Thing 23 Culmination

When Central Library re-opened there was an opening for the BTC. I can remember David Anasco, Liz and I talking together about what this position entailed and David saying that I was not qualified to do the job. I guess Liz had other ideas, or more probably no one else showed an interest because I became a member of the BTC. Why did I volunteer? Because I realized that I would be one of the first staff members to receive hands on tech training . I was just really curious and a bit scared about all the "tech stuff" coming down the pike, but also knew that I had really good teachers in my fellow staff like Beth, Chuck and Ruth.
So along came 23 Things. When I first learned about it via a note to the BTC, there wasn't an option to "opt out" and I am really glad that I took on the challenge. There were so many different expressions of awe and wonder and yep a bit of cursing, too when something I was trying to do didn't work or I couldn't make something work. My non-techie mind was often overwhelmed, because along with 23 Things, came Ubuntu and DeskNow. This was such a tremendous learning experience. A true adventure into an unknown world. Yes, I want to go back to some of the sites that made me mutter under my breath like Rollyo and see if I can figure out what went wrong. I hope to do just that. There were a couple of negatives. One was the need to create so many accounts. It's a good thing that I was able to use the same username and password for all the different accounts. The other negative was the lack of time to do these exercises during my working hours. I really value my time at home with my family and was peeved at having to use some of my leisure time at home to do work-related activities. So, if there is more of this type of exploration in the future and I hope there is, then I also hope that staff will have time built into the work schedule to explore.

Thing 22 Overdrive

The tutorial was very helpful. I have been an avid books on tape "reader". I am usually listening to something, generally fiction, while getting dressed in the morning, or cooking meals for the week on Sunday, or just cleaning and putzing around the house. I listen to nonfiction in my car. My favorite narrator is Jim Dale...he is amazing. I listened to all of the Harry Potter books and enjoyed all of JD's distinct voices.
Customers who have used Overdrive have said that it is pretty easy to use once the necessary software has been installed. So I will need to figure out how to use my new MP3 player and away we'll go.
Project Gutenberg has been around a long time. However, if someone was looking for "run of the mill fiction", this is probably not the place to look. This is a good referral for the student looking for reading material when all copies of a title are checked out. It is not as user-friendly as Overdrive and could use a how to get started page. Maybe I missed it.

Thing 19 Web 2.0 awards list

What fun. I enjoyed "one sentence.org", even if it was not particularly useful, just fun and clever. One Sentence is an experiment in brevity. This is about telling the most interesting or poignant story possible in the least amount of words. Anyone who has done any writing at all has written down a thought in one sentence, without even giving it a thought!
Then I stumbled upon eventful.com. In the search boxes you can plug in a geographic location. I used Columbia, Maryland, then select an event topic of interest such as books, poetry and literature, next type in a date range. It can be a particular date. I typed in December 2007. The site then shows all the events that meet the selected parameters.
Events in D.C. and Virginia were featured as well.
I am on the programming committee and added an author booktalk and signing presentation that is coming up in December.

MERLIN Podcasting

Thing 21
Kankakee Public Library
This library provided a generous list of postcasts available for downloading as streaming media
I listened to Barbara D'Amato's mystery writers talk and it was quite entertaining. It is not so often that I get the opportunity to actually hear an author speak about their work, so I was particularly pleased to find library podcasts that would allow me to have more of these experiences.

Week 9 You Tube

Thing 20 You Tube! Very dangerous! So much fun. No wonder companies are nixing this site at work. I clicked on videos, typed in Italian greyhounds and an hour later I was still surfing. People can get hooked on this kind of site. I can see why. Loved the experience. Free time however, is a real issue.

Week 8 ZohoWriter

Thing 18
I had discovered Zoho some years ago when the library was going from microsoft to open source and we were experiencing problems with our word processors. Students needed to type up their documents and Zoho allowed them to do just that. Type it up, print it up and go. Saving the document was another issue since students needed to purchase diskettes and many did not come equipped to pay for them.
Googledocs seems similar..easy to use
Good to know about both of these

Week 7 Wikis

I enjoyed playing in the sandbox. There was so much to look at.
Adding my own book review was fairly easy.
I was impressed by the way wikis were implemented in library settings. The ones I viewed were informative, colorful, and well structured.
I have reservations when a wiki is available to one and all because I question the reliability of the information. I am thinking of the well-viewed Wikipedia and have been impressed with the wealth of knowledge and ease of the hyperlinks, but would not recommend it as a source to a customer.