Week 9 - Summary -
What a long, strange trip it's been...Actually what a long and interesting trip it's been. I must say that I had my doubts whether I was going to complete the 23 things on time. I knew I could do it and I wanted to challenge myself and I'm so glad I did. I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to participate in this learning experience. I most enjoyed the RSS & Newsreaders exercise. I had always wanted to understand what they were and how they worked and now I do. As far as a discovery, Flickr was a lot of fun and the Peanut Butter Wiki. I hope to continue with some of my new found knowledge and pursue these activities further. I love to learn about new technologies and when the opportunity presents itself, especially in a work setting I am all for it. This was an exciting and very rewarding experience that I feel has enriched my repertoire of skills and knowledge as a librarian. As far as improving the format, screen shots of tricky applications always help, which there were some, thank you. I liked the format and I think it worked well. It was very thorough. Yes, I would definitely participate in a discovery program like this again. Thank you!

Week 9 continued - NetLibrary - I established a NetLibrary account which was fairly easy. Searching the database was kind of clunky. Not the most sophisticated search capabilities I've ever seen. I like the fact that it had 'similar items' listed as well as an audio preview. Although there were some subject headings, I was hoping there would be a brief written summary of the book or perhaps a review. I couldn't seem to find one. The alphabetical list of subject headings could have been a little more descriptive. To have a category entitled 'Nonfiction' with 70 titles lumped in there is quite time consuming to have to look through. As long as NetLibrary has been around now I would have thought their searching capabilities would have been better than they are. It's a good thing there's only 1300 some titles to search. I am looking forward to hopefully having a MP3 player to download an ebook to.

Week 9 continued - Podcasts -I tried Podcast Alley and subscribed to LibVibe: Library News. I also tried searching Podcast.net. I preferred Podcast Alley over the other but both produced more podcasts than I could ever listen to in a lifetime. Each one had a different way of searching and both had its advantages and disadvantages. I think the idea of podcasts are very useful and the length of the podcasts are such that they can hold and impart a good amount of information.

Week 9 - Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio
I've been checking out YouTube. It's amusing but the clips are somewhat short. One has to wonder how much you can really get out of them. Although I don't think most people are using this as a forum to impart an important message. A lot of strange stuff indeed. I had to play around with the key words in order to retrieve a decent video on libraries. I can imagine if you're trying to reach the user, one could argue for and against this as a medium. Pro: a lot of people view it, maybe they'll stumble upon your library info. Con: is the quality/time worth it? I chose the video I did because I think it would be pretty nice to have an automatic book sorter at the Main Library. I suppose the Library could use YouTube to get some message across. The message would have to be suitable and suited for the medium.

Week 8 - continued - I checked out Last FM just to see what this was about. Interesting site. You can set up an account for yourself or just search it. I searched for several different musicians and bands. It gives you a brif bio on the musician and an image, a link to similar artists, tags, recent posts regarding the artist/band, a discography etc. You can then look at their fans and see who else is listening to them and what other music their fans are listening to. And also who their friends are and their musical interests. It's truly a web in that sense. I could see how it could be useful in a library setting if say a customer said they liked a particular artist, can you recommend someone similar, it might help. Although I don't know how reliable it is as a source. It did have great graphics and album covers. So yes, it could probably answer some questions. I'm not sure how the library would use it unless we entered our titles and tried to make it like a finding tool for customers.

Week 6 continued - I enjoyed Rick Anderson's perspective because I think what he said really rings true. Libraries no longer have a corner on the information market and we have been losing it for quite some time. We now have to position ourselves in a place where our user wants us to be, not where we are comfortable being. We need to venture out into our virtual libraries and bring people into our space. To me Library 2.0 means a lot of things; I think of books no longer sitting on the shelf waiting to be used, the buildings will still be there but they will be a place for people to use computers to access information more than anything. Librarians will spend more time online with virtual customers. They will also create more content online and our users will be more collaborative with us in creating content. There will definitely be more input from the user. Librarians may be able to do a lot more work from home, provided they have a really fast connection. :)

Week 6 - Technorati I searched Learning 2.0 in Blog Posts and in Blog Directory and yes the results were different. Searching in the Posts produced a list of posts which seemed to give an excerpt of a post although I didn't see any tags. Whereas the Blog Directory had the tags listed on each post shown on the initial list. I looked at the Popular, the top searches and tags and was not impressed. It smacked of the kind of stuff you find on the internet, voyeuristic strange folk posting strange commentaries. Not "popular" in my opinion. I did claim my blog although have not created a watchlist as of yet.

Technorati Post
Technorati Profile

Week 6 - Tagging, Folksonomies & TechnoratiI found Del.icio.us to be kind of confusing. I understand the concept behind it but I think I'm having trouble searching it, maybe because I was doing on my computer at home which was acting a little strange. I will have to try it at work. I did look at the PLCMC2 account and checked out some of the links. I think if I choose to really explore this further I would need to go back to the Us.ef.ulsite and spend a good hour or two playing around with it. Time is always of the essence. But I do see the potential and the usefulness for it as yet another research tool. Certainly, this is one way of accessing information on the Internet beyond the reach of traditional search engines.

Week 8 - Online Applications & Tools Ok, so I tried a couple of test documents in Zoho Writer. Not bad for free software. It seemed to have every function I could possibly want to use or need to use. I tried many of the functions and even created a table. I was quite easy. I think it's pretty useful especially say for libraries or people who could not afford these types of application software but yet could afford Internet access. I tried to publish it to my blog but because I'm using the Beta Blogger version I'm not sure it worked. Oh well...

Week 7 Sandbox Wiki - continued - I thoroughly enjoyed the Peanut Butter Wiki. I am looking forward to setting up a site for my family reunion. I added my blog to the list. For some reason I wasn't doing it exactly right. It took me a few trys until I got it right. The functions within the wiki seems easy enough to use. I think I could manage to produce a decent web page using this tool. I am looking forward to experimenting with it.

Week 7 - Wikis - I really enjoyed reading the Discovery Resources on wikis especially the ones about libraries. I had a vague notion about what wiki's were but not to the extent of them actually being like your own web page. I love the fact that it levels the playing field and that anybody can create a "web page." It is somewhat of an analogy for what the library does for customers in offering free internet access. I think libraries can make use of the community input aspect. That is sometimes the hardest thing to obtain but the one thing we really need to know. Also acting as the community hub is a great idea, kind of like the community referral file of long ago. It would really give you the inside scoop into your community. Call it "Community Confidential."

Week 5 continued

Rollyo - another cool tool indeed. Yes I could see how this could come in handy especially if you were setting up your own web page, it would make it really easy to set up a search function on your site. My Searchroll was news oriented. I tested it out and it worked fairly well. I like the fact that you can update and manage your searchroll when you want to.

Week 5 - online image generators

This was a fun exercise. I checked out GeneratorBlog. I tried a few, namely the Ya-Ya Name Generator. You may now call me Empress Green Thumb. I made a virtual ice cream cone with Cybercones and played with quite a few others. It's amuzing to think someone has taken the time to come up with such nonsense. I had tried FDToys in a past exercise as well as CoolText.

Week 5 - Play Week

LibraryThing was quite interesting. I really enjoyed seeing my collection and seeing others who had similar reading tastes as mine. As with all these applications I've learned so far I wish I had the time to really get into it. This one could really be a fun thing to maintain.

Week 4 continued

I looked at Syndic8, Technorati, Topix.net and Feedster. I subscribed to Librarian.net from Syndic8 and Tame the Web from Technorati. Each site had their strengths and weaknesses although I think I prefer Technorati. After viewing all these it starts to feel really mind boggling when you realize how much information is being transmitted back and forth. Yikes.

Week 4 - RSS & Newsreaders

This was definitely the most challenging exercise so far. I enjoyed exploring Bloglines. I got a little carried away and subscribed to 18 newsfeeds and I know I could have subscribed to more, time permitting, but it never does. I know I'll want to go back and spend more time on this one and research more topics. I am a bit of a news junkie but I do more scanning than in-depth reading so RSS feeds suit me just fine. I am really happy to know what they are and how they work, especially because you see them everywhere. But I won't lie, I'm glad to be moving on to the next exercise. As always, it's good to be in the know.

Stairway to heaven