Saturday, March 31, 2007

Lesson 23 Summary of 2.0

Now its time to incorporate the 2.0 lessons into work and life. I think back to the beginning, with the lifelong learning. Information technology changes, and, as a Librarian, I should keep up with the changes. The new tagging tools and Library Thing, Technorati, del.icio.us; it will take a little time for the stew to simmer. Lots of ingredients that create a flavorful soup of information and connectivity.
How will SJPL incorporate these tools? Will our next online catalog system allow users input? I know there's a place for reviews on the teens webpage, but how can links be provided from the catalog to the reviews? (The reviews to the catalog have a link.)
I am very appreciative of the VS Group. Thank you for finding the 23 Lessons and tailoring it to San Jose. I have learned many things, and your group has pointed the way to further knowledge.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Lesson 22 - ebooks

I have been familiar with ebooks for a few years. I have checked out a text version from our Library. The format keeps changing, with different audio platforms added. I would like to hear books in the public domain, (cheaper that way, at first) and then read the newer books from ebook sources. Project Gutenberg has the simple encoding, ASCII and our ebooks has Adobe PDF, which gives the pages a more realistic look. But Gutenberg has a nice searchable catalog, its the first and it has the top 100, too. I think this will take off even more when wireless becomes more common and laptops are light and portable. Then people can peruse books and return them, or potential copies, mirrors, can be duplicated as new readers dictate. I didn't notice tags on the Gutenberg site, but I would think Library Thing and del.icio.us would benefit from partnering with the Gutenberg project.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Podcasts Lesson 21

Finally getting a handle on podcasts. They are not streaming video or audio but they could be music. It seems like they consist of commentary, or lectures, or broadcasts. At first, "the Active X control" wouldn't work, but after searching through the tags directory, I found an official Chicago Cubs podcast: http://blogs.trb.com/sports/custom/weblog/wgnsports/. Actually, its their announcers. Here's a funny site with songs: http://www.bricksandivyradio.com/.

YouTube Lesson #20

I have checked out youtube before and watched a sad historical video, the last speech of Robert F. Kennedy. I hope they don't take that down, news reports suggest the major media companies won't let there material be posted anymore. I viewed a train video into Chicago with a trip up the Sears Tower. The Travel video section of YouTube is valuable for knowledge and experience. The tags help one locate videos. I see there are now videos from people all over the world in "Travel and Places".
I couldn't Yahoo videos to work. Bummer, I wanted to see "Bike Tricks",

Library Thing Lesson #19

Here is the link to Ned W.'s Library Thing page: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=ned. I thought of some books I have read recently. What a great social invention for book readers. 200 books free is pretty big space for a beginning personal library. I enjoyed viewing the blog, which had their virtual picnic.
My books ranged from 15 to 3,187 shares. I found comments on the Pultizer Prize winning "Confederacy of Dunces". The Brian Wilson book is new so there weren't many shares yet.

my first zoho

I like this word processor.  I wonder if it could ever rival San Jose's own Adobe, but I guess they make forms and readers.  Let me look at the icons...103=1,000; ; the best  smile.      This fits rights in with wiki applications.  Now I'm going to upload to my blog

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Sandbox Lesson #17

There is a youth services wiki that is very helpful. The Library 2.0 sandbox had lots of entries, and I liked the movie posters that people used to list there favorites. It reminds me of emoticons. Wikis can be used as a group drive, and can be changed updated, with a history to track what happens.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Wikis Lesson #16

I like wikis because it functions as a public or group drive. Interested people can view and change / add to the wiki. Our Youth Services wiki has some good divisions, so we can post our storytimes, program plans, etc. Wikipedia is a great site for celebrities of the past, cities, any odd bits of info that doesn't have an overtly commercial aspect to it. The good practices Librarians page had an article about weeding travel books, (my section). But I found the ALA New Orleans conference wiki a redundancy over summaries in Library Journal or the ALA website.

Library 2.0 Lesson #15

Library 2.0, oh how can I say the words without paraxyms of intellectual torment? I read the OCLC columns and was alternately intrigued and provoked. I like the idea of the World Cat, and people being able to add tags (i.e. subject headings). But I wonder about security with political or lifestyle choice books and basically anyone with a dissenting view that is not endorsed by the dominant group of library users. Perpetual beta, that makes platforms easy to readjust. Then can Libraries get used to not being in total control of their catalogs / databases? I like the tools, but I don't like "techno gadget lust", as the products go out of date and their piles of junk poison the Third World people. Lets use Library 2.0 to bring the users and the Library together.

Technorati Lesson #14

I searched for "youtube tips" in blogs and got 14,000 hits. Then I just did a tag search and I only got about 500 hits. But I like del.icio.us way of listing the tags and the number of hits better. BTW, the WTF section had some interesting links. This seems like a good site to organize and keep up with your favorite blogs.
The advantages to tags is getting the exact word, and slight variations, to have the most relevance in searches. Too much generalities will just lump one's blogs with the thousands of others on common subjects.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

del.icio.us Lesson #13

I have never seen a collection of better articles than the Library 2.0 link to del.icio.us. The links, the words, this concept makes sense to me. I must continue with the lesson. I registered, but of course I couldn't add the icons to the top of the page. I read an article about "online catalogs, paradise lost then found" that was fascinating.

Lesson #12 - Rollyo

I went to the Rollyo link and saw that major categories were already created. So I created "YA Library Spaces" and placed 8 websites on the searchroll. I used it to look about Dr. Bernier, who spoke to SJPL staff about Young Adults in Libraries in the fall of 2006. He has strong ideas about what makes a good library space and his work is credited in many journals. How will San Jose's new Libraries rank in 21st century teen spaces?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Lesson #11

Scrolling through the long list of award winning Library 2.0 meant many candidates were possible for my recommendation. Well, one general interest news site really caught my attention: www.newsvine.com. The site takes feeds from Ap and ESPN and puts them within its site. Users read them and give them a thumbs up vote. The stories with the most votes go on the homepage. Stories are listed by most votes and most comments, which are the more values driven stories. Users decide the importance of the stories.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Image Generators Lesson 10



Here is an image I created from the Image Generator, from the first link. The link is "Generator Blog". I thought the image choices were excellent, but the text entry was limited. It only went to 8 on some of the "signs". But still, Alphabet soup and classic car grill, thumbs up!

Do you want to see another image?


Saturday, February 17, 2007

Lesson #8 RSS Feeds

I created an RSS feed at this site: http://www.bloglines.com/public/Ned07. I searched for public library feeds and found a very nicely put together location from Kankakee, WI. Let me see if I can post the link...http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs_display?sub=46185247&site=8041141. So many feeds, so little time. Its interesting to see where SJPL is compared to others. I am starting to read and hear the phrase 'web 2.0" more often. Customization is what this is all about.

Very interesting book on Contemporary Literature Blog: "Love is a Mix Tape". Here is the link: http://contemporarylit.about.com/b/a/256417.html. Does this work?

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Week 3: Lesson 6

Today I created a card from a flickr partner, bighugelabs. I uploaded the photo from the G drive and added a few captions. I am only sharing it with "Friends", and I guess I should get some nearby people to create a network.
I liked the little icons one can put on a card, they give you seven icon spaces. There were about 40 choices, some spiritual, some lifestyle...I would like to learn those nice alphabets they put in their photos.

Friday, February 2, 2007

Week 3 #5

Let me show you this wonderful image I found in flickr's photo links. First I went to this site: http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/ which has a color wheel. Here is a beautiful Chagall stained glass image. I have set up my own flickr account and here is my photo at the April 2006 MOYC festival.



Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Flickr experiences Week 3

Flickr had a fun area entitled "Librarian Trading Cards". I thought the cards were well done and it intrigues me. I wonder if they used mashups...it looks like the photos have been altered. I want to explore this site more.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Life Long Learning

The easiest part of lifelong learning is View problems as challenges. I get a great feeling from solving vexing little things.
I found the logging in part unclear. Old blog, new blog? Of course this is a new blog. I look forward to searching the blogs by subject, and linking up with some people that have similar favorite movies or books.

Learning 2.0

Here is my blog on SJ Library's 2.0. I have listened to the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learner presentation and I find my challenge is creating a learning toolbox. I am thinking of a physical thing, where it seems the toolbox is made up of names, websites, books and articles. Categorizing the toolbox as a separate entity will help.