My thoughts on "Library 2.0"

For SPL, Library 2.0 has given staff the opportunity to learn new tools, and to interact with each other more than normal - in both fun and frustration. Which can be read in the blogs that are tracking the/our work. 2.0 has allowed staff who would normally not attempt this to expand their horizons and it has given them some new toys/tools to play with.

Learning about Library 2.0 has been both fun and frustrating. It's been fun to dip my toes into the technological wonders that are available out on the web, finding out how things work and what they stand for. I had a lot of fun using the image generators. It's been frustrating because some of them are real big time-eaters. You can lose yourself trying to find answers, as well as finding more questions and more places to explore. But hey, that's life! What follows is my interpretation and comments on two of the given articles from the exercise.

Article #1: "To a temporary time and place" byDr. Wendy Schultz

Dr. Schultz puts forth her ideas upon the directions (past & future) of the rolls of libraries . Firstly, she defines the role of the library's current incarnation - that they are communities. Then she uses the "chain of meaning" chart to compare and contrast the placement of the library in relation to of all things the evolution of coffee offered to the public: coffee beans, Maxwell House coffee, coffee sold at Dunkin Donuts, and finally the Starbucks experience.

Now, if I am judging her statements correctly, the library and 2.0 is right around the Maxwell House level. Everybody is giving their opinion and that opinion is being changed willy-nilly by anyone who cares to. The next level that we are supposed to be shooting towards (3.0) is the one where people using the web utilize it to pick up the information from a reliably great source that will tell them exactly what book or information to get that they would like. And the final stage, is where people come to enjoy the full experience (storage, data retrievel, and solicited commentory) of the library. Something that sounds almost like Star Trek's holo-deck.

It read to me like the library is an ever evolving constant that will allow people to return to the beginning. That the library will be a place to disconnect from the ever-busy and all-connected world, almost like an old-fashioned club. But I see that the library is pretty much at the edge of that step. The library is an experience where people have the option to gather to pick up information, where they gather to connect with friends in person or on-line and where they gather to learn and think over new ideas. We're just waiting for the technology to catch up.


Article #2: "To more powerful ways to cooperate" by Chip Nilges

It will be a nice tool to have, the ability to see what is available on WorldCat. What I read sounded almost like a concentrated search roll that will allow people to see if that required item is available in the world. Would the searcher then need to go to their libraries to send for the required material? Or would the searcher be able to directly request the material be sent to them or be viewed online? That question is never touched upon in the article.

Acquiring the "user intelligence" as an added bonus makes me shiver in my boots. Because I immediately started to think of Wikipedia and how anyone can change information on its pages. Will this added user intelligence be kept separate from the original entry and just seen as someone's blog-notes about the information? Or something not as nice? We shall see.

testing, 1, 2, 3, testing

Let's go right to the source.

http://rathergraphic.blogspot.com/

Link didn't work

Well, it looks like I need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to get that blasted link ready! Or maybe, I can just get the picture to appear here. Hmmm...decisions, decisions.

Technorati - popular blog...

Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?
Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.

Well, my first question was "what makes a blog popular". I found the answer as soon as I clicked "Top Favored Blogs" tab. According to which popular blogs become listed as popular when "... measured by the number of people who have made them a Favorite.". And then you are given the option to start a favorites list.

Hmmm, I wonder if this means that first you would of had to have heard of Technorati to make a favorites list that they can then sift thru to see which blog was pinged the most. Or do they use other methods?

My next thought was what do they mean when they use the word authority, followed by numbers. Alas, no easy answers and I am not that curious about it.

I clicked around on the movies and news tabs to see what was on the lists. People link to a lot of new movies and some older ones. Not too mention some weird news articles. That's it for now, the day is over.

Technorati - thing 14

I started this exercise first by looking for the 3 things that I needed: blog posts, tags, and the blog directory. I couldn't see them on the homepage, so I just typed "learning 2.0" into the search box. From the resulting search I found the tabs for post, blogs, videos and photos. The first look gave me a bunch of information on learning, 2.0, and learning 2.0. So I decided an advance search would be the best option to find the exact phrase (hopefully the blog about knowing your customer won't show up in my results).

The advance search with the exact phrase option gave me more accurate search results in the postings. I had a little bit of fun going thru and reading from some of the postings given. I found a mention of a blog called "Rather Graphic", from a blog by SoulSoup 2.0, that was kind of fun. As noted by SoulSoup, "Rather Graphic" uses hand-drawn graphics and maps about various topics. Here's a link to that blog page of SoulSoup's (finger's fully crossed this works).

http://incsub.org/soulsoup/?p=963

I took a look at the blogs tab. There's a lot of links to blogs there, but not much in the way of quick summaries. So, I would just be guessing if I said that there was the same information or not.

And I just could not find any tabs in regards to tags. Except for what I found on people's blogs, under I am assuming the blog directory "listed as blogs", because I did not find any tags under the posts tabs. Then I went back to the posts tab and saw this following note attached to the tab "Search in tags only of blogs with some authority in English [change]". But that note was not there when I first searched, it had said "search in posts...". Very confusing.

If I needed to use blogs as a source of information, then I would definitely be interested in holding onto the technorati web address. However, I really don't follow blogs a lot. So I will probably not use this feature in the future, but thanks (to the SPL2.0) for pointing the way to it.

Thing # 13 - part 1

Already I know that I am going to have to re-visit this thing. I tried to listen to the 8 minute Del.icio.us tutorial, but I couldn't really make out anything that was being said, the sound was too jerky. So, I'll listen/watch this part at home.

I looked around the PLCMCL2 account. There's a lot of stuff there that is very informational. I can see the reasonings behing this application. Of course, there's the obvious of being able to access your favorites from any place, rather than just trying to re-create and forgetting some of your favorites. But I also think it works in anyone's favor of keeping track of research sites, if you are a student or professional.

There's a lot on this account that is very useful. In fact I'm going to send the following piece to my sister, she has 2 teen-age boys and 1 pre-teen, once I figure out how to do that.

"about Youth Tech- MySpace handouts save this
My space handout for parents
to MySpace ... saved by 17 other people ... on oct 16, 2006"

But that's something for another day, for now I'm just going to make a note of the site. I shall re-visit this Thing once I have had a chance to view the tutorial (from home).

Thing #12 - part 2

Well, I figured out how to add my rollyo search roll to my links, it's under my "linking to others" section. Of course this was after I figured out that I needed to refine my searchroll(s), at least for my benefit.

As to future uses for the rollyo function, I can say that at this point in time I have no specific need for it. But I can see the functionality of the searchroll, if you are repeatedly needing to go to certain websites.

And with rollyo, these sites will be available to you wherever you are; so if you are working at one branch one day and another library branch another day you do not have to re-create your favorites list on internet explorer.

Thing #12: Your own search engine

Last one from last week. So, I started to read a little bit about rollyo and by little bit I mean whatever is on the home page, which is not very illuminating. After the fog lifted, and I had tried exploring others, I saw this button to take me to the about page. Score!!! A lot more explanation.

I'm still a little bit confused about the whole thing and I don't know how much I will use this feature, but I've decided to dive in and start my account. Okay, account made. I've made a search roll of authors I read, but I'm still confused.

I'll do more on another day. And hopefully figure it out.

Thing #11

Yay! I finally figured out how to put the link in and get it to stay there.
I started trying at the end of the day last Saturday before giving up and trying something else.

I had found Library Thing this last summer. And I added a few books and then forgot to go back to add the rest (I thought I would do it at home). After taking another look around at Library Thing, I think that I want to try their reviewing books option. I took a look at the list that they put up, I'm in full greed mode 'cause there are some books I would love to read.

More fun with Thing #10

I tried this one last night. Then saved it to the desktop since we were at closing time. Here's the website for it, you'll need to copy and paste the URL:

http://www.glassgiant.com/chocolate_bar/

Thing #10

My Christmas Elf Name isGet your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

There's a lot of fun things to play with at the image generators. An addition to my above elf name, here's a link that would go hand-in-hand.

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/xmas_cnt.htm

Being sick puts one behind on things - THING #9

Sally was right when she said that this is one of the hardest things we would have to do on this project. I remember taking a quick look at the whole thing during our catch up week 3.5 and thinking "Oh my god - help". Then I got sick. So, now I'm trying again.

I took a look at the provided link to bloglines search tool. And thought "that's it?". I don't want to have to think at this point. In the end, I liked the directory better, which allows you to take a look at a bunch of feeds that they have on hand, to pick and choose.

When I selected the feedster link, it took me to the homepage and gave me the message "We're sorry, the content service timed out while communicating with this site. Please notify support@feedster.com." But I persevered and in the search box I typed in "chocolate". I got a whole bunch of random searches which I started to skim through. I looked at the one that said something about lasik eye surgery center, thinking "what?" and I clicked. It turns out it was a page with links to the Spokane Journal of Business (Eye Lasik) and the South Florida Business Journal (Winn-Dixie stores recall...). But I did get the option to make a widget. Hmm, maybe next time.

The next option was topix net. First thought, ooohhh, I like this. The page comes up with Spokane news. And it looks like the searching might (fingers fully crossed) be easier, searching is by topic, city, state, or postal code.

Okay, after looking at Syndic8 (too busy screen with too much information, then lots of scrolling when you choose the option news), I took a look at the last option, technorati. Interesting, but with it constantly updating, I missed a news article that I wanted to check out which I had noticed as I was clicking on another link.

While this activity could be construed as a useful learning tool, and I might try to use topix net some other time. I think that if I want to add more feeds to my bloglines account, it'll be because I am perusing some information that regularly updats and I want to keep track of the site.

Fixing an oops

Thanks to PAGE2PEON, I found out that the previous URL didn't work. So below is the correct link.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/ladycady

Ok, I did some pre-reading up on RSS' and newsreaders. At first this was very confusing (my eyes were crossing), but I persevered by reading and reading and (yep, you guessed it) reading some more. Finally, I had had enough and decided to bite the bullet and sign up at bloglines, figuring I would learn more by doing than by just reading.

This is definitely an exercise where too much information just hurts the brain. I got my account and signed up for a few of their options. After a few days of reading, I got rid of some of the options previously chosen and I think that I kept about 3 of the original choices (About Literature, The Shifted Librarian, USAToday.com/books). At this point, I read a little more online, and then read what was required for SPL's 2.0 and decided to wing it. So, I'm just checking out sites that I regularly visit to see if they have a rss feed.

Gah, too much!!!

Luckily, I don't mind surfing the web. And I'm being optimistic in hoping that I find some really cool pools of information (fingers fully crossed). So, I would have to say that I like this tool in that it keeps everything that I regularly like to look at in one spot, instead of going to different sites all day long, and that I can just check to see if they've put out any new information.

As to using this at work, I'm finding that the site would best be used by keeping you up todate on incoming news, gathered all in one place. But I haven't yet explored the blogs, clippings and playlists portion of bloglines, so I don't know how they would interface with the workplace. Maybe that's something to play with on another day.

For those who would like to see it, my bloglines url follows. Hopefully done correctly.
http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

Favorite movie of mine

I found this movie a few years ago. I loved it! It took the question of "what if...?" and followed the premise of how the character's life changed and strangely stayed the same. In the movie, Helen is living with her boyfriend of 2 1/2 years, a writer named Gerry. The week-end after her birthday she wakes up late and goes to work like normal and gets fired. Then she's heading home again and misses the train.

At this point, the movie does a rewind to her running and catching the train home. Now, we watch the two life paths of Helen unfold. In one view, Helen misses the train and has to catch a cab. And as she's waiting for the cab, someone comes up to mug her, or rather attempts to mug her. And on the other path where she has caught the train, Helen talks to an exuberant stranger (James Hammerton(picture is of Helen and James on the train)) she had run into earlier, gets home early and finds her boyfriend in bed with his ex-girlfriend.

Girls World

Girls World
Originally uploaded by ladycheleus

Ooohhh this is a fun thing to play with. I've got to remember to tell my sister about it.

Thing #7 - Technology

I like to think of technology as both a tool and a toy. I've learned that makes it easier to learn about it and not be afraid to play around with it and make mistakes. 'Cause while I might have learned a few things, there's still lots out there. So, I guess that means lots more playtime, hmmm?

I like the convience of web technology. It lets me keep track of my favorite authors and what they are putting out. I'll even head over to the publishers website to see what books they have coming out this month.

I have my very own geek who tries to keep me technology oriented. So far, he has gotten me to play around (a little bit) with an IPAQ - I've a list of all my dvd's on the storage card, along with my sci-fi collection. Now, he wants me to figure out the mp3 player. And yes, I've added a few songs to it and listened. But I'm now thinking of seeing if I can add an audiobook to it. Even more reading time (hehee)!

My creation - discovering Montagr

My creation
Originally uploaded by ladycheleus

After looking through the selection of mashups, I finally decided to play with Montagr (I think that's what this is). It took me a bit of trial and error to figure out what mosaic imaging that I wanted. Then the hard part came - to find 13 photos out of the millions out on flickr. The words I used to find these beautiful pictures were: cats, bridal bouquet, bozarth mansion, "beauty and the beast", roses, Ireland, fairy, castle in the mist, australia, lightning and red rose.

I think that the next time I play with this flickr toy that I need to go into it with a theme in mind.

Fairy tale

Fairy tale
Originally uploaded by Sameli

I was looking for something, but I didn't know what kind of picture I wanted to talk about. I looked at cats and lightning, then I decided to look for something whimsical, and so I typed in "fairy tale" to the search line.

This picture spoke to me of a story waiting to be told. I don't know if the story will be scary or if it will turn into a gothic romance. But the picture of a castle hidden in the mists on the other side of a dark woods does lend itself to a fanciful tale.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.