Thursday, January 22, 2009

Thing #23 The Beginning

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

And last but not least…

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?


I found GoodReads the best aspect of this program and will continue to update my site daily. The RSS feeds is fun but a little overwhelming and YouTube, NetLibrary and Online Apps should be familiar already but this really forced me to evaluate them as a professional tool.

I enjoyed the program and format and would like to see more of our staff get involved.

Thing #22 Downloadable Netlibrary

I have used NetLibrary many times especially for older books that are not necessarily needed in print. I also refer test takers to these sources if their print version is not available.

I found it easy to read and simple to use but hard to stay focused on.

Online in general invites a lot of distractions which makes it hard to read a book and not be tempted to check your e-mail or ignore chats or posts that pop up on the screen.

Thing #21 Podcasting

So far not impressed with one suggested directory: www.podcast411.com It was difficult to read and had limited content.

PodCastAlley.Com was more impressive although I was surprised to see limited number of Government & Organizations listed.


I subscribed to "Books on the Nightstand: conversations about books" and joined the group on Goodreads.

Thing #20

I am a little embarressed to add this link but since this video cannot be embeded I will post this anyways http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PrS9K96neU

I'm one of the cheerleaders although I'm glad you can barely see me.

The next video was my favorite from Staff Development Day.

Thing #19 Add to 2.0 Toolbox

What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

When I visited Questions and Advice in the listing of, I expected to see psychology or dating advice but was pleasantly surprised to find www.Fixya.com. This site lets consumers view their products and troubleshoot any problems as well as ask for advice from "experts" through live chat.

Having just uncovered an old Sanyo tube TV with no remote, I was having problems trying to program a universal remote to control it and view DVDs. By clicking through some of the Sanyo products and questions posted by others, I have several options to try out tonight.

I'll post my findings soon. If successful I might go back and leave some comments.

Thing #18 Online Apps

Can you imagine using this at work? What about in your personal life?

I created an account with Google Docs and loaded up my list of Horror Titles I was composing in the hopes of creating a Horror Book Club sometime in the future.

If my book club was inclined to use the Internet for discussion preparation, I would definitely use this to get suggestions for further titles, but I could see this as a way to solict ideas from other Librarians or book lovers.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Hands-on Wiki Sandbox Thing #17

Adding to the list of favorite blogs was very easy, but when I tried to view other blogs some took some time to load especially if they had a lot of pictures. Overall a simple experience.

Wikis in general are a powerful way to collaborate and expand on topics quickly and easily.

Thing #16 Wiki-mania

I found great comfort in the Library Success: A best practices as recommended in the list of wikis to explore.

This wiki feels very straightforward with simple instructions, relevant categories, and very librarian-friendly pages. Th

Thing #6 More Flickr Fun


Flickr Fun Thing #5

Westfall 2008 Youth Forum

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Lifetime Learner Thing #2

Here is my cheat sheet on the 7 1/2 habits:

Begin with an end in mind.
Accept responsibility.
Problems are challenges.
Create own learning toolbox.
Use technology.
Teach others.
Play.

Creating your own toolbox is the most important habit I believe takes time to develop and understand since everyone is unique. The rest seem like common sense but are easy to forget.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Thing #15 Library 2.0

Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these? Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

I believe Library 2.0 means using information and technology together in new ways that require more active participation and independent input that ever before.
Since the library is a growing organism, it is important to harness these resources and continue to offer our expertise but also to respond the demands of both our physical patrons as well as our virtual users.

One aspect of the manifesto I found truly inspiring was the line:

"I will be courageous about proposing new services and new ways of providing services, even though some of my colleagues will be resistant."

I wonder --- how resistant I would be considered if I refuse to get a myspace account?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Explore Technorati Thing #14

Waiting for the verification e-mail but in the meantime I can say I found exploring the Technorati site interesting. I was surprised to see Aldous Huxley's Brave New World on the Popular Books links. That made my day!

#13 Delicious

Overall I enjoyed reading the comments and looking at popular webdesign pages. I can definately see the usefullness of this site and should start using it soon to keep all my common bookmarks in one area and use from each computer.

Another New Year's resolution?

I will keep one link that I enjoyed even though it has nothing to do with library work.

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/20-websites-with-beautiful-typography/

Roll Your Own Thing #12


Friday, January 9, 2009

#11 Goodreads

I'm loving Goodreads since my New Year's Resolution is to try and keep track of all the books I read this year. This will be hard since I read a lot of fiction for fun and non-fiction for education/information.

I could build my library based on books I've read in the past but that doesn't fit my purpose of using Goodreads currently so please don't think I haven't read anything before.

I contacted two people to be friends but have not heard back. I left a comment for someone who enjoyed a book I just consumed in one night.

#9 RSS Feeds

I always wanted to get on the feed for the Shifted Librarian and Unshelved so now that I'm there I hope to keep up with it.

I also subscribed to CNN but that is too depressing sometimes I may have to ignore the news.

Now that I have the Google Reader I hope to keep up with it and not get addicted at the same time. I can see how easy it would be to find and read feeds all day.

I enjoy finding the little symbol on the corner of interesting sites but it has become a little tempting.

Make Life Simple RSS & Newsreader Thing #8

My overall impression of this technology is that I appreciate the attempt to stay up to date on information without having to dig around for it myself. I say appreciate because I still enjoy the hunt.

As for the impact this makes on my personally and professional:

This is a great way to keep up on new developments in the library world as well as let our patrons know what services we can offer, but I don’t see this becoming an integral part of my personal life yet but hey never say never.