Thing 22/Flickr 3rd party sites

I enjoyed Flickr Color Pickr and am recommending it to others already as a way to find quick moments of wonder and delight. I went on to read more about www.krazydad.com and the creator of all this fun, Jim Bumgardner. I wasn't able to install Sparkletts on a staff computer but hope to try again

Thing 21/Tags&Flickr

I read all of the resources in this section and enjoyed all but "Visualozing the Flickr social network" which had such boring graphics, much to my surprise.

Most photo-sharing sites create pages of photos and invite others to look at them. Flickr allows one person's photos to mingle with thousands of other persons' photos which eventuall creates a community of people interested in specific topics.

Tagging connects images to others and allows users to find others with like interests. Tagging allows people to participate in others lives almost instantly. I read about this use when there is a birth or when someone is traveling. Friends and family can enjoy the moments as the photographer does.

Thing 20/Flickr photo/Option 1

Here is the picture. I absolutely loved exploring Flickr! While reading one of the articles, I clicked on "clouds" which took me to some lovely photsos, but then I noticed the tag "beach" on one and went off in that direction. then I discovered an amazing Brazilian photographer named Neloqua. She not only takes amazing photos with the most brilliant colors, she adds poetry to go with many of them. I love looking at her work and over an hour had passed before I realized it. What a relaxing break!

Thing 19/Awards List

I loved this exercise! So many interesting sites! I have looked at most of them, although some were blocked.I have already used some of them when helping people at the desk. especially the three winners in the Books section.

I especially enjoyed the following categories: Fun Stuff (esp. One Sentence); Health; Lists and Polls; Retail; Social Tagging; Travel; Visual Arts (all 3 were amazing to play with).

i am very happy to have learned about this list.

Thing 18/technorati

I am soooo ready to move on! I understand the job Technorati is doing in organizing the blogs and making it possible to search by subject. I explored and most of what I read was very boring. I really have more interesting things in my life than reading a bunch of strangers' opinions and foul-language about whatever. I am glad people have an outlet like this if they need it, but there is so more to a quality day than this!Yes, I got different results searching in the Advanced sections by posts, tags, and directory. More and more specific. I explored popular stuff and wished I hadn't when I innocently clicked on the popular listed "massage". I am so ready to move on to Thing 19!

Thing 17/social bookmarking

I opened my own Delicious account several months ago and love being able to access my saved URLs from any computer. This has been so useful when I am helping a customer and trying to remember a site. I do wish I could put them into folders. I am not too confident with my tags as being useful as I add more sites.
I did look at the vbpl site and felt comfortable since it is a format I have been using.

Thing 16/Myspace/Option #1

I watched the YouTube video on how to set up an account on MySpace; it certainly was basic! The only thing new I learned was "Don't delete Tom!" The slide show on Myspace was a better use of my time than the video. I did not like the My-space Help website. It wasn't nearly as easy as the other 3. I loved Grownupgeek and great fun looking at the options. I will go back and play with the glitter thing and automate it over and over. I can see the appeal of designing a page on Myspace with glitter, music, photos; however, I am not looking for computer friends at this time in my life. I don't have enough time to spend with current friends.

I forgot to mention in my Thing 15 post that I had never really 'thought about the danger of what one writes on theri pages. the Cornell University article about a well-educated college guy not having a chance at a certain good job because of something he had written on the Internet was illuminating! and scary. I wonder if the teens realize or care that what they say now may haunt them later.

Thing 15 Social Networking

I have spent enough time reading about social networking and have learned quite a bit. I like the way Hennepin County and Denver Public libraries are usong them to connect with teens in an unobstrusive way. The music and YouTubes were fun. I do feel VBPL can use this method and market to teens. We have great resources for them and we can meet their expectations this way. Having so many young staff members who enjoy blogging with them is good for the system.

Thing 15/vbpl wiki

It was easy to add a post to the vbpl readers advisory page. After Cindy's message with examples of tags, it was easy to go back in and add the tags....assuming I did it correctly.
I can see how useful wikis can be to libray groups. Editing meeting agendas and conference planning wold save so much time usualy used by sitting in a meeting. I like the idea of having a place for people outside the library to add comments about subject guides and book lists; I certainly use the customer comments on Amazon. I also would like to see a community wiki on the library website where topics of interest can be looked at from many perspectives and the library's input with the many resources we have on each topic.

Thing 13

After listening to Cindy's podcast, looking at the "Discovery Resources", and doing the "Discovery Exercise, I feel much more comfortable using wikis and much more open to being part of them. The wikis I liked best were the ones that stuck to the format used by Wikipedia. I did not like the "Book Lovers Wiki" created by the Princeton Public Library as much. There was so much information on the "Library Success" wiki that I signed out in panic! Too much information! I found about the Radical Reference movement on the ALA- New Orleans wiki. I loved "The Bull Runn Library wiki, especially the "Seen on the Web" feature. The definition of a librarian on the link to "uncyclopedia.org" was hilarious! Now on to Thing 14.