the woods, I compiled 10 random things about me:

1. I love traveling. My parents took our family camping for vacation every summer growing up along the east coast. As an adult, I’ve been to Colorado, Florida, Boston, Nashville, Italy (Florence was my favorite city) and London, England and my next destination is either Ireland, Scotland or Austria.
2. Lacy J. Dalton (country singer) is a distant cousin, although I have never met her. At family reunions, I have seen the branch of the family tree which connects us.
3. I had a déjà vu experience as teenager at Harpers Ferry, VA. I leaned on a table in a building which had been used as a surgeon’s table and I could hear sounds and smell the surgery. To this day I pay attention to how I feel when I visit places and I feel most at home when I visit historic sites in Virginia.
4. I survived Three Mile Island; I was a freshman at high school and spent mornings at another school to ease overcrowding. We were about 5 miles from the nuclear plant during the emergency and school officials exiled us unsupervised to the auditorium.
5. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger received an honorary degree from Allegheny College at my graduation in 1986.
6. I love to play Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit.
7. My parents opened their homes to exchange students during the summer and hosted an end of summer party for the exchange students in the area. At one time we had about 25 nationalities sitting in my back yard singing songs. Our family hosted students from Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and Iraq. I’m still in contact with my friend from Iraq; she now lives in Canada.
8. I really like to cook, particularly for a special event. At the holidays, I make biscotti for family and friends who drop in for a visit.
9. My high school chamber choir competed at the Worlds Fair in 1982 in Nashville, TN and we performed in front of the Grand Ole Opry (the new one) at Opryland.
10. I read historical romance novels. My favorite author is Diana Gabaldon, writer of the Outlander Series, a time travel romance series taking place in the 18th century. The most moving line in her series of books (and I paraphrase badly): “If ever there comes a time when we are parted and I fail to tell you I love you, it will be because I didn’t have time.”

Hope your Thanksgiving was full of turkey and things to be thankful for.

A journey, not a destination...

This week, my final exercise for CML’s Learn & Play is to reflect upon my learning journey. While I really started this program to get the USB stick (and maybe one of the other cool prizes), I’ve learned new things and stepped outside my comfort zone. And I finished, which is a personal goal. Here's some additional reflections:

What were my favorite discoveries on this learning journey?
Flickr and its toys -- for fun
Delicious -- for work
You Tube -- to interact on common ground with my tween
My colleagues

Were there any take-aways from this program that surprised you?
I really enjoyed reading others blogs and getting to know them; finding connections with coworkers. While I wanted to make connections, I have really enjoyed finding the nuggets that have opened avenues of communication at meetings, expanding my capacity. Also, having the freedom to try new things in an environment which encouraged me to learn was really refreshing (thanks boss!)

What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?
I think we all learned that not every activity took 15 - 20 minutes, so allotting more some extra time is good. Not everyone learns at the same pace. Also, sometimes I felt overwhelmed when 2 things popped up on the blog on Monday, instead of one. I was already behind and that psychological idea that now there were 2 more things instead of 1 could be discouraging.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you partipate?
ABSOLUTELY!

How has this program assisted/affected your lifelong learning goals?
In addition to the USB stick, I've got new tools at my disposal and I've broadened my horizons about those tools. I keep thinking of ways to use them.

I am disappointed that my dad hasn't been able to participate as we planned, but when I see him over the holidays, I will share some of the cool things I've learned. We might even set up a modified Learn & Play. You're never too old to learn, if you're open to the possibilities.

Thanks CML for this opportunity.

MOLDI, but not an oldie

This week I played around with MOLDI, the Mid-Ohio Library Digital Initiative. If you don't have a library card through a member library, I think you are only able to browse. I’ve looked around this resource before, but no so intently. The searching was a little awkward and I’m frustrated that newer items are nearly always checked out.

This time, I reserved Inkheart in an audiobook format. Since the movie’s coming out soon, I thought I could listen to the book and maybe even get my daughter to listen. I was disappointed that it didn’t show up on my CML account reserve list to check on it, but then I remembered MOLDI has its own log in. I just checked on it and it’s not in yet. I’m excited to try something new.

I’m not a huge fan of audiobooks. Slowly, I’m being converted. I’ve spent so long reading textbooks, I’m enjoying re-discovering pleasure reading again and I’m like a junkie! I do like reading the physical book in the evening and listening to a chapter or two in the car. I’ve learned I have to be careful during my commute because I get distracted and run red lights. Sometimes, my reading choices are not always suitable for tween ears in the car. So many books, so little time. I will remember MOLDI as an additional option when I’m looking for titles.

Thing #21: Podcasts

I was looking forward to learning about and play with podcasts for purely selfish reasons – I hoped to find podcasts related to fitness walking. I did look through the podcast directories, since I don’t have iTunes, and I found podcastalley to be a little more organized in it’s layout. However, on both podcastalley and podfeed, the user has to wade through a lot of drivel. Additionally, the search is pretty basic and I couldn’t find any way to refine my searches. I was successful in finding a library-related feed: http://sirsidynixinstitute.com/podcast.xml and I found several that provided me music for my 1 mile walks. I added all these to my Bloglines account.

What would be really useful podcasting for CML is the obvious -- putting children’s storytime in a podcast; (although there might be some copyright issues with that), book review groups, or keeping patrons updated on the many events in the system. More specifically, we could make some of CML’s classes for customers available in podcast form, so they can come to the "library" on their time, not just when we say.

I just discovered Thing 1 (my husband) has an iTunes account; I’ll be looking for more podcasts there.

Podcasts: 2 music notes.

Not 23 but Thing 1 & Thing 2

Just taking a moment to share our scary Halloween party photo, since it fit into the theme of the blog...

You too can You Tube!

When I saw this Learn & Play exercise, I knew exactly which video I wanted to share with my CML collegues: The Fredricksen Library Book Cart Drill Team. This is my mom's library (and the one from my childhood). What I didn't know is that they had a new video posted in August. I give them kudos for their creativity.



What I like about You Tube is that you can find videos of just about anything -- some good, some not so good. I liked that I could reach out and expand my network by connecting to the librarian who shared the drill team video. I opened a You Tube account just so I could send a message!

I didn't spend too much time on this exercise, since I knew the video I was looking for. I think I could spend another couple hours exploring You Tube.

I can see any features or components of You Tube that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites and we are already doing that in the Learn & Play blog. We can invite patrons to become part of our community by sharing their videos as well.

I was unable to get the entire embeddable code to copy and paste into my blog and I don't quite get why... if anyone can help me -- I'll also put a message on Twitter, since most of my Learn & Play associates are addicted to tweets. Once I figure it out, I'll post it. However, I've embedded the link above.