The End of the Oclwebthings Challenge: This is #23!

The last posting for Oclwebthings!

The Questions:

What was your favorite thing you learned about? Conversely, what did you like least about Web 2.0? What areas of Web 2.0 do you think the library should get more involved in? What Web 2.0 services have you shared with your friends and family?


Last question first, this is mostly too new for me, but I might try to convince some of the people I know to try Campfirenow. com (see Web 2.0 awards)

I have several favorites: First, Librarything-mostly for the discussion groups and shared libraries. I also learned about RSS feeds, which are keeping this current events fan happy. I consider it important for my job (at the least ) to keep up with a surface knowledge of current events. I really like the concept of tags and how useful they are. Because people think in different ways and might have different descriptors for classifying information . This after all, is one of the Web 2.0 concepts to make the Web work for communities of users.

I didn't have any least favorites, there are some things I learned about that I feel that I don't need personally or professionally, like Flickr or Technorati, but I'm glad to understand a little bit more about what is out there for web users.

I'm not sure what more we can learn about Web 2.0, but if the Oclwebthings have more to share, then I'm willing to learn more.

ListenNJ

I downloaded one of the "Always Available" titles : Catch Me if You Can by Frank W. Abagate, narrated by Barrett Whitener.

Sign up was easy.
I used the PC Plus at my branch, with the assumption that the software (Overdrive) was in there, but it wasn't. I had to start over again after my search and installed it with no problems. I lost my choice but was able to get it right back again. It's a forgiving system, when I realized that it was going to take a long time to download the whole book, I canceled and decided to start over, but I noticed that the first two parts were still there, and that was all I needed to hear at that point. I could have chosen before hand just to pick the first part. Live and Learn! I was able to skip parts and go back with ease. The narrator was clear and understandable.

For searching, I liked the "only show copies that are available" option, since there are limits on how many can go out, this can be a time saver for someone who won't have to waste time finding items they can't use. Another one: I know of patrons who look over the book carts to see what others have checked out, so the "recently returned" search feature would handy for them. I liked the search features in general and think that most users can use them easily.

PodCasts

I tried both Podcast.com, and Odeo.com. I don't know if it was my work computer or something happening at Podcast, but I couldn't get anything to play, except for one thing and when I went back to it, I couldn't find it again. Odeo was easier for me. I tried out the featured podcasts on the home page and they worked fine- this one for example:
Anaudajohn's "All Roads lead to Oneness" http://odeo.com/audio/19190023/view


I looked around a little in the subject searches and the search feature. I noticed that for some of them I got error messages and they wouldn't work, but others did. Sample:
Anime World Order's "The Synthesizer Has not Been Stolen Yet" http://odeo.com/audio/18305403/view

Youtube

I have used YouTube mostly for things like the trailer for The Fall (see below for the link) and things I saw in the newspaper or news reports "Cute Knut" for one. The Fall has a TV ad out now that I found interesting enough to try and find out more about the movie, so I am using YouTube as a tool to find out more, but I'll need other sources like a printed review before I decide whether or not to see this movie

Problems: I know that Youtube is still fighting Viacom (which they allude to in their history video). So, I'm not sure if it's OK to be viewing a big chunk of copyrighted material without the owners permission- and there are all kinds of TV shows both American and foreign showing up. I've seen it mentioned online that these are taken down when Youtube catches them, but then go back up again anyway! However, imo a few minutes here and there is fair use and can be great publicity to boot.

P.S. I've read recently that Knut is starting to be considered a has-been. . . how fleeting YouTube fame can be!

The Cute Knut:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zZLKb_5S21E

The Fall:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yQt0QjWHUjY

Web 2.0 Awards

Among the winners of "Communication", I saw something of interest to me: Campfirenow which bills itself as "like instant messaging but designed exclusively for groups". It's free and they give a tour to check it out to that someone can decide if they want to use them or not. I don't think that I need it for working with Ocl, but if I ever get into a professional committee which is out of the system; this will come in handy,I can use this for my personal contacts as well. Here's the link: http://www.campfirenow.com/

Just for fun I choose games and picked arcaplay.com because it's free and it's very easy to embed its games in my blog and share with friends. I took a peek ahead to the next Webthings challenge and decided I would to try and embed a game. Here is the link:
http://arcaplay.com/
Below is a sample game-enjoy!




Free Online Games brought to you by Arcaplay

Web Apps

I signed up for Zoho so that I can get a closer look at its features and was pretty impressed. I'm planning to use Zoho in the future. I love the tags so if I have a project that can be described in different ways, I can use that to help me or others find the document.
On to the question from Webthings:

How would you use the collaborative features of Google Docs or Zoho at your branch for a project? Is there a project currently that you're working on where Google Docs could help or save time?
As of now, I'm not doing the type of collaborations that require a document. I certainly feel that a committee that is working on a project that will be written like a collections list or a research effort will find this very helpful. For one thing, it was very easy to edit the document that was done by webthings in google. A committee or work group can work from anywhere in the system, instead of worrying about bringing along things like memory sticks or being at a computer that has the word document. Also, I didn't notice if Google had it, but Zoho had features that would allow users to communicate as well as work on documents- a feature that would save time as everything will be in one place.

Library 2.0

What does it mean to me?

After reading the suggested postings from Oclwebthings, I think that it means to be prepared to learn and to change with the times. I know that I can't learn everything, but I know what I do best and will strengthen those areas and know who and where can help me with the rest.

The readings:

The one I would like to blog about is "To better Bibliographic Services" this article is about metadata as if it were like a concept car-very cool and a great leap forward but not going be on the show floor anytime soon- because of funding I'm sure. I love the concept of expanded delivery and I already there is ILL within states without regard to county or town borders. It would be great that a class that has a project can look into school, public and academic libraries and book stores. Find libraries close to them, then request and get delivery with just a few clicks! Is Riemer's ideas just a wish list? I'm sure his suggestions can be done, it's just a matter of will, time and all library workers getting together to make their case to their tax payers to bring about these new ways to search for materials.

Wikis

My favorite wiki is wikihow.com "the how to manual that you can edit." There's all kinds of things in there, like crafts, home improvement and recipes.


Library Success
I looked here and there and found a mix of entries that included links to other sources.

I liked the discussion tab, there I saw people who explained the how, why and wheres of edits and organization that they did. On the day I took a look at it, there was a message that the site now required a real email address to register (only register people can edit).

This wiki can be a way to professionally grow, since you learn about what other libraries and librarians are doing, as well practicing your own skills as you bring information to the table by way of edits.



Ocean County- Wikipedia article

I looked at the edits and hadn't a clue on whether or not they were library staff. I think that whoever edited the posting about Lakewood and Beach Haven had to be some body who knew the history, it might be staff! Thanks to Oclwebthings, I did something with tabs, which I had never thought to do and I got interesting results in Library Success (see above)

Note on Wikipedia- I've used it personally, usually to find fun stuff, rather than serious matters.

Technorati

I looked around Technorati over several days before I posted and got different results for "Learning 2.0" today I got videos that looked like they would be useful and one blog. The top two in the list had nothing to do with what I was looking for. The other day, there was nothing in the top 5 or so that I thought I could use. Maybe it was the caps or lack of caps?
I went into the popular listings and didn't see many surprises, considering the type of user that I think would use Technorati-there was a lot of Internet related links there.
Then I did a search related to a reference question I did recently on the Pine Barrens. The top two were about a murder case, I found a wild ride Jeep video that was fun, but useless for my purposes. And a review of F. Paul Wilson's new book.
This could be used as a tool, but I think it can be time consuming- it looks to me that the latest blogs were on the top of the list. If I were doing serious research I might worry about the accuracy of the information, unless the blog was written and/or part of a website that is edited and the research can be verified in some way.

I played in the Sandbox

For postings: I think that we have information pretty well-covered in Oceannet and Open Cs. I think also that we only have so much time and most people will probably only have time to check our official work site. "computer tips" will find a good home there!

Edit: Bloomin' made a good point that I didn't consider:

This would be great for group projects, where people can add or edit and leave suggestions. Since one has to be invited to come in it will keep things together until ready for presentation. I'm sure that my focus group can use something like this.

del.icio.us

Way to go, Stafford!

I took a look at the Wikis by Common Craft bookmark. I then looked at "Sanjora" who recommended this for 2.0 bookmarking. I thought that this had to be a librarian's site and I was correct. Sanjora's tags included "2.0 ', "web2.0" and "library". I also saw one from "tseyb" who said that this video was good for teachers who wanted to learn about Wikis. Tseyb's had tags like 1st grade, 5th grade , along with flickr and other Internet tags.

After poking around a bit, I came to these conclusions:

After seeing Sanjora's and tseyb's bookmarks I can see how these are useful for professional and industry growth. I can share something that others may not know about and then in turn learn from others, since I can't find everything on my own. As Oclwebthings noted, this is a powerful tool and capable of truly expanding knowledge.
While I was looking at the tags for teachers, it occurred to me that we need to be prepared to help students and other customers when they come in asking for help with bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or at the very least know what they are asking about and find sources of information on the subject for them. I can see these social bookmarks have the potential to become an important tool for a lot of people.

Library Use: Stafford has already proven that we can use the web tools that young people are using today, as did Nashville Public. I couldn't spend a lot of time with the San Mato Library's bookmarks-they seemed to be a mix of library staff and public usage. This might be a bit confusing for the general public

NetLibrary and WorldCat

NetLibrary

Before this challenge, I did help a few patrons get their accounts and walked them through the searching, but did not use it myself. I did a little exploring under "etiquette" hoping to find my favorite bun-haired advisor, but no luck. I did find the Complete Idiot's Guide to Cultural Etiquette.
I scrolled down the table of contents and read a few pages. I'm not sure that I will use this myself a lot, if I find an nonfiction book that we don't have, I might like to use it. I prefer a old fashion codex myself for fictional reading. I would consider this another tool for information gathering, but if a patron wants to do reading for entertainment or information, then I can guide them through with more assurance.

WorldCat

I've used WorldCat for ILLs for the following reasons:

• Types of books that Amazon wouldn't have the info on, usually Out of Print, but one time I was able to find a local history book on a cemetery in New York.
• Speeding the process by finding locations for the staff in ILL (when patrons really needed a rush job)
• Just because I can!

OclWebthings Challenge

I picked a recent book that I read called Game Over by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. The closest library to have this title on 4/11 is Mount Laurel Public Library which is 40 miles away. I saw under the Subject tab that I can search for "similar items by subject". I don't remember using the advanced search, since I didn't need to in the past. I like how simple it is, the only fault I would find would that I think that Format should be on the top part of the page, rather than be down on the lower half. You don't see it at first, along with "publication date range", "audience" and "language". On second thought, I don't see why the page is divided like that, a person might think that the top half is all that there is. These search terms are important too. For instance , I might want a certain juvenile DVD in Spanish that had to be the one published in a certain time span . . .

LibraryThing

I'm here to report on my adventures in LibraryThing. I looked around a bit and experimented by editing, deleting, reviewing, tagging and commenting on entries. My library of 5 ranges from I, Robot by Asimov which goes back to late 50s to Game Over by Harrold-Eagles which was acquired by our system just a few weeks ago. Oddly enough, of them all I, Robot had the most at over 3,000, while Game Over only had 2 (it is brand new, after all, at least in America, I'm sure it was published in Britain a while back). I checked out the Librarians group and saw postings from over the world-WOW. There were postings from New Zealand, England, Germany and other countries.
Here is my posting:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=GenreTalker

Technology Blog

So far, I'm amazed and looking forward to future challenges of the Oclwebthings. My thoughts:

• I might become addicted to flickr if I ever get my own camera!
• The bloglines account is keeping me up-to-date from my favorite news sources. I'm really liking this.
• The blogs I've found through the challenge and the ones I found on my own before can be useful, but too often they are opinion pieces that can be mean, plain crazy or misrepresent the facts of the matter.

RSS Challenge Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I added the Asbury Park Press to my bloglines account during the previous challenge, so I did that part of this challenge already.

On to the questions:

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

Blogline's search tool was my favorite, just because it was right there and easy to use. For those not using Blogline, then I would recommend Technorati or Topix. I liked the tabs in both sites. I also liked that I could get a Florida newspaper for a patron and somebody else got the Press by giving Topix a Toms River location and we got the local news for both sites. Finding newsfeeds was pretty easy for me, since I'm interested in current events and know a lot of sites that can get me news information. I didn't really have the time to go looking for unusual sites, I just went with the tried and true. I did not like Syndic8 because I tried a subject keyword, and got a bunch of sites, one of which hadn't posted anything since around 2002.

Reflections

If I had known about RSS, I would had assumed that it wouldn't be very useful-can information bits equal knowledge? This is a question pundits have been raising for a while now. I understand now what they were talking about, it is possible never to see other things outside of a person's narrow interest. My own take is: there is a place for current and up-to-date information without slogging through unneeded information. I can see many uses-business, travel, keeping up with professional news are a few that come to mind. Newsfeeds are a tool, one of many that can help the life long learner.

RSS Challenge

When it came to the RSS challenge, I was a complete techo dinosaur! But I learned a few things, and am pleased with the results. Why didn't I do this sooner-well because I had no idea what to do with those little orange squares-thanks Oclwebthings committee!

So to answer the questions posed by oclwebthings:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

I like how easy it was to find and subscribe to bloglines and the various newsfeeds that I choose. First, Bloglines had a top fifty list for the day which included two librarian sites (were our people working on this today...I wonder) and some of my favorite news guys and magazines. So I picked those-about 16. Then I subscribed to the Asbury Park Press, the OCLWebthings Blog Feed and the Berkeley Branch calendar of events-all very easy once I knew how to handle it.

I can use this technology to keep up with current events that are important to me, and to my customers (book reviews, latest postings by LII, news that people are looking for information about). I can now help people who want to set up their own bloglines account.

Our library is already using RSS for our programs. Other uses could be for "Automatically Yours" lists, new videos, changes in library services and public policies.

Photo credit: I'm not sure which staff member at the Berkeley Branch took this photo of our local dinosaur.

Berkeley Branch's Circulation desk-Flickr r#2

Berkeley Branch's Circulation desk, originally uploaded by MarMarT1.

I had an interesting time with the library's camera. I assumed that since it was the same model as my old branch that I could handle it. However the first screen was very different and I had to get help in order to get the pictures transfered from my camera. Then I couldn't find my photos-for some unknown reason unlike the camera I used before, the pictures were in the middle of something like 300 photos, rather at the end. Well, it all worked out as you can see. This photo has the "oclwebthings" tag. The others I took have "Berkeleylibrary" tags as well as the "oclwebthings". I decided to make all my photos public, since I'm so proud of my branch! Flickr made getting this picture to this blog very easy. I had no troubles like others had, so I guess it pays to go into a challenge a little later.

Other pics can be found at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/25267487@N03/

A Hidden Jewel of Nature-Flickr

Lord V over in flickr has shown the beauty that is found in a dew drop. See what I mean:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lordv/1628832237/

Posting the Second Post-Practice Post

This is my second post and I'm working between jobs! If you like, see the title for my blog above-- it's a real word in another language. See if you can guess what it is . . .

Fun Fact from New York for New Yorkers by Liza M. Greene:

The angled top of the Citicorp Center building was meant to hold a solar collector that was never built-leaving a unique feature in the skyline of New York.

7 and 1/2 Life Long Learning Habits

Not too long ago I was introduced to the 7 and 1/2 Life Long Learning Habits.
For me the easiest of the group is number 4 "Have confidence in yourself as a competent and effective learner". I do believe in myself when it comes to learning for professional and personal reasons. For instance in the past three years or so, one of my hobbies led me to learn about another country, its history and bit of the language. I'm not at all afraid to go looking for knowlege and keep on looking until I find something, even if I have to ask someone else for help. ;-)

The hardest of the habits for me is number 6: "Use technology to your advantage" I don't keep up with the latest hardware and it's hard to find the time to learn all the newest ways to gain knowledge using technology.


citation:
Reed, Lori "The 7 and 1/2 Life Long Habits of Highly Sucessful Life Long Learners". http://www.plcmc.org/public/learning/player.html