Final Thoughts

Uploaded on March 24, 2007

by James Neeley

It has been a mostly fun journey through 23 Things. The item I discovered that I use the most is Google Reader on my iGoogle page. The item I enjoyed the most is Flickr, though I'm not sure I will have as much use for it when I am not longer looking for fun pictures to add to my blog. Since I am not a technology junkie, I did appreciate the opportunity to become more familiar with all of the items that are such a part of current culture. If offered, I would participate in another discovery program for that reason, especially if it included CEUs.

Audiobooks

Uploaded on June 19, 2006
by ein Augenblick

I looked at and listened to Project Gutenberg. I browsed titles and listened to the start of a few. I preferred listening to human-read audio books. I wish the site had more information about the reader to help you choose a version. I tried listening to a computer-generated audio book, but found it very difficult to listen to for a long period of time. I kept expecting the voice to tell me my library books were due.

Podcasts

I looked at both Podcast.net and Podcast Alley. I was able to find a news podcast from NPR and have subscribed to its RSS feed. Adding a podcast to our library website might be a good way to let our customers know about changes happening at the library.

YouTube

I played around on YouTube for quite a while. I think that videos as instructional tools could be very useful on our library website. While exploring, I found some interesting videos, but was having trouble finding something I thought was interesting enough to blog about. Eventually I started searching for terms that interest me and found this commercial that shows crashes from the Tour de France. Enjoy...

Web 2.0 Award Winners

I looked at RealTravel . I really liked being able to see other traveler's itineraries and to read their blogs. It is a great way to find blogs on travel in a specific region. I did not find as many ratings of hotels and restaurants as I have found on other travel sites. I will definitely use it when planning my next trip, but only as one of many resources.

I also looked at PEERtrainer. I would recommend this site to anyone looking to lose weight or become more fit. It appears to offer many of the same features for free that other commercial sites offer at a hefty price.

ZOHO Post

I have played around with ZOHO Writer and I already have a Google Docs account. I love the idea that you can access your documents from any computer with internet access. So far I am finding creating this post in ZOHO very easy. I have not created any documents in Google yet, but I have edited documents that I uploaded to the site, including my 23 Things Tracking Log. Have my tracking log on a web based word processing application has made it very easy to update, no matter where I am working on 23 Things.

I also think that all of the features that allow collaboration on a document make online word processing applications much more practical than software-based productivity tools for many people.

I am now going to attempt to publish this post on my blog. If you are reading this, than I was successful.

Sandbox Wiki

I visited the Sandbox and added my blog to the "Favorite Blogs" page. It was interesting to read the postings on favorite vacation destinations.

Uploaded on March 24, 2006 by katmere

Wikis

I love the idea of a community wiki, especially one through a library website. I like the idea of opening it up to the community to edit. Just the other day I was looking for a good restaurant suggestion that delivers, a community wiki with restaurant reviews,would have been a great place to search.

I also love the idea of a subject guide wiki for the library. An example is the St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides wiki. It has both fun and useful information as well as links to the library catalog.

Finally, I also like the idea of using a wiki to add customer reviews to our library catalog.

Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

Uploaded on February 12, 2005
by jm3

Library 2.0 both excites me and makes me nervous. I'm excited by all of the new ways to access information and by all of the new information that is available. I'm nervous for several reasons, including my fear that our customers aren't quite ready for some of the changes and I know it is going to be difficult to help some of them deal with the inevitable changes that are going to occur.

Another reason I am nervous is because I am a keeper. I hold on to things even when their usefulness is questionable. My at-home library is very much a "just in case" collection. Rick Anderson talked about libraries no longer building up a large "just in case" collection of print materials in the OCLC newsletter Issue No.2 2006. One reason this worries me is the lack of understanding by our customers, especially our student customers and their teachers, that materials available through library databases are also "book" resources and are not the same as doing a Google search and picking the first website on the results list.

I love the idea of integrating catalogs across library systems, but , again, I'm afraid this is ahead of many customers' understanding. Even now, if they see an item in our catalog they assume it is at the branch they are in, it will be even harder for them to understand that not only is it not in our branch, but it isn't even in our state.

Some of my other concerns include:
If we go to where customers are, how will we measure their use, in order to justify funding? Will we have to go to private as well as public funds? Does that mean advertising? If yes, do we then loose credibility?

Technorati & Tags

I think tags are an amazing tool. One of the best ways I saw tags used was on Del.icio.us. A user had bookmarked all of their favorite recipes and had tagged each recipe by its main ingredients. Their list of tags was a great index for their recipes and made it very easy to find the perfect recipe for ingredients you already have on hand. I also think tags are great for photos. They were very useful on Flikr.

As I said before, I don't follow a lot of blogs, so I didn't find Technorati very useful. For the few blogs I do follow, I receive updates as RSS feeds.

Del.icio.us

I think Del.icio.us could be very useful for many people. I'm not sure I am one of them at this point. I only use one computer, but for someone using computers in many different places, I think this tool would make their lives much easier.

Rollyo

Recipe Search

Select Search Engine...Recipe SearchSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

For my Rollyo, I rolled all of my favorite recipe search sites. With searches I am conducting on the web, I usually want to search more broadly than I would on Rollyo.

Merlin and Blog Searches

I was not familiar with Merlin before starting 23 Things. I have not gotten in the habit of reading blogs, even since starting 23 Things, so I did not find any of the blog search tools that useful.

LibraryThing

I liked LibraryThing, but did encounter some difficulties. I added all of the books that we have read in the bookclub I facilitate. When I tried to add them to my blog it would only add five of the covers. It only allowed me to add all nine titles if I included text with the cover pictures. So, to see all nine titles, please look at my sidebar.

Image Generators

I really enjoyed creating different avatars. I put my favorite, a Meez, on my side bar.

RSS & Newsreaders

We were trained on RSS feeds here at our library. During the training we were required to set up a feed from our library catalog. I set up a feed on recently purchased cookbooks, but wasn't convinced I would use it. However, I love receiving my feeds and have discovered countless cookbooks that I otherwise would have never found.

I did not follow the instructions for this assignment and set up a Bloglines account. I use Google Reader and look at my feeds on my iGoogle page.

Technology

I am a little behind the times and just sent my first text message this week. I liked it because I felt it wouldn't be as much of a disruption to the person as a phone call. Plus, they could receive it while on the go easier than an email. It took me a long time to type out my first message because I didn't use abbreviations and wrote in complete sentences. But, by my second message I definitely wasn't worried about complete words or sentences.

Flickr Services-retrievr

I love retrievr! It is so fun to see what images will appear from my drawings. I haven't thought of a reason I would need to use this service, but I've really enjoyed playing with the site!

Flickr

Looking back

Amazing warm light boosts the color of the foliage on the shore of Lake Massabesic, Auburn, NH. From a shoot a couple weeks back.

Uploaded on October 23, 2006
by Ed Karjala


This is a picture I discovered while searching on Flickr. I found this photo by using the "A Year Ago Today" feature.

I love the colors. I'm worried the leaves in our area won't be this beautiful because of the drought.

Lifelong Learners

I love learning new things. My friends all thought I was crazy when I registered for an Interior Design course the semester after finishing graduate school. One of the reasons I love reading nonfiction is because of how much I learn.

Regarding the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits , the hardest for me is Habit 3: View problems as challenges. When faced with an immediate problem, I find it difficult to see a positive side right away. The easiest for me is Habit 7 1/2: Play. Who doesn't like to play!?!