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Hindsight is 20/20

Well, that's it! 23 things. I never thought I would get them done.
I learned it was more important to try them than to write about them. I let myself get away with a one sentance review and moved on. Although I went to very few sights new to me, I did gain something....the curiosty to see what else was out there. I have found that there are many tools on the web that we could use to reach our patrons. I am finding new ways everyday to explore these options. If I had known then what I know now, I would have dived right in and branched out way earlier.

Well, as they say, hindsight is..............................

And Beyond........


Online tutorials for the Library? Bah you say, yes I say. I found this great site. It allows you to build online tutorials. You type a set of directions and then you can capture the appropriate screen to illustrate your point. They then host the website so that it can be accessed off site. We could send out online tutorials to patrons, we could teach eachother how to use certain sites, we could even load a flash with a tutorial of our catalog, popular databases, even how to give, to all our new patrons. Oh, the possibilities. I am taking a webinar Friday...I'll let you know how it goes.

Thank you Phebe!

I got the LibraryThing widget on the blog. Look in tools and highlight the HTML code for the widget. Then go to your blog and add a HTML widget. Title it whatever you would like and then paste the HTML code from Library thing in the bottom box. Voila!

#22 Galaxy Cruise Lines departs

I have entered the very strange and all encompassing world of role playing. I'm not one who ever played dungeons and dragons and such. I am finding it a bit solitary, being a newbie. One person said something to me and by the time I IM'd back, they flew off. I am just trying to get my clothes to look half way decent right now....I hope to be able to interact with others soon.......

#21: Greeting from the Facebook Universe!

I set myself up a Facebook account a while ago. I have taught over a dozen classes for it. I am a member of linkedin. Interesting that the two rarley overlap with connections.

#20

I think thinkfree works a little better for me. I will wait and see if I get any resposes.....Google docs does not share perfectly for me.

#19 Super-Duper Google Docs!

Still trying to find the benefits to the patrons for this one. Cool idea, nice sharing capabilities.

#18 Tag, You're it!

Funny how people have a hard time utilizing the subject heading in our catalog, but if we called them tags, they could jump right in. I understand it can't be done right now. But, I would love to see a section at the bottom of the item entry that was more a read-a-like suggestion tool. Weather we use it as patron recommendations "if you liked..." or their tags or just have staff add suggestions. I still think it would be much better for the patrons in leading them to the right item for them.

#17 YUUUMMMY Oops I mean Delicious!

Tagging has become quite the lingo nowadays, huh? Interesting but a bit huge. Maybe we could have our own set of bookmarks we use personally and then share them with the rest of the staff. They could be both profession or personal, just a place to browse.

On a Personal Note

I have edited my YouTube bar. It now contains just vids from my club. Check out the One Design Regatta. I was RC the whole weekend!

#16 continued:
Quicky! Quicky! Wiki!


I set up a VERY simple wiki for an outside project. Found the downside; too many people with too much access. I found that opinions are not a place to put wikis, because everyone's got one. I reverted back to my homegrown website, people can look, but can't touch. Interesting excercise

#16 Wiki Miki Tricky

I read updates on our internal Wiki. Neat tool, would love to use to centralize ideas here! The link to NewCanaanLearning Wiki is actually for Stamford so I didn't add anything.

#14 Can 3.0 be far behind?

The more I read about 2.0 the more I want to use "it" as a starting point for new ways to interact and keep in touch with the public. Oh, if they day was just a few hours longer.......

#13 The "Thing"

My friends and I have have been using this site for a while to share books we have read and when we wanted to start a book club it was a great way to go though some books we have read in the past for a revisit.

#11

Like Youtube. We have a bunch of videos from our races last summer poster there

#10

Crazy Podcast added, just to add a little spice!

#9 NetLibrary

Downloaded three books to my iphone. Much easier than trying to download disc by disc. You have to be patient.

Branching Out

While I think the lessons we are learning here are valuable, I would like to learn something new. Something a little more cutting edge. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, wikis, Second life; fun, but I'm not sure the best way for me, as a librarian, is to interact with patrons are through these sites. The Library, sure. We could set up a myriad of accounts for the Library. Push out the updates, the blogs, the Twitters. Make some new friends, gain new connections....but for a more one on one interaction, I would like to see the newest and the greatest.



I have been doing a little research on ways I can get the patron to make better use of the resources the Library can offer using the newest technologies. I want to show patrons how they can take our product and tailor it to their own needs using tools we provide. Case in point: a barcode reader app for both the iPhone and the Blackberry. You take a picture of the barcode, not the Library barcode, and the app will import info about the book, title, author review and such. It will then upload the title to a list you have created of books you would like to read. Sounds kind of handy both inside and outside the Library, huh?

If you have read my rant this far try this link: What's New on the Web: User Generated. Just a cool site.


Thanks for Reading.

Week 4 continued.......

I looked around Flickr. Like the product. some fun puzzles and things you can do with your photos. ehhh

#6 #7 Week 4: A Little out of Order....

Ok, Maura, I'm a few weeks in. I'm having fun doing all these great exercises. I am learning some great ways to use technology that I have not ever thought about. But........I have to be honest. I am getting tired of creating new email addresses, ids and such. I have already created 4 new ones trying to keep things straight. GRRRR. Flikr wants yet another one. I already have a Picasa account....when will it end?????

#8 TRUE CONFESSIONS: Week 5

Okay, deep down, I am a Apple baby. I have been using PCs for 99% of my adult life but I will never be able to say I like them better than an Apple. Way back when, in fifth grade, we were exposed to computers for the first time. I believe it was called an Apple II. We played Swashbuckler, Oregon Trail, Frogger and such. I learned how to format paragraphs and spell check. It was like a miracle right in front of my eyes. Up until high school, Apple was all you could find in our school. I learned how to fudge margins to make that paper just a half a page longer, and one time to smoosh the letters together to make my very verbose prose on Hemingway fit onto 2 pages. I did my graduate research on an Apple in my home but was fully exposed to PCs in their labs. I fought with them, swore at them, learned things like WYSIWYG and GIGO. Apple never did this to me. It found every word that I typed to be beautiful and perfect! I bought my very own place a few years ago. The computer did not come with me. A very sad day. I don't miss having a computer cluttering up my space. I just miss saying, with a righteous air about myself, I have an Apple. So I finally broke down and dove into Apple again. This time an iPhone. I resisted the first generation. What did I really need it for. I had a phone already, I'm no music monster, I can get on the Internet at work. Then I actually tried out my friend's iPhone. What wonders did I behold! I could have games, music, phone, camera, Internet, texting, address book, GPS. Then the 3G comes out. I make myself wait and, yes, I now have one. It has changed the way I use technology. I went to a tiny island off the Bahamas, no phone, no Internet, no TV, you know the kind of place. I turned on my iPhone, and what do you know. Everything worked. I talked to my dad, checked my mail until I realized, hey, I'm on vacation! I could still take pictures and listed to music. What a toy! I long for the day when I could download books onto it and not disc by disc. Well, the day has come, I downloaded three books onto my iPhone through NetLibrary. It's not yet connected to my hip but I do tend to keep it near by......it's an Apple after all, you just want to be near them. I yearn for those days when the computer I was working on communicated with me in a meaningful way or maybe I just miss childhood........or maybe I just like saying, once again with a righteous air, I have an Apple.

#12
All the fun of Facebook,
none of the pokes!

Well, I did it! I'm Tweeting. I uploaded the app to my phone and am now being inundated with updates of people that I know, people who I share an interest and a few funny animal lovers. All I can say...I'm glad my phone doesn't go off with each update, it would be glued to my hand ;0) Anyone want to join me? I'm MiaStella. Twitter.com

Talk about reinventing the wheel! Take a look in Public Libraries January February 2009 issue, page 29, "What are You Doing Now?" One library got a dedicated Blackberry with unlimited text for patron IM.....Twitters for events for the day....FriendFeed to push....take a look.

I really think our next jump should be to mobile devices. Let the emails keep going but find a truncated way to reach patrons on their cells.


On a lighter note..........

Just for Fun

Week 3 of 23

In the process of finding a app that would do all the pushing I found a great RSS feed with tech updates that hit it on the money. It is one of their top stories today. It is called "cloud Computing..." It is worth a read.

Day 2: Just my 2 cents....

I have this friend. We are both about the same age but in very different lines of work. It turns out that many of the tools we are learning here, she already is an old hand at, so I picked her brain yesterday.

Part of her job entails keeping up with the latest 2.0 tools and letting her colleagues know not only how to use them but how they should be used. It was interesting to hear how apps like Twitter, Facebook and even the old standby MySapce are being used beyond their original social networking purposes.

What I like about these tools is that they are easy to learn, fun to use and have the capicity to have a huge impact on how we will interact with the patrons in the futre. What I don't like, the time commitment needed to make these tools attractive to the patrons. It is one thing to be the one to set up the application, make it known to the patrons and make sure it is running smoothly. It is quite another thing to be the one checking them pretty much every hour to make sure the updates never go stale and out of date.

Not to let an opportunity slide by, I pushed a little harder. To my great surprise, there are apps on Facebook and such that would allow me to post there and have Facebook push it to any others app I may have...very interesting.....very time saving. Off I go to do a little research.

#1
WEB 2.0,
HERE
I
COME!

#2 of 23
SPRING IS IN THE AIR

Spring is finally here and the sun is beginning to set a little later each day. I have been heading down to the water with Lucky almost every day. As you can tell she loves to swim, no matter the temperature of the water