Vacation

Well I'm on vacation this week at the Quilt Show at the George Brown Convention Center. So no iHCPL till next week. See you then.

Week 7 - Technology & commenting

I am SO HAPPY to be able to download audible books. Even in our system, we don't have everything I want to listen to. I download from our site and from Audible. I enjoy reading Gizmodo when I get a chance to try to keep up with what is coming out. Technology is changing faster than I can keep up with it.
The second part, I left a comment on Whitty and Reason's blog about etiquette in using technology and found a Buffy fan. I do try to look thru other blogs when I have a chance, but very seldom comment. Maybe I can start a new habit.

Week 7 - Wikis

I've used Wikipedia as a starting point for some reference questions. There are good links and info, you just have to be aware that info needs to be verified.
I also like Library Success. There are some good ideas for programs and other information that I want to check into.
I liked the BookLoversWiki also. Might we be able to do something like that for patrons to add to? Possibly for next summer's adult reading club?
The St. Joseph County PL's subject guides is something that would be useful for people new to an area. It might be interesting to find out how much upkeep is involved.
I also added my blog to the favorites list and added a link under the Favorite Animal page. It was tricky to get the name of the web page to hyperlink. It took me several trys to get it right.
Wikis can be useful for libraries, but there would need to be moderators to keep the information correct and to keep inappropriate material off of the pages.

Week 6 - Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

There has been a lot of discussion about Library 2.0. Making everything easier for customers to use, website design friendlier, using new technology, and looking for new ideas to incorporate into the library.
Michael Stephens of Tame The Web makes good points about what the 2.0 librarian should be like. Looking to the future in planning, involving IT in design and what needs to be planned for. To realize planning may need to happen quickly, technology is changing at a very fast rate, but to make sure the technology is valid before buying it.
Rick Anderson has some valid points about people not needing hard copy of reference materials when they are available in online databases. One problem with that is sometimes a library subscribes to a service one year and drops it the next. Then you may not have the materials at all because you don't have the hard copy. If the library subscribes to a necessary database, they need to decide if they will continue to subscribe or if they are going to drop it. Making websites user friendly is what customers expect. They are used to Google or other one stop search engines or having a list of subjects to click on to take them to what they want.
This happened to me once. I had pointed a customer to a certain database and the next week the person was in to use it again and the database had been dropped and was no longer available. And we had nothing in hard copy to replace it.
That said, I refer customers to databases they can use at home to save them printing costs and that they can use after we are closed. I try to show them how to do the search they are interested in and let them know to call if they have any problems.
The online books and downloadable books have also been of use to customers.
One problem our catalog has is subject headings. As a librarian, I have trouble with subject headings. Many are old and/or not descriptive. Others seem to be applied randomly. One of my favorites is Women's Studies. It can be on anything from a book on feminism, to science fiction, to mysteries and thrillers. Sound Recordings for records, Sound Recording Industry for record/music industry. I don't know if tagging book entries is the answer, but subject headings that are more current are needed. Other books have no subject heading and others in series all have different subject headings.
Anyway, I think we are moving in the right direction, but because of the nature of the beast, it will be an ongoing project.

Blog Action Day

I may be a day late, but I didn't get to it yesterday. The environment is something everyone needs to be concered about and Blog Action Day is a way to be involved.
I tend to have a rant about every strip center that goes in, every subdivision that goes up, the people building them come in and the first thing they do is to clear cut all the trees. Once upon a time, subdivisions at lease, left trees up as something good to have. Now they cut them all down, build houses, and plant a twig in the front yard and call it a tree. This also destroys the habitat for that area. Birds, small animals, insects are all destroyed. And at the rate things are destroyed in city areas, there will not be a place for the animals and birds to move to. Many years ago, in the evening, there were huge flocks of birds of different kinds that would roost around town. Now there are only grackles and not many of them, relatively speaking. Scissortail birds were every where, now I seldom see one except in the country. Lightning bugs have vanished from many areas. It's all very depressing.
Businesses need to realize trees are necessary and valuable to people, animals, birds, and insects. Don't cut the forests down! Leave trees for everyone and everything to enjoy.

Week 6 - Technorati

I've tried the different searches with varying results. The search for blogs about, with exact phrase came up to almost 7000. Going to tags search without quotes is about 23,000 and with quotes 6300. The blog directory search without quotes was 465 and with quotes 280. Using quotes makes a big difference. The blog directory search with quotes seems to narrow results to library/librarian blogs. I recognized several of the blogs as ones that I have read or have in Bloglines. Many of the other sites are much more general.
Going through the 100 most popular blogs, I see several that I recognize. Looking at some of the other popular links, I liked the movies and dvds as ones I might like to look at. The others, not so much.
I'm still not sure that this is a site that I will use very much. I tend to use Google news or Bloglines to keep up with current stuff. It's not overwhelming like Technorati is.

Week 6 - Tagging with Technorati

OK, I understand the concept of tagging, let's see if I can make it work. I've been enjoying the challenges of the 23 things. So far I've already known some of the things, but other things, like tagging and editing pictures online are new.


Technorati Tag: PLCMCL2

Week 6 - Tagging & Delicious

I have had a Del.icio.us account for a couple of years. It is very handy when working at a branch that isn't my own. I am also working on the HCPL account. I was reading the Several Habits help list and found out about subscriptions. I had not tried that before, but will now.

Week 5 - Library Elf

I have subscribed to Library Elf for a couple years, shortly after it first came out. It gives a very nice presentation of everything on your account. It tells you what's due, overdue, holds, things ready to be picked up, and things about to be due. Fairly recently I noticed book reviews showing up. There are links to Amazon and WorldCat for finding the book. I like it much better than the one the library has. Better formatting, gives more info and it looks pretty.

Week 5 - avatars one more time

After doing some things on another project, I finally found out how to put my Yahoo avatar on the side of my blog where she can stay and not just have her in my post. This is a continual learning experience. What you learn for one thing will answer your question about something else.

Week 5 - more LibraryThing & Goodreads

I explored a little more on LibraryThing, found the groups where the librarians are listed along with some other groups I might check in on.
I signed up for Goodreads. The one extra thing I like about it is you can list items you would like to read. It also has a widget for recently added books. I'm not adding it at this point.
I like both of these programs and will have to see if I use one more that the other.

Week 5 - Backtracking to avatars

Saw a great avatar on another site and decided to create one of my own. She is below and the site is Meez. It was a lot of fun and there are many choices in dress, background and actions.

Week 5 - Which way?? - avatar

Week 5 - LibraryThing

I already had a LibraryThing account, but hadn't done much with it. They also have added some features to the site. I've gone thru and added books and audios. I also added a widget, though it seems to just show the blog. I am still exploring the site.
I have also been looking at other blogs and finding new and interesting things on other people's sites. In some cases I am trying them out on my blog.
I found Widgetbox and am trying out some other widgets. I found my favorite cat, Maukie, and added her.
It's fun to try out things other people have used. I think I will pick up more than 23 things.

Week 5 - generator

The Movie Poster generator.

Week 5 - Avatar

I was able to get my Yahoo Avatar into my blog. Still trying to get her on the template.

Week 5 - generators

I picked Garfield up at Comic Strip Generator. It was easy enought to make the comic, but it doesn't quite fit and I'm not sure how to change that without possibly changing the entire layout.

Week 5 - Generators

Well I started playing around with some of them to see how they worked. The ribbon generator let me put a Breast Cancer Awareness ribbon on my page.
The Blog Header Image Generator let me change my blog header to something more exciting.
I've done an avatar on Yahoo, but I can't find a way to get it to my blog and from their help, not sure I can.
Still playing with some of the other generators. Will check back.

Week 4 - more on finding feeds

Well, I thought I would give them a second or third or fourth (I forgot how many searches I did the other day) chance. I went back to the four listed and tried a broader search term. Technorati did the best, finding a number of blogs on target. syndic8 did so, so finding a few. Topix still doesn't have a clue. Feedster did well also. And Bloglines did quite well. I would still choose Bloglines if I was looking for new blogs. It's handy, easy to use, has good results.

Week 4 - Finding feeds

OK, I tried all of the ones listed. I was doing several very specialized searches.
Technorati needed me to be specific and even then it didn't find much. Syndic8 did well on one of the searches. Topix doesn't do hobbies or crafts or other things like that at all. It looks like its main point is news. It never found anything I was looking for. On Feedster, the tab for blogs made it easier to search and I found a couple of blogs on my subject. The one I found the easiest and most successful to use was Bloglines. For the most part, I was not impressed with any of the outside feed finders. I don't know if it was my subjects that were just not indexed by those sites or what.
Back when I first started blogs, I was reading The Shifted Librarian. The first aggregator she talked about was NewsIsFree. I got an account with them and used it for awhile. Then she talked about Bloglines and I went to them. I started out just searching them and found several library/librarian sites and subscribed to them. After that as I read blogs, they would mention other bloggers or have them listed on their sites.
I would also find the RSS logo on sites of interest and add them. Now, I basically just try to keep up with what I have. Sometimes a site quits posting and I'll drop them or someone mentions a site and I'll add it to try it out. If nothing else, I will try a search on a subject and blog and things will usually pop up. And most people list favorite blogs on their sites, so it makes it easy to add blogs that will probably be what you want and they have been screened for subject matter.
If you don't like a site, there is always delete.

Week 4 - RSS aggregators, Bloglines

I've used Bloglines for a couple of years now. I haven't had much time recently to keep up, but I can drop into it and read when I have a chance. I think I have about 50 subscriptions. Most are to librarians, but some are for gadgets, others for things of interest to me. I'm trying out their Beta Bloglines as of today. I'll have to see how I like it. The format is a little different.