Week 9, Thing 23!!

23 Things has been quite a journey! I am delighted to get to the finish! It was at times extremely frustrating to find the time to examine the sites and complete the tasks and there were those glitches and retries that didn't always work but I am glad to have undertaken this journey. It was fantastic to finally learn some tech stuff that my kids didn't already know about! I found that I became familiar with some things like flickr that I encountered online while researching something else and I knew what it was!

I particularly liked learning to "play" with the avitars and the wikis could have some real practical uses. The idea of using the bookmarks to have access to favorites from more than one computer could be very beneficial as well. It was wonderful to see the creative ways libraries across the country are using technology to enhance their services.

This look at technology has prompted me to not be as technophobic. Even my blog name scaredytechgirl is no longer as accurate. I am much like the Scaredy Squirrel book character who left the tree and branched out to new directions and experiences. However, while I am aware that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, now I'm more confident that I can embrace and use some of this techy stuff. The door has been opened and I hope to continue to revisit some of these areas and stay more informed.

The training may have been improved by some more background for those of us who do not readily have the opportunities to explore all the tech stuff. Lesa's comments about training for those who had less time/experience using multiple windows/intensive browsing, etc. made a very good point. I'm not sure summer was the best time for this training given our increase in circulation and programs. The increased workload left little time to be away from the desk to work on this and created large gaps of time in getting back to it which made it harder to remember and absorb better. The deadline with the "extra" weeks to catch up was a definite plus!

I would consider participating in future training if it was tied to CEUs and if "on the job" time could be given. I truly had to persevere with fitting this in at work as my dial-up from home and aging computer could not handle this training. It was quite difficult to fit this in around my duties at the branch, the interuptions can just be too distracting and not condusive to being able to learn anything. I'm greatful for the time I was able to work on this and the patient support of coworkers who patiently talked me through my trouble spots. I truly don't think I could have finished if it wasn't for my daughter's generosity in letting me use her laptop and high-speed connection, thanks Jess!

Finally, it was rewarding to be a part of such an undertaking by MD libraries, I know there were many who have shared in the frustrations and joys of getting through the tasks and it had us all talking together about what we were doing. The staff blogs provided unique insights into our coworkers and nowI know who the techy people are that I can go to for help!! As in all valuable learning experiences this program was sometimes confusing and painful but that makes the reward of accomplishment that much greater. I'm thrilled to be finished 23 Things!!!

Week 9, Thing 22

I had become familiar with Overdrive and Netlibrary during LATI training. We had a tiny player to download and read from and it wasn't my idea of enjoying a book. I have browsed the title lists and what's available is expanded. I'm glad this is available for those patrons who use it but I still prefer a book over just listening or reading from a screen. I have listened to books on CD and it works well when I am confined to a car and the narrator is good. However, I have discovered that I tend to miss things in the story if I listen when I am working or moving about-I think I'm concentrating on what I'm doing and block it out when I should be listening! Great that the services are there but I want the visual pictures in my head and the interaction with the printed word-call me old fashioned!

Week 9, Thing 21 Podcasts

Podcast listening was a zany and slow experience. It seems I'm not as inclined to just listen to something (visual is my preferred style) so podcasts took some more concentration for me. I felt I encountered the good, the bad, and the ugly. I began with the library-related podcasts and didn't get the whole Nini thing-who would want to be seen like that?-I wasn't able to get good sound quality on some and if you can't hear, you miss it all. On the library sites I was surprised to find podcasts on popular stories, nursery rhymes, and songs as well as ones which shared library news, reviews, and interviews with authors and illustrators. On childrensbookradio there was an illustrator interview that I found difficult to listen to with no visuals! Rather boring! I did not add an RSS podcast feed here because I couldn't find any I felt I wanted to listen to on a regular basis. I guess I used lots of patience on this exercise but the listening possibilities did seem to be almost endless!

Week 9, Thing 20 YouTube

Well, I tried unsuccessfully to include a video from YouTube here and lost my blog post as well since the embedded part was at the beginning of my entry. In an effort to move on and complete this I'll try to recap. I gazed upon a wide array of videos on YouTube ranging from silly to stupid to slighly humorous to scary and worrisome! It seems everyone is enamored with getting their few moments of glory.

I finally chose a baby sign language video to share because it was cute and was fun to see how well the baby was able to communicate even with only approximate representations of the signs. Little ones understand soo much that is said to them before they can readily verbalize that I thought it interesting to see this use of sign language in action. I also saw some sign language videos that only focused on one sign-with that type of repetition perhaps I could learn sign language, too!

Not sure how YouTube-Style videos would work on a library site except perhaps to give patrons a real taste of a program, for example, the Jamestown program in a snippet to get them interested to sign up or using a how-to or how to "not" do something to assist the patrons. YouTube can certainly pull you in and have you trying to make sense of what you are viewing!

Week 8, Things 18, 19

Loved the idea of being able to create documents and spreadsheets without being confined to a computer with a word processing package! This would allow me to have templates available wherever they were needed. There was a nice varied assortment of templates to use and the toolbar seemed user-friendly on Zoho Writer as well. I set up accounts in both Zoho Writer and Google Docs. I liked the calendar feature and shared ability with other users. My oldest daughter is getting married next year and since she lives three hours away, we could share and update the guest and to-do lists. In the library it would be great to let patrons know of this feature for those times when the computers that have word programs are already taken-it will be interesting to see if this would be a good alternative for them.

I looked at several sites on the 2.0 awards list and finally settled on exploring Craigslist which was found under the classifieds and directories category. I liked that it divided MD into western MD and the eastern shore region, this made my search more easily relevant to the area I was wanting to locate items in. It was like a basic classified directory and I used the job search feature (can you tell daughter #2 recently finished college?). I liked that it gave the city location of the jobs posted, this can behelpful to someone hoping to work in Frederick as opposed to farther down the road. I liked the category breakdown for finding items and that it highlighted my previous searches. Directories, like this in general, can be helpful to patrons who need to find something in a particular location.

I spent loads of time looking at many of the sites on the list and hope to return there to get a better handle on them and how they work. But now, I am getting "brain fried" and could use some refreshments...hmm...what's the ingredients in that fruity drink my daughter makes? Dare I look at build a cocktail site? Was it called a hurricane or a bay breeze? (I'm home & have spent 4 hours on all of this! I really need to stop & have lunch!)

Week 7, Thing 17

While I was able to add items to the favorites list and link my blog under FCPL, I had problems returning to the favorites page so I hope my list is still there! Enjoyed reading others favorites and they made me yearn for my vacation. Overall, I have liked learning about and using wikis.

Week 7, Thing 16-Wikis

Having been somewhat familiar with Wikopedia as an example of a wiki, I was delighted to discover that the use and application of wikis has expanded greatly. I liked the idea of using wikis to annotate the catalog giving more depth to the description of a book, this would be so helpful in matching books to readers or purposes. I also liked the idea of a community wiki where all aspects of information about a community could be easily found, updated and edited as necessary. I live in an area where we border another state and county and have 3-4 phonebooks to peruse depending on what direction we may be going; creating a wiki for services local to my area that didn't rely on county or state boundaries would be wonderful! In the library setting, reader's advisory wikis could be terrific as patrons interact with staff and each other. I could see a story program wiki that could be used by programmers to update and change programs on given themes and be able to share them. Working on meeting notes/agendas and collaborative planning of projects would be another library use of wikis. Best of all, I needed to read the Library 2.0 wiki , Librarian's Matterwhere I discovered an entry that outlined all the reasons we as librarians should be pursuing all this "techy stuff" even if we don't think it is relevant. The author was "right on" in her explanation of why learning about all of this is important. My only worry with wikis has been the chance of "bad" information being entered, I was glad to learn that the community using the particular wiki serves to enfore behavioral norms and content. Wikis can be very helpful and useful and I hope to explore more of them.