I really appreciate the opportunity to experience all of these exercises and sites. As I said in an earlier post, the most important thing I think we should all take from this journey is to remain open minded about the potential for all of these applications. We could put the feed for the Nancy Pearl podcast on the page with the text reviews, or create our own content for book reviews or news about upcoming events. The possibilities are endless once we have the technical ability to get them on our library web site. I also think we should keep reviewing the social software sites for marketing opportunities for the library. We have an entry in Wikipedia but what about on FaceBook or YouTube or MySpace or???? I learned when creating content for our web site that have links sprinkled in several places just increases the likelihood that someone will land on exactly [:)] what they need!
I do hope for future programs like this that the oversight committee reads the blogs and comments so that any questions that arise from individuals are addressed. That would be a big undertaking, but maybe everyone could be assigned to 3 o4 4 people to monitor.
I'll do this again for future learning purposes but I don't expect that I will be blogging anymore or visiting the sites for personal use. Just don't have time or enough interest. OverDrive will be an exception to this.
Thanks very much for putting this together, TACkies!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
OverDrive is Us!
Well, I am quite familiar with OverDrive and the problems our patrons have with it via the plethora of questions we receive on QuestionPoint. The reality is that we have over 1500 successful downloads every month so we know it is working and working well for most people. I had a call this week from a young lady who is a resident of our area but is away at college out of state. She is using OverDrive from her dorm room and finding it very wonderful! Talk about a virtual experience! :-) I got an MP3 player over 6 months ago and always intended to download something but never have--amazing how life gets in the way. There are lots of titles in the audio books section that I would use--just need to do it! Maybe when I get the new MP3 player from this exercise I will have one for music and one for audio books. Ah, technology--so much to do, so little time! Besides, which I still have to watch at least 8 episodes of Law & Order a week or I go through withdrawal.
Also, great, great news is coming at PLA--OverDrive will soon be compatible with iPods. Yahoo!
Also, great, great news is coming at PLA--OverDrive will soon be compatible with iPods. Yahoo!
Don't bother me, I'm in my Pod!
Well, except for the fact that "pod" makes me think of the movie "Cocoon," this was an interesting exercise. I listened and read about podcasts, then explored Podcast Alley and NPR. I really like the availability of book reviews on NPR and subscribed to the feed for Nancy Pearl's reviews since I am familiar with them from our subscription to the print evrsions we post on our library web site. This is the link for the feed: http://kuow.org/rss.php?program=nancy. It is in my Bloglines account.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
#20 YouTube MeTube WeTube
Had lots of fun wandering around YouTube looking at library promos. So it looks like we need a video of our book cart drill team on there! Lots of university libraries included--one of the best is Oregon State which is led by a master's student. I liked the one from Fulton County Public Library (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV1gJd96P94) which is a very brief promo of all the stuff and services on offer. Would be fun to create this and then have it on our web site as well as on YouTube.
You Hoo--I got the video to embed in here!
You Hoo--I got the video to embed in here!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
#19 Cool Tools (Wasn't that the name of a class?)
Lots of cool tools out there but wow can people waste time. I wonder if this means that our brains will be sharper and we will have fewer "senior" moments. They do say game playing is a defense against dementia! Guess the Google is impossible! I do however see some great value in Yahoo's Upcoming as a way to track events of interest in your area or in another destination. Google Docs
Us Scottsdale folks don't need to be sold on this one since we have been using it for about 2 years for our Today in the Call Center. This was suggested and implemented by Kate Herman and Krista Bolan and many of us have added information to it over time. It is an invaluable way to get a quick notice about something out to the desktops of all PCs used during call center hours system wide. We hear that this is soon to be expanded to include all service desks and to be renamed Today in the Library. It's a great tool for finding out if the new bus passes are in or if a class has been cancelled.
So this is Oregon!
I guess it is not surprising that my husband Paul and I love Oregon. It is the complete opposite of Phoenix--water, coolness, rain, lush greenery, etc. We started visiting when my son attended the Benedictine seminary outside of Salem and have been back many, many times. This picture is of Cannon Beach, one of our favorite coastal destinations. I posted this in the Favorite Vacation Spots part of the Library Wiki.Wiki * Wiki * Wiki
Well, we have been using Wikis for a long time, since many of us know that Wikipedia is a useful and "on point" resource for lots of general information. Often when we figure to start looking for something in Google, one of the first hits is the Wikipedia article on the topic. Wikis have a lot of great applications for building a center of shared knowledge and I do think that over time a wiki inherently becomes authoritative. Even with the open quality of the editing and the ability to add, subtract and comment, what will rise to the top through time and testing will be the most accurate materials. I often use a Best Practices wiki when viewing top library web sites for ideas to "steal" for our library pages:
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Website_Design.
Also, thanks to Linsdsay Donovan for updating the entry in Wikipedia for the Scottsdale libraries and sharing that with all of us. Nice to know we can be found there.
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Website_Design.
Also, thanks to Linsdsay Donovan for updating the entry in Wikipedia for the Scottsdale libraries and sharing that with all of us. Nice to know we can be found there.
What? Me closed??
Library 2.0 is not a closed concept.
This is probably the most telling brief comment on the various postings about Library 2.0 and what it is. This from one of the OCLC segments which are very thoughful and thought-provoking. If we as library staff can remember to keep an open mind, an open posture, and an commitment to open communication both internally and with our patrons, we will continue to be vital to our community. So as our recent customer service training reminded us about open vs. closed questions during patron interactions, we can remember than a culture of openness is critical to our success and to maintaining our role as a player in the 2.0 world.
This is probably the most telling brief comment on the various postings about Library 2.0 and what it is. This from one of the OCLC segments which are very thoughful and thought-provoking. If we as library staff can remember to keep an open mind, an open posture, and an commitment to open communication both internally and with our patrons, we will continue to be vital to our community. So as our recent customer service training reminded us about open vs. closed questions during patron interactions, we can remember than a culture of openness is critical to our success and to maintaining our role as a player in the 2.0 world.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Don't tag my face!
Numbers 12, 13 & 14:
I signed up for an account on FaceBook and spent some time looking at my daughter's and son's friends. Saw some great wedding pictures from one of Matt's high school friends. Sure can see how easy it would be to waste A LOT of time doing this! Also searched libraries and "public Library" and saw some other pages from libraries as well as many coworkers: smiling faces of both Brad and Aimee for instance .....
Del.icio.us is certainly fun and I can see its use for students who are surfing the Net a lot and need to capture stuff quickly with their own organizational structure. The little video was a good explanation of its potential.
Did a quick search on Technorati for reference IM services and found some interesting stuff including a video of a librarian from Arlington Heights IL. Good place to search for current happenings in the library world since lots of librarians are out there blogging. I like that it shows how recent the posts are. I didn't see the explanation of authority, though. How do you get that??
I signed up for an account on FaceBook and spent some time looking at my daughter's and son's friends. Saw some great wedding pictures from one of Matt's high school friends. Sure can see how easy it would be to waste A LOT of time doing this! Also searched libraries and "public Library" and saw some other pages from libraries as well as many coworkers: smiling faces of both Brad and Aimee for instance .....
Del.icio.us is certainly fun and I can see its use for students who are surfing the Net a lot and need to capture stuff quickly with their own organizational structure. The little video was a good explanation of its potential.
Did a quick search on Technorati for reference IM services and found some interesting stuff including a video of a librarian from Arlington Heights IL. Good place to search for current happenings in the library world since lots of librarians are out there blogging. I like that it shows how recent the posts are. I didn't see the explanation of authority, though. How do you get that??
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Frame Her
I framed this picture of my daughter Sara on one of the generator pages. Easy to do, except it took some time to get the photo quality right. You have to be sure you know what type of image the sites will let you upload--mostly .jpg. I tried the magazine cover generator but all the images came out too big. Oh, well, it was fun and I will try this some more!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Blog Potion Number 9
OK, I finished number 9! I searched several of the sites for finding feeds and found them all relatively simple. Liked the way the search feature on Bloglines itself works. I added a Daily Sudoku feed as it is one of my addictions--relatively harmless I think! If you want to add that one too, you can find it on my Bloglines page which I made public. See previous post.
P.S. It took a while but I finally figured out how to unsubscribe to a feed. You have to double click on the name from your feed list which brings up the properties page and there is an unsubscibe button at the bottom. I kept trying to right click for a delete command. :-(
P.S. It took a while but I finally figured out how to unsubscribe to a feed. You have to double click on the name from your feed list which brings up the properties page and there is an unsubscibe button at the bottom. I kept trying to right click for a delete command. :-(
RSS is ME
Well, the RSS section of the Learning 2.0 is quite fun and easy to do. I set up my account and added some feeds as well as figured out how to make my account public. URL is:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/BJHenry I had fun deciding which feeds to add and reviewing some of the new content that was available immediately! That Dewey is so silly..... Talk about too much information!
I also added the Library feed from my account. Not sure just how that works but thought I would try it to understand what patrons get who subscribe to our feeds.
I remember when I first experienced RSS at an Internet Librarian conference about 3 years ago. My main thought was how would I ever find time to read all of these things as well as my own regular work and personal e-mail. There just aren't enough hours in the day. One of the IL presenters had about 30 feeds in his aggregator and would have hundreds of new items to review each time he signed on. Obviously like anything we try to do, it's all about priorities--most days just looking at one or two topic areas.
This is making me tired. I'd better go read a book! :-)
http://www.bloglines.com/public/BJHenry I had fun deciding which feeds to add and reviewing some of the new content that was available immediately! That Dewey is so silly..... Talk about too much information!
I also added the Library feed from my account. Not sure just how that works but thought I would try it to understand what patrons get who subscribe to our feeds.
I remember when I first experienced RSS at an Internet Librarian conference about 3 years ago. My main thought was how would I ever find time to read all of these things as well as my own regular work and personal e-mail. There just aren't enough hours in the day. One of the IL presenters had about 30 feeds in his aggregator and would have hundreds of new items to review each time he signed on. Obviously like anything we try to do, it's all about priorities--most days just looking at one or two topic areas.
This is making me tired. I'd better go read a book! :-)
Monday, January 28, 2008
A "PhoneLess" Day
Well, this has been an interesting day at Mustang since we have had no incoming or outgoing phone capabilities all day (since 9:30 this morning.) So this post is about when technology fails! Luckily a staff member's personal cell phone enabled me to report the problem to IS and then call later in the day to check the status. Here we are at 4:30 and still no phones. I imagine there are lots of library patrons a little frustrated with us today. We can only hope they called back in and tried one of the other library choices from the 312-READ line. The lack of phones ringing sure makes for a quiet atmosphere although the walk-in traffic has been heavy for a Monday--maybe some of the people who didn't want to brave the rain over the weekend. At this time in my life I do not have a cell phone (I am such a luddite!) so many thanks to Joan, Chris and Nancy for the loan of their phones. We also started having alarm problems at 4:00. Such fun!
Google Maps Mashup
One of the mashups that I really like is the interactive maps you can create on Google Maps. Rick Glady did one a while back for the library locations and it was an excellent example of how this can be used and applied in our day to day. Can't find the link for this example right now but will try to find it and post it later.
One of the Flickr mashups:
Color Fields Experimental Colr Pickr - Jim Bumgardner
OK--this is really cool and fun. Not something I would probably ever use, but how amazing for graphic designers or T-shirt designers. It has an amazing range/variety of colors, from very subtle to out loud. On second thought maybe I'll try for my own Christmas card design next year!
OK--this is really cool and fun. Not something I would probably ever use, but how amazing for graphic designers or T-shirt designers. It has an amazing range/variety of colors, from very subtle to out loud. On second thought maybe I'll try for my own Christmas card design next year!
Review It!
Review It!
Starting today our customers can write a review of a book, DVD or CD, submit it through a short form and get it posted to our "Review It!" page. Unlike the review function in the catalog, this requires no account login.
Encourage our users to join in the fun and check the page often for new material. It may take a day or two for a review to get posted so that we can include a link to the catalog and an image. We'll put the most current ones on top!
http://library.scottsdaleaz.gov/books/favorites.cfm
___________________________________________
This idea came from a recent meeting of the Web Content Management Team and we are always open to new ideas and suggestions. Your eyes and your exploration of the web site ensure that it stays fresh, accurate and interesting to all of our customers.
The new site celebrates its first birthday on January 29th!
Starting today our customers can write a review of a book, DVD or CD, submit it through a short form and get it posted to our "Review It!" page. Unlike the review function in the catalog, this requires no account login.
Encourage our users to join in the fun and check the page often for new material. It may take a day or two for a review to get posted so that we can include a link to the catalog and an image. We'll put the most current ones on top!
http://library.scottsdaleaz.gov/books/favorites.cfm
___________________________________________
This idea came from a recent meeting of the Web Content Management Team and we are always open to new ideas and suggestions. Your eyes and your exploration of the web site ensure that it stays fresh, accurate and interesting to all of our customers.
The new site celebrates its first birthday on January 29th!
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