Thing 30/Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!

I am sooooo happy to be writing this post. The 2.0 experience has been absolutely worth all the time I have spent on it. I am ready to be done and not have the pressure of Things to complete in addition to my other work responsibilities.

One unexpected outcome was how proud I felt when I was the only one at the cardtable of friends (all smart, 60ish, and working outside the home, using computers etc.) who knew what a podcast was! I got to explain how neat and useful they are. Fun!

I read some of the comments of fellow bloggers (ex. #22, Booksense&Nonsense, and sayitaintso) and agree with most on what can be done to improve the experience - faster connections, fewer blocked sites, fewer wordy articles. I would like to have only ONE THING per week if we do this again.....and YES! I would definitely participate if we do something like this again! Thanks to all who made it possible!

Thing 29

My favorite discoveries were FLICKR, RSS feeds, and podcasts. I plan on using them all in the future.

This program has validated my hope and belief that I am much happier when I learn new and challenging concepts. I feel very fortunate to be part of a workplace that expects and encourages all of us to keep up with what is happening in our field.

Thing 28/Rollyo

I chose Option 2 and explored all the search rolls on our list and spent time on Quick Quotes and enjoyed several on "Happiness". i also looked at the "Ask Mr. Fix-it" one and printed a helpful bit of advice on maintenance of storm windows which I hope will motivate my husband to make ours esier to slide.

I pasted the rollyo siteinto my Delicious account. I do see a potential use for tools like this. A "Small Business" rollyo might be used by some of our customers. A "Searching for Grant Money" rollyo could save grantseekers some valuable time. When I am caught up on all my goals and my responsibilities, I may try to do a searchroll.

Thing 28/LibraryThing

I really like this site and already had an account but with only one title. I added 5 more of my favorite titles. I will try to add a link to my blog now.http://www.librarything.com/catalog/cgayton

Thing 26/Generators

I looked at the suggested generators and found a few intersting ones. I would like prettier wallpaper and a more English-oriented brainscanner. The alphabet soup was easy. I did not find the Letter James site as friendly as I would have liked. I will come back to FD Toys in the future when I get better with my camera, which I plan to do.

Here is the link to an iamge generator which is the Discovery Exercise for this thinghttp://www.redkid.net/generator/soup/sign.php

I was not able (even with wonderful Diane Wetterlin's help, to save the image of the soupbowl; therefore, I copied the above link. I tried a lot of other generators but many were blocked or took too long to open. This one was ana easy one.

thing 25/Podcasts again

I very much like Denver Public's podcasts of children's stories and added their RSS feed to my Blogger list. I can see how useful this would be when traveling with children and their nice, compact MP3 players.

I also listened to a podcast with an interview of a librarian from a John Hoplins librarian. In the 6 minute "Ask a Libraian", a listener could get a good idea of ways to get questions answered. Hearing the voices is much more appealing than just reading about library services.

Thing 24/Podcasts

I am learning how much I can do with podcasts, although this exercise was a frustrating struggle at times because of blocks on staff computers, limited time to use public computers, and all the downloading requirements on some sites. I looked at tutorials; I goe into Podcastalley and searched for podcasts on "libraries". The Emory University one took such a long time to download. I especially enjoyed NPR's "Favorite Holiday Story" on the different New Year's Day traditions. Nigella Lawson of Food Channel fame was the speaker. I already have an RSS feed from NPR on my Google/Reader. I llok forward to listeneing to podcasts on my new MP3 player!

Thing 23/YouTube

You Tube is fun, addictive, and a time-sponge. since I will be going to Paris, Normandy, and Provence this year, I looked at several videos on other people's trips. I especially loved "Vivaldi in St. Chappelle". The music was sooo lovely and the stained glass windows were even lovely in the candlelight.

I love being able to search by subject and see how long the videos last. I wasted too much time watching dogs surfing and golden retriever-poodle mix pets do tricks.

We can apply this to libray sites in many ways. I would use it to talk about the Grants databases and the Business resources at the library. Others will use it to market books, programs etc.

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.

Thing 12/Im and VBPL

I talked to Matthew and Marti who are very ppositive about VBPL's offering IM to the public. They especially feel that our present and future teens are much more comfortable and willing to communicate with us using IM versus face to face. I also looked through the IM notebook in Telephone Reference and read sample qustions, saw statistics etc.

I went to the VBPL sebsite at 3:10 to ask my own question using IM but it was not on. I called the party who was suppossed to be on to remind them to start. They did; I asked a question but had to wait 6 minutes to get a reply that they did not have the answer to my question about a program but they could find out. I replied but had to sign off before they replied back. So I was not overly impressed due to the slowness of the process. It would have been much easier and faster to pick up the phone and dial.

I do think IM and the library is a good mix for some situations - teens; short, factual questions about hours, programs, account status etc. I would expect some customers not to wait around for an answer if the library staff took to long to respond.

Thing 11/IMing

I looked at all the articles and feel that VBPL is on track with the use of IM as a reference service. We want to appeal to the young customer, as well as the 20 - 40 year olds who use so many of the mobile devices in their normal day. The fact that IM differs from email in leaving no paper trail is an advantage, some workers feel; supervisors may disagree. I found it intereting that the PEW study found that teens use email for adults and IM for buddies.