Week 10: #23 Is this really the end?

Is this really the end? I am excited to have finished- in some of the earlier weeks, I wasn't sure I would make it. I am glad to know that I can figure out most things, although I would never have made it without help from my coworkers. I do feel more confident about helping customers because I understand more than I did before working on the 23 things. I think this is a good program and hope the public will take advantage of it too. I would like to go back over some of the things and take more time with them to really be able to pass them on.

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media

Finally a week where we explore something I know about! I really like the downloadable books that are available to the HCPL patrons. My husband and I have downloaded books to an MP3 player and also burned some to CD's. We prefer the CD's just because they are easier to use in our car. It is nice to find out that we have more choice with the free sites.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I did not realize how many podcasts there were "out there" or the variety. It seems you could find a podcast on anything that interests you. I liked the fact that I could get podcasts of radio programs from the Christian stations that I listen to.

Week 9: #20 Discover YouTube

YouTube had some very funny animal videos and some cute librarian ones. It had everything from how to roast a turkey to decorating a cake. I especially enjoyed watching a 3 year old painting a picture of a ninja turtle with his finger tips- a genius for sure! It does bother me that it makes it easy for anyone to access pornography.

Week 8: #19 Web-based Apps

I liked Zoho Writer because you can save your documents to the web and access them from any computer. It will be something we can tell our patrons about so they don't have to worry about having a disk to save to. It also appeared to have many good features to make your document look good, but I need to work with it some more to see what all it offers.

Week 8: #18 Social Networking

I liked the ratemyspace site. It seemed like a good place to get some ideas on decorating. I also liked ning because you could find a group of people that had the same likes or interests. I guess that is what social networking is all about- finding the common ground among people so that they can connect with others. I don't understand how this is much different than connecting through blogs, but guess I would need to sign up and try one to see.

Week 7: #17

Technology is great. Who could have imagined when TV first came out that you would get to a point that you could stop the picture and rerun it or tape it and watch it another time or craziest of all, watch a TV program on the computer! I'm not sure what Blue Tooth is, but I'm sure I will know soon. Things are moving fast and of course there are some negatives- less face to face conversation, for one- but I believe technology is making life better.

Week 7: #16

I think Wiki's are a good tool for the most part. In a small controlled environment or for a specific purpose, it seems like they would work better. I've used Wikipedia and like it but have reservations in recommending it to others. The SJCPL subject guide was very good, but I am not sure I would remember to use it and would probably just Google anything on the list that I was looking for.

Week 6: #15

There was lot of good information in the articles about Library 2.0. I especially liked the Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto. If we would read that about once a week, it would help to focus us on what we should be doing. We do need to be active participants in moving the library forward and courageous about proposing new services and programs.
The article on icebergs was especially meaningful to me. Our whole mind set needs to change about our collections and this has been a little difficult for me. I also liked the sentence "But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons." I do think some of our services are not as user friendly as they could be, but I know we are working constantly to change those things.

Week 6: #14

It is good to know how to search for blogs on differenct subjects. However Technorati seems like a site that I don't think I will use much. I can see how it would be helpful to find a subject that people are talking about, but I am close to information overload already and this just seems like too much information.

Week 6: #13

I liked the del.icio.us site. It has many great websites and you could spend a lot of time just looking at all of them. I could see where tagging could create some confusion, but overall I like the informality and most things end up with a usable tag. It also seems good that the bookmarks go with you and are not tied to one computer.

Week 5: #12 Library Elf

Signing up for Library Elf was very easy. Although Harris County already reminds you of due dates, it seems like a great service for other systems that aren't so helpful. I will be letting my family know about this website.

Week 5: #11 LibraryThing

I liked LibraryThing and found it very easy to use. It found all of my books instantly and it seems like a great way to keep up with what you have. The link to my catalog is: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/deweydemon

Week 5: #10

I tried out several sites for making Avatars, but I liked the Meez site best. The link is www.meez.com

DeweyDemon

Week 4: #9

For locating blogs to subscribe to, I found using the searches and helps on Bloglines to be the easiest. Then when I was comfortable with that, I found that looking for the RSS icon on sites was another good way to find things that I wanted to subscribe to. I thought that Feedster and Syndic8 were more advanced or just more than I needed.

Week 4: # 8

I set up my blogline account and subscribed to the feeds with a lot less help than I needed for the exercises last week. It feels good to be learning new things that I have heard about, but didn't really understand. It was also interesting to check out some of the blogs that other staff are posting.

My creation

My creation
Originally uploaded by deweydemon

Katherine Tyra Branch Library Harris County Public Library Stikr 035

Katherine Tyra Branch Library Harris County Public Library Stikr 035
Originally uploaded by deweydemon

My Picnik exercise.

Kingston, Jamaica ala Mount Washington

Get your own Trippermap!

Katherine Tyra Branch Library Harris County Public Library Stikr 035

Katherine Tyra Branch Library Harris County Public Library Stikr 035
Originally uploaded by deweydemon

The busiest popcorn machine west of the Mississippi!

New England Autumn

New England Autumn, originally uploaded by deweydemon.

Here is my photo that will post on my blog! Yahooooo!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Online Safety and Privacy

I try to be careful about posting personal information on the web. I have ordered items from the Internet, but I make sure the site is secure before giving out any credit card information. I think it is important to remember that the postings are out there for anyone to see.

Learning Habits

I am a visual and a hands on kind of learner. Learning the 23 things should be a good experience for me because I will actually have to do the things rather than just read about them. I enjoyed the Attack of the Blog because that is the way I was feeling before starting this exercise.