Thursday, November 29, 2007

Under the Wire?


Though I am quite comfortable with technology, there were quite a number of "things" I hadn't explored much. Now I have. (...and I have plenty more to look forward to. I hope the 23 things blog stays up for a while) I tried a few things that I am not likely to adopt personally, but there were certainly others that I might use occasionally or more frequently. I will certainly play around more with various photo-sharing sites, especially since most of my family lives far away. I'll give LibraryThing (or one of the other similar sites) another fling. My blog will probably die, as I never have been able to keep up a diary. I intend to use Rollyo, RSS feeds and some online productivity tools (I'll probably go with the Google ones, if only because I have a Google account that I actually use). I'll continue to download audiobooks, especially when I am going on a trip (and I'll keep my eyes our for an e-book reader that can deal with DRM). I might use wikis for group projects (well, I will use them for 2 current projects and after that I might use them). All in all, this was a valuable project that was immensely educational. I would definitely participate in a similar program in the future.

Library 2.0

Library 2.0 essentially refers to moving in the direction of interactivity of library services. Libraries will be redefining themselves as they redefine services from the traditional model to an interactive, reciprocal relationship with our customers. The customers will presumably develop feelings of ownership, and .... change is constant.

[If customers feel empowered, have that feeling of ownership, are they still customers?]

I would like to think, as some do argue, that the ideals of Libraries 2.0 have been part of the public library ethos for a long time. It is true that only recently have we had some of the incredible tools available to us. It is also true that we have people in our profession who embrace change and constant reevaluation and we also have people for whom change is anathema and reevaluation is redundant.

Ultimately, we have to use our critical thinking skills and selection skills whether the issue is library policy or which technologies to adopt.

Craigslist

I have, in the course of 23 Things, already visited & played with several of the Web 2.0 award winners: Technorati, Bloglines, Library Thing, Wetpaint, PBwiki, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube. A few others I have been to before: Etsy, Picasa, Google maps, 43 Things, Craigslist…..

Although I have nosed around Craigslist from time to time, I haven’t actually used it myself. Not so my daughter. She has found all sorts of things, from places to live to a bicycle to … did she really find her husband there, too? She’s not telling.

Craigslist is searchable local classified advertisements [and forums] for hundreds of cities around the world. Craigslist says they are “community moderated and largely free.”

So if I want to look for a job, I can choose my location (Washington DC), find the “Jobs” heading, try to decide on a category …. or just do a search and limit by jobs. When I used “librarian” as my search term, I got 8 results. One of them was for a General Office Clerk. I probably won’t apply for that one.

Or I could take a look at what people are giving away, by looking under the "Free" heading.

Zoho Writer - Week 8, Thing 18

Here I am am Zoho Writer, an online productivity tool, or perhaps I should say toolbox. Once I had created an account, I was able to complete my sign-in, and here I am. There was a set of information and instructions as soon as I got there, but I decided to jump right in and create a document. I plan to see if I can post this directly to my blog.

This is pretty easy to use for someone familiar with WYSIWYG editors, and I think it would be great to be able to use this when I need a word processor when i am at my sister's house where word processing programs do not exist (but a computer with an internet connection does).
Look
I can insert
a table
right
into
my
document!

I can insert a picture, and even put in alternate text and resize.
Ve ge ta bles

*** I was able to post this directly to my blog from Zoho. ***

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Podcasts

Normally, I run across podcasts serendipitously. It never occurred to me that I would want to search for a podcast. For example, Knitpicks, an online knitting supply store (and catalog), does knitting-related podcasts periodically, and you can find them on their website. Book Expo and MLA had event-related podcasts this year. In fact Monica did one and Valerie did another. I contributed in my own small way by supplying the voice recorder for Valerie's and converting the sound file to an appropriate format.

Podcast.net has a directory-style listing of podcasts. You can drill down in the category listings, but you can also search by keyword and other criteria.

I looked at Hobbies & Recreation and found the listing (by newest to oldest, though you could re-sort alphabetically). Kind of overwhelming. But you can browse by initial letter, too, so maybe I’ll see if I can get to knitting. 19 podcasts were tagged with the word “knitting,” though another few were tagged with such tags as “knit,” “kniting,” “knitter,” “knitters,” “knitty.”

I decided to add a button to link to the Knitpicks podcasts. Here it is:


Technorati

I tried to look at the Technorati screencast, but it seemed to get stuck while downloading.
So I read the extensive birthday update at the bottom of the page.

I tried some searche
s.

First I searched for tarastotle. This is the name my daughter Tara uses for her blog and email. There were no results for tarastotle, but the blog tab did have one result: the right one.
When I did a search on “the other elizabeth,” there were zillions of results. Librarytoys, the name of my blog, was much more productive.


Interestingly, it says there are 2 blogs about librarytoys, even though there is just the one: mine. It shows my latest posts. How scary.

Of course, you don’t really want to search Technorati this way. If I want to get to Librarytoys or tarastotle, there are better ways.

I got results searching on the model name of my sewing machine, though. And searches on autoharp also brought up blog entries that mentioned autoharp.

I decided not to “claim” my blog or set up a watchlist. I see how it’s done, but … I did tag my Wiki Sandbox post with mdlearn2 and ping Technorati. When I did a search on mdlearn2 in technorati, I got only one result.
Was Erin in Carroll County the only other person to tag her blog?
Why didn’t my blog come up?
I had pinged Technorati, so it should have been aware of my blog, shouldn’t it?

PB Wiki: Playing in the Sandbox

  • I added my blog to the list a favorite blogs. I did not have to create an account to do this, but Idid have to enter my name & email address.
  • I added an entry to the Learning 2.0 sandbox.
I have added entries to other wikis at other times, so my entry was brief:

Favorite things?

Interestingly, I almost never think of things in terms of "favorites."

Here are some things I like:

  • Celtic knotwork designs
  • William Morris designs
  • Pecan Pie
  • Crabcakes
  • Reading
  • Making things
  • Computers


 
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