The 23rd Thing

Random thoughts on the 23 Things program:
This has been a great sampler of what’s going on now in the web. At first I felt that this would be too time consuming, especially since I started late, but I got over it. I didn’t learn each of the Things in depth – not enough time. But I did get at least beginner competency in the Things. These things really are ingenious and useful! I know there is an argument that people can get addicted to sitting in front of a computer with these things and not having a balanced life with enough physical activity and face to face social interaction in the “real world”. But it’s important to know what these things are and what they can do. I especially think disabled people can enjoy social interaction over the Internet that otherwise would not be possible. It’s great that these things are all free! There’s so much volunteer effort put into developing these things, and in sharing with others to help them.
Now that I’ve been exposed to the Things, I plan to revisit them to see which ones I would like to get to know better and use. The idea of a time limit to do the 23 Things is really good – otherwise we probably wouldn’t get the exposure and the Things would remain in the pile of “good intensions. I also liked figuring these thing out by myself – no class or anything. The couple of times I couldn’t figure something out, I made a comment and got good answers. I had never taken the time to learn how to download eAudiobooks from our web site, but now I know how. Some of the Things had some rough spots, didn’t work perfectly, but that’s part of learning – perservere until you get it to work! What about the idea that by providing Internet access to the public in our libraries we’re doing a good thing because these Internet users will start reading books? I think that’s questionable – we have lots of Internet usere who come in very frequently and NEVER read anything. That doesn’t help circulation and generate money for the library, but providing Internet access is a great service, not only for people applying for jobs or unemployment, etc., but for Internet users who are here for social networking or other Things. Although this can have its “rough spots”, e.g., when a young man’s girlfriend saw him “shopping” on the Internet for another girlfriend (she started beating him and we had to call the police) any new technology or invention has negative as well as positive potential. I see the 23 Things as quite positive, and will be revisiting them. Thanks for a great program!

eAudiobooks

The procedure for getting this set up is a little complicated, but having free eAudiobook access is a good thing. I explored and went through setup, but got an error message telling me that there was a problem in retrieving the Digital Rights Management machine identification. I sent an email to Overdrive support. No more time to spend on this now. I think I’ll try this from home. I would like to set this up for a friend who’s handicapped – can’t get around.

Podcasts

I added the podcast Bibliophilia to my Bloglines account. This was easy. This actual podcast only had one “pod”. The guy with what seemed to be a New Zealand accent talked about his set of very old and very good condition Robert Burns books. I guess he’s just getting started as a podcaster.

You Tube ok

My step father is not able to get around, but he loves You Tube. He and my mother watch piano concerts, both by famous pianists and famous cats (Nora)! I liked the CCLS You Tube page, and I like the informality of many of the videos on You Tube. It’s great be able to easily search for videos, some of which are pretty long! I’m not sure how You Tube compares to the other video hosting sites. Lots of potential here for fun and learning.

“My Face and Spacebook”

My son thought it was really funny when one of his friends called these sites “My Face” and “Spacebook”. WCPL has really nice Facebook and Myspace pages. It’s all part of marketing the library, and it’s free, so I don’t see any reason not to use these sites unless you don’t have enough time to keep them current. I get the impression that microblogging is almost exclusively an American thing. The libraries using microblogging were getting information out that wasn’t the kind of trivial information that others may use microblogging for. Most of them included a link for readers to get more information if they wanted it. Of course, microblogging can be pretty trivial, but if you have the time, it can keep you in touch with others in a friendly way.

Lifelong Learning

I think one of the things that attracts people to librarianship and libraries is lifelong learning. When formal education ends, individual, self-directed education normally begins. I think everyone is a lifelong learner – it’s needed just to survive! However, lifelong learning is a matter of degree. It can be avoided or embraced – usually both! The habit I find easiest is the teaching/mentoring of new skills. That really does enable you to learn at a deeper level. The hardest for me is the toolbox.

Web 2.0 tools

I looked at Zillow. My wife and son are full time real estate agents, I also have a real estate license. We have been paying a lot to be able to put our listings on realtor.com, but decided to drop realtor.com. I just created a Zillow account for myself, and will get wife and son to do the same. It’s not unusual for library users to be looking for a house, or to want to sell a house. I can get them on Zillow.

Web-based apps are nice

This is good. If your PC hard drive crashes and you didn’t back up, too bad! Except if you use these web-based apps. You never need to back up and you can get your documents anywhere you have web access. So, Zoho is giving us free storage. Somehow they’re making money.  I created 2 test documents.

Playing with PBWiki

I enjoyed adding 3 of my favorite restaurants (The Olive Tree Mediterranean Grill, The Whip Tavern, Venice Pizza and Pasta). Also, adding my blog as a favorite was very easy, as was creating an account for the CCLS 23 Things wiki.

wiki

I found this fun and unintimidating. The SJCPL Subject Guide: This is a nice pathfinder. I looked at Travel under Recreation and Fitness and was happy to find the link to Mango Languages. Editing restricted.
Library Success (best practices): This is really good, a huge amount of helpful information. I looked at Selecting, Organizing, Weeding, which offered links to lots of sites. The short article on weeding I think is a very practical approach – 15 minutes a week. Also, their suggestions for disposing of weeded books.
YALSA at the 2008 ALA Conference: Not as exciting as the others, but very useful for attendees for keeping up with changes and selecting from the many opportunities at the conference.
The Bull run Library wiki: Nice looking wiki, a number of out of date postings. I liked the link to the ALA Copyright Sliderule.