Thing 30-- done!

Thing 30

Things 29 and 30 could almost be combined, I think. Certainly “discovery exercise 1” in 29 could be combined here.

And speaking of doing things differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Fewer things. 30 is daunting. I know, I know, what do you leave out? Well, Combine a couple—Week 9 has 3 things about Flickr—are they all necessary? I found it hard to distinguish well among the discovery exercises. Week 5 IM. The two things could be combined. The two blog posts could become one.

I found a number of libraries in Va. that are doing Learning 2.0, most with fewer things. It would be interesting to know their rationale for this decision. Are the staff more advanced than us? Was this all the time their leaders could permit staff to devote to it? Are they planning a followup that includes the things they left out before?

I’m sure many people have commented on the surprisingly long time that it took to complete many of the things. This is very difficult to control. I know that many persevered because of the prize at the end. If I had had to fit this in with a desk schedule, I’d never have been able to finish it.

I doubt that similar incentives can be offered forever. So how about just offering one or two related things each month, and keeping them up for a long time. That way people will have more time to devote to it, and not feel pressured.


Unexpected outcomes:
I understood much more of what I was doing than I expected. The step-by-step, multiple approaches (read about what it is, then take and tour, then do it) worked for my learning style. If someone says “here’s how to change a lightbulb”, I want to know what a lightbulb IS, and how it might be useful to change it, first. As I mentioned in #29, there’s tweaking I still need to do for some things. But, on #29, I FINALLY successfully added a comment to a blog. I’ve been trying to do that off and on for months.

Semi-unexpected outcome: I really enjoyed blogging—or at least the opportunity to express myself in writing. Even though I know I’m mostly talking to myself (my blog isn’t going to grab anyone’s attention), I can at least believe in the possibility that I’m writing for someone. I’m not a diarist—I prefer writing for a presumed audience.

Would I choose to participate in a future program? Of course. We’ll have to have future programs just to keep up with the next steps. Not having been born with a mouse, I need a little more help with some of the newer things—even knowing they exist.

Thing 29

Thing 29, most probably

I am hoping you won’t take these “Things” down from blogspot. I’ve gone back to earlier lessons several times since October, to reread information, or to verify something. Since so many of the resources are (duh) links, printing the ‘things” won’t help.

I just went back to Thing 9, about RSS feeds and sent the thing link to my brother in Richmond. He was talking about how he gets his news, the browsing of multiple sites, etc., etc., so I asked if he knew about RSS feeds. He had been wondering about the little orange buttons!


Initially I was fearful I wouldn’t be able to get the technical parts, but the program was structured so that it explained what we were doing and walked us through a lot, so that I became more confident. Even though I’ve had trouble with some of the “things”, with practice I’ve gotten better at them. With time I can work out some of the other glitches, too.

DANGERDANGERDANGER: I can be a bit obsessive/compulsive, and found myself spending more time than I should on some of the sites. I can easily see spending hours and hours playing with Library Thing, or Flickr, or YouTube, or (name almost any tool we’ve learned about). Even while reading the introductory articles I’d get lost in a trail of related links. It’s probably a good thing that I haven’t had a functional home Internet connection for a couple or three years.

In looking at other blogs and web sites, I can now recognize what I’m seeing in many cases. For example, back in November I looked at a blog and was impressed by the drawing of the blogger. Now I understand that it came from one of the image manipulation tools (the blogger told me that when I talked to him several months ago, but I didn’t understand him).

ROLLYO thoughts

Interesting. I can see how useful this could be for a specific hobby or interest, or research topic. Like anything else, of course, it has its limitataions. I searched the “free photos” rollyo for “Tom Selleck” and “Elizabeth Peters”. There were a number of hits that weren’t pictures—just the mention of the name on someone’s profile, or an artistic photo or bricks “Tom Selleck’s Mustache” (didn’t understand that!).

Even with folders, “favorites” lists become cumbersome. I expect a very personal Rollyo could help this. You really wouldn’t even have to organize them—just pull it up and search the topic. And, since the site list is conveniently located, if you know you need to look at the main site for a particular topic, then you can click on that.

I’m wondering how it would work with sites requiring passwords to search, or databases you must subscribe to. For example: If I were doing research, I might like to be able to search my topic on Ebsco, Literary Resources, and Wiki. Could I create a Rollyo of all 3? Probably not.

Nice that the paid ads are in a different color!

Library Thing

Intriguing. I would also like to add audiobooks to the list. I'll have to try that when I have more time-- probably work by adding a book manually by ISBN. I fumbled around trying to figure out how to add reviews and ratings. It wasn't intuitive (to me, at least).

I just added some books I've read in the last couple of months, from several genres, etc.. It was interesting to see how many-- or how few -- others had added the same books.

Melvil Dewey Warholized, better

This from www.shadowfire.de/warholizer
I like it better than the old format one.
Class in 779

Altogether I tried and more or less successfully posted 3 different images-- 3 different posts. Looking at the others, especially from "The Generator Blog", I can see there are lots of fun things to try out-- and now I understand some of the images I've seen on other blogs.

Rats. Technical difficulties. Yesterday the image showed on the blog. Today I get the pesky corner x.

Melvil Dewey Warholized

Tasteful Lady on Funny Face Generator (26)

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It was this one or the pinhead, a definite "pear" shape. I prefer uniform fat.
Our instructions did say "try to be tasteful, too."

Podcasts are us!

I’ve been to so many programs at VLA that discuss ways to deliver information/training online, both for staff and customers. Podcasts still seem like a good, quick way to do it, and one that can be carried with you. For example, Tours of the building. Videos might work, too, but with a podcast the customer can listen while walking through the tour, and not be distracted by the video image.

A podcast describing a MARC record, while the person is looking at one online and manipulating it would be lovely. A video is also possible—but again, the video can be distracting or boring (!) for a subject such as MARC records.

I repeat what I said in Podcasts, the previous post. A script is essential. I listened to a couple of Library podcasts (will omit name of library to avoid hurting feelings) and also decided that even a scripted post doesn’t work when the librarian’s voice is unpleasant. There were several different men doing book reviews, including book reviews of YA and younger materials—with just unpleasant voices. Do I feel this way just because I’m of the radio generation, when people had mellifluous voices, unless they were trying to be funny?

But I still want to do some podcast book talks. I think they would be fun to do, and there are some books I really want to tell people about—fiction and nonfiction, adult and juvenile.

I don’t know if it was the setting on my player, or if it’s not possible to get images attached to the podcast (as when you play music and sometimes get an album cover), but it would be lovely to link the jacket cover to podcast reviews, if we could, legally.

Podcasts

I’ve wondered about Podcasts for so long!

Obviously the quality varies. I tried one and got a giggler, even though it wasn’t here first. It also provided some tips (inadvertently) for podcasting-- get to the subject fast and stick to it (she was doing an interview, and kept giggling!). Scripting is a good idea. If you don’t script it, listen to it before you publish/upload; at the very least it may help you hear your idiosyncraices that detract from the message, such as “like.”. I tried another on the same topic—she was new at it. Then I tried a third—same topic—and it was almost certainly scripted, but well read/acted! The ‘caster’s way with words made it worth listening to; it was well-written and well read.

I had better luck searching and getting to hear podcasts from Podcastalley than from Yahoo.

Found a great podcast to link to the RSS feed, but don’t think I was successful with attaching to the blog—although I did get it on my RSS feeds with Google. I still haven't got it showing up as an RSS feed per se, but I was able to add it the the blog page-- all the way at the bottom (Purl Diving). Haven't figured out how to move it up the page, or get it into this post.

Thing 23--Discover YouTube

I really enjoy the embedded links to YouTube videos found in American Libraries Online, and other odd emails. I’d never really SEARCHED YouTube before.
Having searched “Star Trek” for the exercise today, I was surprised that the first few that came up were of “questionable” content. For example, “Star Trek Sex Compilation.” Okay, why am I surprised? Naivete, I expect. And the description under the video lets you know what to expect, so you can avoid it. I know from my brother’s comments that there are lots of “star trek sex sites” on the web. So why would You Tube be any different?

OTOH, the video “Star Trek meets Monty Python” was silly fun. But it had some of the same troubles I’ve had with other YouTube videos—stopping and starting. Very irritating. It was sufficiently irritating when I tried to watch “Star Trek vs. Star Wars” that I did finish watching it. BattleStar Galactica vs. Star Wars vs. Star Trek vs. Babylon 5 was even worse—it totally stopped after 9 seconds. Bummer! Is this endemic to Youtube, or does it have something to do with our connection to YouTube?

YouTube in Libraries? Great marketing/training potential. So many of the videos linked to from American Libraries Online have been library training or humorous takes on library clichés.

Thing22 Flickr fun

Sigh. I enjoyed looking at the applications and even tried a couple-- me as a trading card, and a beautiful "Warholized" Melville Dewey. The trading card was not exciting. I'll need to work on that-- but an interesting, fun concept. I can imagine it would be great fun for a program after hours, with multiple pcs. Or for a cool present kids could make for their families, or a fun family activity--.

The "Warholized" Melville Dewey was a keeper. But I was unable to load it successfully, despite many tries.

FLICKR 2: Tagging, community, utility

What you can do with Flickr:
Post photos
Tag photos
Group photos into “folders” (I’m fuzzy on this)
Make photos private or public, or somethwere in-between.
Manipulate photos with applications
Add notes to spots on photos (very cool)
Search the tags!

Not having posted photos, I’m having difficulty understanding how “community” develops on Flickr. I can understand that if I use a particular tag, and discover another person who uses that tag, then our photos will appear when the tag is searched. How this creates community is not apparent to me, unless community is meant very superficially.

OTOH, having this rich resource of photos at the click of a mouse is a cool thing. Do any of you folks remember when we had as part of the reference collection catalogs of portraits or photos that could be ordered? They were limited, of course, and were essentially thumbnails. We’ve also had other picture collections in loose-leaf for those who needed a portrait of, say, Marie Curie. These could be photocopied—letter size portraits, usually. But they were horrible to keep in order, just like the Facts-on-File binders—only worse!

With Flickr, you can probably find a photo on just about any subject (including many of those portraits) and then use it for your nonprofit work. So much easier. But the “all rights reserved” part is confusing. For example, I just searched Marlene Dietrich and found several photos—identical—that were recently uploaded by different people, and all rights were reserved. How is this possible? These individuals must have found the photos elsewhere and put them online, perhaps with some tweaking for clarity (especially for the one for St. Therese). The subjects of these portraits have been deceased for decades.

For the previous “thing” I wrote about searching for library cats on Flickr. Lots of chuckles. The ability to find amusing photos for a pick-me-up, or a semi-homemade greeting card is a cool thing about Flikr that I really appreciate.

The Tasteful lady

See earlier post. This is my favorite librarian, in full "tasteful" mode-- gloves, hat, even earrings.

Flickr--surprising thoughts

I searched “librarians” and then “library cats.” Naturally there were thousands in both categories. Without going deeper than the first 4 pages of “librarians”, I found a number of interesting images. One was just the sign “Gorgeous Librarians”; a later image by a different photographer showed the top of the sign “Girls, Girls.” The sign is for a strip club in Las Vegas. Think what a library could do with that kind of marketing…..

Another image was “Nympho Librarian”, a book cover for a porn book about librarians. With it was a link to a list of “hard core porn” pbks from the several decades ago. Mostly just, the titles, but a few with links to selections from the books—with a warning that it really was explicit language. Fascinating. I’ve come across more porn, images and text, with learning 2.0 exercises than I have on the Internet since GUIs became available—just by browsing terms such as “librarians,.” Or looking through the links to web sites that received awards.

I think for this post I’ll just link a picture of my own favorite librarian, in full “lady” mode. Please note—the hat is NOT a Minnie Pearl ripoff, but one designed for a costume in local productions of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, and worn by the “lady” in this picture.

Thing 19

I chose to look at the short list of awards sites, browsing in several categories. Many of the sites have application for libraries-- basic reference, for example. I looked at the travel sites, and discovered quick clicks to specific cities, with the usual hotel, restaurant, and other information. This is easily accessible in other ways, but tagging one of these sites might be useful. I also looked at the games sites, and will play those again on another computer! Like most free games, the instructions, or lack thereof, varied. I particularly enjoyed the simplicity of Guess the Google. I played it twice. It's a good brain exercise. Maybe an interesting recommendation for resources for seniors?

Technorati

I'm glad there's a way to search blogs. It was interesting to view. I looked up some personal interests--chiefly Discworld, and found some interesting sites. I didn't cross check in google to see if the more valuable ones (interviews with Terry Pratchett) were indexed elsewhere. If there are unique things that can be used for research, then Technorati tagging is a great help. I'm not sure YET about blogs as a resource for citing in research. I guess if a recognized person in the field has a blog, then using their blogs is valuable. And if you're working on something that needs anecdotes about personal experience, that's worthwhile. I'd have to explore it a great deal more to be sure.

It was interesting to see how many libraries are doing some version of Learning 2.0. Some had fewer "things" and some had more. Fascinating. Also that all kinds of libraries are doing this. Too bad the originators aren't getting royalties!

Finally-- Technorati, like so many of the other fascinating resources we've learned about, could easily get out of hand for me (I have an obsessive personality)-- it would be all too easy to spend way too much time going from link to link with this. I do find it more difficult to see as an active tool for librarians to answer specific questions, although recommending it (and showing folks how to use it) is definitely in the picture.

Tagging and Folksonomy Thoughts--General and Del.icio.us

The video showing the sisters tagging everything was perfect! It not only demonstrated tagging, but also showed the ambiguities, and POV of different folks. Granted, tagging doesn’t strive to define topics, exactly—so Blue and Door, very different concepts, on the same object make perfect sense. And both are useful tags for people looking up each of those examples.

The discussion tab of the wikipedia article on Folksonomy was more fun than the article itself—in many ways it demonstrates (more pedantically) the same points as the video with the sisters. Ironic, I think.

As a professional “disambiguator”, I am extremely aware of the ease with which different concepts may share the same tag, and similar concepts can share varyingly precise synonyms. A few years ago the Library of Congress subject heading folks worked hard on making vernacular terms for vegetables and fruits all plural. Apples, not Apple ; potatoes, not potato. Then, there’s broccoli. Inherently plural, I think. And Kiwifruit. The large number of words in English, and oddities of our language and usage make total consistency very difficult, even if you’re striving for it. And we are all aware of the weaknesses of LCSH. Any controlled system in English will have weaknesses—again, because of the size of number of words we have, some with very nuanced meanings. “Cat is Cat” doesn’t even hold true-- To some, cat may mean the big cats—Lions, or wild cats (i.e.—pumas); whereas to others it may mean Siamese, Persian, or “Puss.” I was well grown before I knew that “Polecat” or “Pole cat” was a skunk; from early westerns and cartoons, I knew it was a human scoundrel.

Additionally, reading is often subjective—that’s why Reader’s advisory is not an exact science. When a customer wants a book “like” Harry Potter”, do they mean fantasy? Magic? Boarding schools? England? Smart female characters? Or something else entirely. Tags added to the Rowling books could include any or all of those topics.
And they’d be correct. Time and money prevent all of those tags being added by catalogers (who can’t read every word of everything they catalog) . Nonfiction is also subjective. Each reader may find something different about any given book. Think about the Covey’s Seven Habits…; then think about the many words you could use to describe either the book as a whole, or the parts that were most significant to you. Yours may differ from mine, in both my roles as cataloger and reader. Neither is wrong.

My point? There’s a place in the online environment for both folksonomy (or uncontrolled, user supplied vocabulary) and controlled vocabulary. Both have strengths and weaknesses—some amazingly alike.

My experience with Del.icio.us at VBPL_L2 is too limited to comment on—there aren’t enough tags, etc. to see full value. Even when I looked at the “other people”, it wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped. HOWEVER- the tutorial by Kathleen Gilroy (plus the long presentation by Jason Griffey) did start me thinking about uses of Del.icio.us for general reference and personal use. Think of how great this would be for quick answers to persistent questions—or some teacher’s current homework stumper. Since it’s available to anyone with an account, then tagging for: (topic) would make it very useful. As mentioned in at least one of the resources—more accessible and useful than a personal “favorites” list, because it can travel to whichever computer you’re on.

For personal use: The same traveling advantage, plus you can build an extended list of articles and urls with topics you’re interested in. Favorites lists quickly become unmanageable, even with folders. Tagging may make it easier to organize.

This is what really grabbed me, and helped me understand the folksonomy promise/premise:
Tags and folksonomies are created from the wisdom of crowds—when a large enough people tag, a folksonomy is created.

MySpace exploration

It is all too easy to make a MySpace account. I took the tour (which was hardly a real tour—more of an advertisement) and then looked at some open information, including that on my brother’s site. After looking at the video “how to sign up for a MySpace account”, I was seriously tempted—it looks all too easy. But then I saw the “Tips from a Grownup Geek site”, that included information about hacking, including hacking into hidden profile information, and decided I really don’t want to sign up right now. I can understand the appeal, especially when you’re separated from friends and family by distance. This is probably my shortest blog post ever. I can't get excited about MySpace for myself.

Social Networking: a new tool, not a demon

Two preliminary observations about use and overuse of online social networks:

>>I’ve noticed a number of pop groups now have a MySpace url, which puts them right with their audience. Good marketing...

>>On NPR recently there was an essay by a 23 year old who had been an avid member of either Facebook or MySpace for 4 or so years. She decided to quit cold turkey and remove herself from the OSN because she discovered she had nothing to talk about when she met her friends face-to-face. At her high school reunion she already knew everything her classmates cared to share; what was the point of the reunion? Ordinary small talk was useless—she already knew what they’d had for breakfast, what books they were reading, and the latest episode in their love lives— all from the social network. She decided she wanted a real life, rather than a virtual one with them.

And now, the personal opinions.
The attitudes in two of the articles seem to epitomize the ends of the continuum—OSNs good or bad.

I pasted this from the back page of “Creating & Connecting//Research and guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking” to show the POV of this group’s research.
“The National School Boards Association is a not-for-profit federation of state associations of school boards across the United States. Our mission is to foster excellence and equity in public education through school board leadership.
NSBA represents the nation’s 95,000 school board members that govern 14,890 local school districts serving more than
47 million public school students.”


In comparison with the article “Get out of my space” by National Institute on Media and the Family, the NSBA’s study makes it seem that most concerns adults have about social networking by YAs are hysteria. Their percentages of people having problems are small, even very small. The NSBA finds great and greater use of online methods in the classroom, as well as giving statistics about, and support for, teens and tweens use of OSNs.

ME: Naturally, cases with lots of publicity or horror value, though few, will get the greatest press, and a consequent call by some for clamping down on the perceived danger (such as the recent case of cyberbullying that apparently led to a 13yo’s suicide.). The large gap that appears between some legislators and the techno-savvy people whose activities they wish to legislate creates all sorts of problems, often needless ones. OTOH, each time we have a new technology that makes it possible to communicate in a more “graphic” way, it takes a long long time for society to shake down and accept the difference. We all recall the stories of earlier movies and television, when even married couples slept in twin beds. How DID Lucy get pregnant (and wasn’t it amazing that they even let her appear pregnant on TV in the very early 50s?). Hearing steamy passages in audiobooks is very different from reading them from a page, especially when you’re listening without headphones in a public place (such as your car) with the windows open!

One telling comment near the end of the NSBA article implies that schools just have to get used to new technology before embracing it. Now expect students to use the Internet for homework. Wikis and blogs are sometimes created as part of class work and assignments. Some students who don’t shine in class perform better at the one-remove step of online communication. Currently OSNs are the way teens communicate with each other; others who communicate the same way are more likely to get their attention—be it advertisers or teachers, or libraries or someone else. OSNs have the virtue of feeling private and public at the same time. They can be somewhat like diaries.

And here’s an added bonus: Students who use OSN are likely to be practicing writing; even if they don’t use perfect grammar or spelling (who does?); they’re learning to put their thoughts into writing without the pressure of having to write “an essay”. It would be interesting to learn if there is a future or current correlation with the scores for the SAT essay section and students using OSN.

And finally—to answer the question: should VBPL use a social networking site to connect with teens? Yes. Like IM, it is another way to connect with customers in the way they’re using our locations (in this case, our virtual location). But it has to be accessible not just from the OSN site, but from the library web page, too, so current library users are more likely to find it and to share the information with their friends.

RA WIKI--Thing 14

The huge “staff picks” page on the RA wiki was very easy to add to. But the wiki as a whole was not very friendly. I found, and then lost, nonfiction books. I thought I found (and then lost) a section of science fiction books. Does someone periodically go through the additions by keyword and organize them (as in the section for teens for “boys”).

I couldn’t find the wiki on our web site. Is it somewhere available to the public? Granted, it’s small yet, but customers do enjoy reading about what library staff enjoy—and possibly looking for the materials themselves.

Wikis-- Thing 13

Can you imagine an open wiki for vbgov for citizens or visitors? Rochester has the optimism/pessimism pages that appear open, plus various other obviously interactive sites—the “find cheap gas” one was interesting—the price a lot higher than VB today.

University of Calgary’s Sandbox (where users can check out their entry without “breaking” anything) is cool.

SJCPL subject guide is fascinating. If customers can add to it, then it is a great tool for browsing for nonfiction books.

Finding government information on SJ PL (the link to Indiana govt) seems so much easier than on our web site. This could be an entirely new way for us to organize the web links resources on our web site. It could also be a way for folks to talk about their experiences using a particular link, or to give tips for searching a particular link, or to add a link for an additional related resource.

Downside—to what degree would our info folks need to vet these? Would a disclaimer be necessary?

What a concept—putting the policy and procedure manuals in a wiki—while not self-indexing, it could still be a better, easier way to update and find materials than the old-fashioned (?!) online format. Limiting editors would take care of any inappropriate additions or editing.

Clearly, like so many other ideas new to me in Learning 2.0, wikis have lots of potential uses in libraries. The trick is going to be figuring out what is the best “2.0” way of providing specific types of information. I’ve noticed that several different traditional library services (for example, Reader’s advisory) have been presented using various Web 2.0 tools—wikis, of course, but also library thing, blogs, and other additions of subject headings and reviews.