Thing 23: Final Thoughts

Library 2.0 was scary for me. But this experience has given me the opportuntiy to explore freely and to try things I would not have found on my own. 23 Things has inspired me to continue exploring, not to get stuck on what I already know how to do.

I really enjoyed creating pages on Flickr and Ning and acutally getting friends! I watched my kids create and develop their sites, but did not think these sites held anything for me...anything that I would find useful. What a surprise! I have used the online image gernerators for library promotional materials and had a great time doing it. I love the RSS feeds and getting my morning dose of online information that I find interesting. It has changed my morning routine. I have had the most fun, though, playing with my blog. Who woulda thunk?

I really enjoy reading other participants blogs and leaving coments. it was great meeting 23 Things folks on Ning and Flickr and some of the other sites. How cool to find 23 Thingers everywhere!

I really hope there will be another 23 Things at some point. I would love to do this again!

It was so much fun to e-explore...a really great e-experience!

Thing 22. What Did I Learn Today

Double Rainbow on Maui
Originally uploaded by Thespis of the Bay

Almost done is an exciting thing, but I don't want it to end. I have enjoyed pushing myself to learn these Things... and, bonus, my kids think I'm cool!

A promise to myself:
I will keep up with the social networking sites I signed on to...Flickr and Ning, especially because on those sites, I found it easier to connect with other people than on some of the other sites I joined. I will go back and explore the challanges that I did not give myself time to do. I will give myself time to learn and see it as a vaulable use of my time. I will learn by podcast and webinar. I will find more on youtube than just things that make me laugh.

I loved this learning experience. I know I will have to continue exploring these Things to maintain what I've learned. The internet grows and canges every minute...I've learned so much...I don't want to lag behind again.

Thing 21. Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

I created a NING page and joined te 23 Tings on a Stick group. I found a friend there with whom I had the great good fortune of attending ALA in Washington DC! It was fun to see her page and it felt great to get re-conected. I left a comment for her and we've been commenting back and forth - FUN!!

Ning is fun, but it can be kind of confusing to navigate around. I like things that are "so easy your grandmother can do it"! When I tried to add a widget, it totally screwed up my page. BUT, looking at the beauty of my friend's page makes me want to keep trying.

View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

Thing 20. Libraries and Social Networks

I created a Facebook page. I joined the Librarians and Facebook group. This group has more than 4,700 members. That's a lot of folks. It was fun looking through the Discussion Board and the wall postings. It was fun looking for "friends"to add to my list.

Facebook was easy to use and fun to do. I can see why people like to use this site. Many of our patrons like to visit Facebook and MySpace. It seemed to be a younger-peoples site, but more and more I see more folks my age on Facebook.

Thing 19. Podcasts

I love car talk on PR, so I searched each site for Click and Clack...
Podcast.com - came up with what I was looking for...worked well.
Podcast.net - could not get it to load :-(
Podcastalley.com -came up with far too many options - must be pretty specific.
Yahoo Podcasts - this seemed like it was all music - I was not interested in paying for a song to see how it worked.
Educational Podcast Directory - of course Click and Clack did not show up here. But, very cool, this has podcasts for younger kids...check out the SG Show under Student & Class Podcasts - elementary grades.

I made a Gcast! It was very easy - the hardest part was deciding what to say. Check it out on the link to the right.

Thing 18. YouTube & Other Online Video

I love youtube! This is irreverently funny. We've talked about doing a promo video for our library and posting it on youtube. We could also record folks reading children's books and post those.

Thing 17. ELM Productivity Tools

How cool that you can create a feed from a search. How uncool that it does not work when patrons access ELM through our region's website. We've been training our folks to go in through our website and will have to re-train them - how confusing.

I did not know there was a web-page creator in ELM. This would be a wonderful tool to show our Home School kids to help with their research projects. I'm hoping to use it to keep track of information publised about the Park Rapids Area Library.

Sharing artilces happens quite often between our library staff and our regional staff. Recently we sared around the story of the mom jailed for non-payment of library fines. You can check it out here:http://www.beloitdailynews.com/articles/2008/03/01/news/news02.txt

I use NetLibrary frequently...'though I'm not fond of reading books online. Cool that you can mark researched pages. SO, as long as you had proper citations, students could use this tool for projects and read books that we can not lay hands on easily. I'm feeling smarter already.

I'm definitely going to have the staff at our library do this Thing. ELM doesn not always feel user-friendly, but I know none of us realized these services were burried in here. Thank you for this Thing. Although I found it to be one of the most frustrating, I think it will be one of the most useful for our patrons.

Now I get to go help dig our car out of the foot of snow in the driveway. We tried to get to church this a.m. and got stuck in the middle of the road. We got the car pushed back off the road and back into our drive (it took an hour and a half - glad everyone else was wise enough to stay home!). But now we need to get it all the way back into the garage so the plow can come by and release us. The snow is quite beautiful, but can it PLEASE be Spring already?!?

Thing 16. Student 2.0 Tools

The Research Project Calculator will be a great tool for our Hig School and Home School students. I like that it is easy to use and thorough without being overwhelming. It can help get you organized even on a very tight schedule. I wish I had had something like this when I was in school!

I think the assignment calculator is going to be less helpful for use at the library, but it is still a very cool tool.

Either tool would work to help me with library projects like grant writing or setting up and design curriculum for a series of training worksops about our library offerings, databases, etc. I've been wanting to get them organized for a long time, but the task seems a bit daunting and keeps getting pushed back it make room for things that need to be done now. This could really help.

Thing 15. Online Games and Libraries

I had set up a Second Life account last Fall to see what it was like. I found it hard to navigate, but I did learn to fly. I had a hard time finding my way off the learning island. Having said that, I went to a workshop at PLA that showed how another library uses Second Life with their teens to teach history and develop community. It looked great, but I think it would take a lot of training on my part - I learn best with a teacher and don't learn especially easily with online tutorials.

SO, I tried Puzzle Pirates. I learned how to Bilge and Sail. I enjoy playing games online. It's fun to talk to other players. I talked to several players and learned what kind of food they like and someone's favorite rap group (I checked out their lyrics -OH MY!) I was not invited to join a crew yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time, me being an excellent pirate and all.

You could recommed Club Penguin at www.miniclip.com to introduce younger kids to the onlien social gaming thing. There was an online fantasy social gaming site that was all the rage about a year and a half ago, but the (mostly) boys who played it are now into myspace and a new crop of useres never materialized. We had to reconfigure the computer settings to allow the game to play properly. We also recently invested in two of the plush pets that come with online codes so the (mostly) girls who bought them could feed and play with the toys online. Te site even has a chat room so easy a 4-year-old can use it.

Thing 14: Library Thing

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bejowa

I had heard about Library Thing and had even visited - I'm glad this was a Thing and forced me to sign up and use it. This site is very easy to use and manage. It would be easy to teach the staff at the library how to set up an account and to set up pages in their expert areas. Then, if a patron needed a read-alike, it would be a place to go - with pictures of the covers! We have If you liked...bookmarks, author's titles bookmarks, NoveList and staff reader's advisory. This will be a great tool to use with those. It will also give our patrons who use the internet (not all of them do, after all) a new way to be conected to their library.

I signed up for one of the groups - childeren's books. I was not surprised that I had read most of the top listed books, but was happy to play around in the site and discover new titles and new folks that like the books I do.

I will definitely spend more time on Library Thing later - I want to get to Thing 23.

Thing 13. Online Productivity Tools

As someone wo can't remember to charge er palm-pilot and has had to re-enter calendar info twice, I love the idea of online organization that I can access anywhere.

I chose IGoogle to use as my homepage. I like having my RSS links, weather, clock, etc. right there, but it does take a bit longer to load at first. I won't go back to my other home page.

I really like Remember the Milk. The title was what grabbed me, but te tool was easy to use and fun to work with. It seems like a great way to stay on top of deadlines, and I liked that it has personal and professional tracts, so I can separate them, but keep up with both.

I used the calendar with IGoogle. It's right there on my home page and I can get right to it. I like that.

Backpack turned me off with the way it looked, but after I watched the video on how it worked, I was hooked. I made a page for our trip to Maui in June. It might even be worth the subscription fee.

I did not try any of the other stuff yet (yep, Bad Becky). I want to get to the end of the 23 Things if I can. I'll go back and try them after the 16th.

pla2008

pla2008
Originally uploaded by WebJunction

I had a GREAT time!!

I learned so much. I attended some very helpful workshops and some not-so-helpful, but was able to get something from everywhere I went. What a great opportunity! What a geat experience!

It was wonderful to hang out with folks I work with and get to know them better. I am so glad it worked out for two of my co-workers to come, too. It was great to be there with them. I only regret that I could not work it out so the whole staff couldn't come!

Thank you very much to the KRL board for paying my way and giving me this great experience. Thanks, too, to NLLN and the Park Rapids Library Board for making it possible for my two co-workers to be there as well. This will be something we pull from for a long time to come.

Home Again

I ad a great time at PLA, but it's good to be home. Time to get back to things!!

~B

Thing 12. Do You Digg?

Digg and Reddit seem to me to be user-created tabloids. I was not impressed, nor would I use them. Newsvine seemed to have some good back and forth between users about the stories posted and the stories themsleves seemed a bit more newsy than sensational. I likes te way Mixx was organized, but again, I doubt that I would use any of these.

In a library setting...? I guess I'm going to continue to get my news the "old-fashioned" way. CNN, CBS and my local newspapers. Of all of the areas in our small branch, our newspaper area is one of the most used. We have folks come in daily to read te paper and talk about the news. Same thing as these sites, only live and in-person.

The best thing I saw, and it was on a couple of the sites, was the police officer talking to the protesters. What a great attitude!

Half way done!!!!

Thing 11. Tagging and Del.icio.us

This will be wonderful for elping to organize my internet searches. It only took moments to tag a few sites - so if I'm looking for books for patrons or story hour songs and projects or research info for a report, I can tag while I'm there and not have to add everthing to my Favorites so I can find it again. If a site is not helpful, I don't have to tag it. Anything that can help me be more organized is a blessing. Why did I not know about this before? :-)

I think our region could use this internally to help staff find helpful resources - there is SO much out there on the internet, if someone has done research already and is willing to tag and share that makes it easier for everyone. We could also use it for patrons to find best-seller lists, read-alike lists, good information and other stuff. We already have links to many of these things, but there are many different ways to end up at the same place on the internet. This would be a good addition...and it only takes moments!

Tag - you're it!

Thing 10 - WIKIs

Thank you for including the Common Craft video. I knew what Wikis were, but not how to use them.

I edited the 23Things wiki - and added my thoughts to the others : Is there EVER a good time to add an extra 23 Things to your scedule?! I'm having WAY too much fun figuring all this out. The coolest part is sharing the excitement with others. What better way than WIKI? - Having fun in the woods, Becky

I also added two must see movies to the B Movie Page.

Our branch is small enough that we can all have staff meeting together and get business done in less than an hour. I like that face-to-face interaction. BUT, this would be a great way to coordinate having all the branc managers going to PLA from our region. We could have created a list of who will be attending which workshops, contact information, handled questions about rooms, speakers, etc., and arranged our evening plans. All this was/is being done, but by email and phone calls. This feels like it would be a smoother and more time effecient way of doing the same thing. And everyone would be encouraged to participate and do their part and not have it all fall on one person to coordinate with everone and get the information back out. Too late for PLA, but there would be lots of other uses for this. I like the idea of using a Wiki for SRP/SLP! That would help our region coordinate the teen portion. OR for Hot Reads. Or for Story Hour themes - I love this!!

When helping partons with research, we try to give them alternatives to Wikipedia - many teacers are not accepting it or are asking for fact confirmation - which many Wikipedia entries have at the bottom. As in all things, use caution.

Thing 9 - Online Collaboration Tools

Wow! I got it to work!

I like the ZoHo Writer better than the Google Docs, but I hit the wrong key and closed out of it and then got a "document not found" error message when I tried to go back in. Bummer. I would have liked to play with that one a bit more. It had more Microsoft Publisher-like qualities than the Google Docs one. It just made more sense to me.

I can see that it would be useful for people who are working together on a grant application, on promotional materials, etc, especially if the group is large. You could set up a Wikipedia-like document for just about anyting...fun and/or serious.

And the Founding Fathers...maybe they would have approved of the idea that "the people" want to be so intimately and immediately involved in the shaping of such an important document!

A Declaration by the Elected Representatives of the newly-formed United States of America.

I would lose one of the "natures" in the first paragraph.

This is a sample document for participants in 23 things on a stick to edit and change as they explore Thing 9. Collaboration Tools. This same exercise is available as a GoogleDoc so you can try both.

This fundamental document clearly benefited from editing. Try your hand at helping Thomas Jefferson edit page 1. Feel free to make any and all changes you desire.

Declaration of Independence
Here is the complete text of the Declaration of Independence.

(I deleted the picture of the document - it looked like clutter to me)

The original spelling and capitalization have been retained.

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

☆☆☆-Kristine Spanier 3/11/08 7:55 PM When people need to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with other people, and when they need to assume the separate and equal station which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, they need to respect each others' opinions enough that they should declare why they want to separate. -Klasley 3/7/08 10:05 PM

I would lose one of the two natures in the first paragraph.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,get a clue! that ALL people are created equal, regardless of race, age jd 3.8.08, gender, or religion". All People are endowed

with certain unalienable rights , including a cheerful, peppy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . That to secure these rights, or really good things, governments are instituted among nations, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed (or, in some less fortunate cases, through fear of those in power). Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its and everyones powers in such form, as to provide for their safety and well-being.

Prudence (who's she?) will dictate (you and what army??) that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, only for heavy and stable ones. Experience has shown that grapes (grapes?) are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train why do those long trains appear when one is in a hurry? E.B.3/8/08 of abuses juxtaposed with usurpations another excellent "big word" - Janelle 3/13/08, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! OR ELSE! Such has been the patient suffering of these territories under the immediate political control of a state; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world by means of Candid Camera or YouTube. or anyone else's home video. Doesn't anyone send videos to Funniest Home Videos anymore? Ah, the good old days. - Janelle 3/1/08

Thing 8. Share Your Creations

I would use the picture sharing sites to keep in touch with colleagues and family. I tried PictureTrail and found it frustrating. I got my photos uploaded but had a tough time finding the cool ting you could do. WHen I did find them, what I thought I was getting was not what I got, so I tried to delete my albumn, but even that didn't work. I did see that unless you upgrade to a paid subscription, your account eventually gets deleted. I guess I'll wait for that.

Then I tried Thumbstacks and was able to create a 2 page presentation but could not find a way to add a page. When I went to save it, it gave me an error message. This, too, was frustrating. So I tried Lazybase and did not understand what to do to add an entry - I was trying to set up a Staff Picks list.

After all these false starts and more than three hours of trying, I went to ZohoShow and was finally able to succeed. I wanted to create a presentation about what 23 Things was teaching me - and I must admit that I was so tired of this Thing that I just cut-and-pasted thing one onto some slides. I was able to figure out how to use it and save it. Here is the link: http://show.zoho.com/editor.do?P_ID=182908000000004013

This would be a great tool for creating staff teaching tools, or even for creating that Staf Picks list I was unable to with Lazybase. I wish I would have gone to ZohoShow first!

Think Spring, friends...it IS coming!!!

Thing 7. Web 2.0 Communication Tools

Email:

In the productivity hints, I loved getting permission to be brief and to use correct punctuation, capitalization and grammar. Be polite. We use the stationery option in Eudora and it makes it easy for everyone. I also like the Squirrel Mail way of checking in on my account on weekends and when I'm away. I try to be faithful about responding to emails that require a response because I expect others to respond when I ask questions. I try to not be chatty or bothersome and have made an effort to be breif and to-the-point.



IM:

I've been IMing for quite some time now...with my kids, my friends, I even did some IM comfirmation classes with the student I was mentoring who left the country. IM is great. I still prefer the telephone, because I have trouble judging how others are feeling without hearing their voices, but angry, heartfelt, joyous, confused conversations are definitely possible through IM. I've watched my sons develop great relationships with others in different parts of the country that they've met only once and we could not afford to call often by using IM.



Text Messaging:

Cool that Millennium will be building Texting into future upgrades. Will it be as asronomically expensive as my cell's program?! We had to block it on our family contract because it was definitely not in our budget. I think it is a good idea, but not at the expense of our limited budget. Having said that, I think that texting your library is a great idea. It's a way to get help/information quickly. I would need to learn the Text language and all our staff would need to become more comfortable with Texting. I wonder if this would be something for branches with reference Librarians. And between the patrons at the desk, on the phone and those waiting for email response, where in the priority list do Texters come?



Web Conferencing:

I have acutally taken classes throug WebJunction and I enjoy this kind of class, but I think I learn more when I can take them at my own pace. Often these are offered at a time that is not compatible with my work schedule, BUT I'm trying to take advantage of some since they're free.

Thing 6. Online Image Generators

How could we use this? Trading cards, license plate bookmarks, displays, logos, crafts for story hours, promotional materials, icons for webpages and reading lists, introducing staff, creating and promoting new programs and databases...and so much more.

It would take some promotion and education on our part to start having our patrons look for us on Flickr and Facebook and YouTube, etc, but I think it is such a creative and up-to-date way to reach patrons comfortable with the internet. We need to grow and change. These are proven sites - with staying power. The time invested in setting up up these pages and creating the neat things that can be done I think is time well spent. Setting aside some of my free time to do these Things as been an easy decision...finding work time would be nearly impossible. It might be worth training well-supervised volunteers, or training each staff member to take on a part.

cool plate

Thing 5. More Flickr Fun

Ok, I spent WAY too much time on this thing and had WAY too much fun!!!

I really enjoyed exploring the top ten list, but hit the big time with Big Huge Lab's Flickr toys. I think that would be the site that would have the best use for library posters, bookmarks and other promo stuff. I really enjoy playing with things like this. It would take a great effort of will on my part not to spend hours and hours working on creating one thing. BUT, some of these tools allowed me to create things in minutes that would have taken hours "by hand".

I added HESED to my blog - a cool word I learned in church this morning meaning "steadfast love".

Everybody loves to read at the Park Rapids Area Library!

Everybody loves to read at the Park Rapids Area Library!
Originally uploaded by becky_walpole

These are friends from our Children's Area. Visitors will often grab a friend to read with them. Shrek is a special favorite!

Thing 4. Photosharing with Flickr

I had created a Flickr account in October to show others that if I could do it, so could they. It was fun to create, but had not visited it since. Creating an account is one thing, but using it is another. I'm glad this Thing let me re-visit my first effort. I was very concerned about using people in my pictures, even with permission, but in looking at my page, I think it would look like a more inviting place if there were people in it! Is written permission advisible? I would think so. It could create quite a thick folder of permission slips eventually, though. It seems to me you would have to keep them forever because even if you delete the picture from your site, there is no telling how many others have used the Blog This feature.

I used the tagging feature for the first time and enoyed playing with it. Selecting a word like "read" comes up with some mighty varried results!

I had created that first account to show off the library where I work. I think I'll create another one for family stuff and keep those private. I'm glad they put the warnings not to post pictures of others without permission.

Exploring Thing 4 - a better link to the CommonCraft video

I did not get the right video when I clicked on the link in the instructions. Try this one instead:


http://www.commoncraft.com/photosharing

Have fun!!

B

Thing 3. Set Up an RSS Account & Add Feeds

This was so easy and fun!! After reading some of the other postings, I was a bit afraid to try this one, but I'm so glad I did!

I had subscribed to several email updates from different sites, but this will be great. It will be nice to have them all in one place and not clogging up my email. I was amazed by the number of feeds out there. The Google blogsearch tool worked well for me. Who knew there were blogs out there for hardanger embroidery, preschool crafts, Antiques Roadshow (yeah, I know I'm a nerd) and so many oter things I enjoy. There are several sites where I go to download podcasts when I have time. Now they'll all be waiting for me and easily available. What a great way to conect. What a time saver.

I went to several of my most visited sites and was surprised to see the rss feed link on many of them. The Feeds link on the Explorer toolbar lights up when there is a link available on the page. That makes it so easy to find them.

So I don't forget...

This was a cool link I didn't want to lose track of..

http://www.readersclub.org/rss.asp

I'm loving Thing 3!!!!!!

Thing 2 - What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care

I was in the last class in my high school who was not taught basic computer skills. It was not even an option (I was also not allowed to take Shop...girls took ome Ec.) I am younger than you think. I will celebrate my 27th class reunion this summer. The computer, the internet, email, Google and Yahoo, IM, blogs, social networking...it began kind of slowly and now seems to be snowballing. I felt good about picking up skills in college and beyond, but now find myself, as a library worker, in a position were I had better know what's available and how to use it. I don't want to be left behind, nor do I want my community to be left out.

Stephen Abram said 15 minutes...this particular Thing took forever because there were so many interesting things to link to! I am probably the last person on earth to see The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version) on Youtube, but if you haven't yet, take a peek.

One of the links gave statistics about who uses the internet and - no surprise - the younger you are the more likely you are and the easier it is for you to participate online. I feel troubled by the decreasing options available for those who do not use the internet - so many forms, and accounts must be accomplished online. I want to be able to efectively ease the non-user into the it-must-be-done-online age. I want to be able to speak intelligently with savvy users of blogs, Flickr, Secondlife and the like and to be able to give basic assistance to those wishing to enter those realms. I want to understand what my teenagers are encountering and to celebrate with them when they make connections with teenagers in China and Australia and other wonderful places. I want to talk with other librarians from around the nation and around the world and share stories, problems and solutions. I don't want to be left behind.

I hope to complete the 23 things and share what I learn with the rest of the staff at my small library. I am hoping to pass on my excitement and feeling that this is really improtant stuff. I'm hoping that I will become fluent enough to pass on the hows and whys. I think the Things will make our jobs easier and richer in ther services we are able to provide. Sometimes change is hard. Things are changing fast. I don't want to be left beind.

Thing 1: Set Up Your Blog

I'm excited to do the 23 Things!

I'm not unfamiliar with avatars, posting, etc. but this will be my first Blog. I stuck with the basics for now but plan to go back and play with my blog page and avatar and try to be a bit more creative. My son said of my avatar, "Why does that look like you? You could look like anything."

This, for me, is about exploring what's out there - expanding my horizons - and learning more about how to use these Things to promote my library and help patrons and staff and our community communicate.