Thing 23: Evaluation

This has been an interesting, fun and frustrating project. I learned quite a lot, and explored a number of social networking and productivity tools that I would not have discovered without this project's tasks. I particularly enjoyed learning more about Flickr, which I had been using, but didn't realize how much more there is to learn about it, until doing some of the exercises involved in Learning 2.0

I did a lot of the projects on personal time, because it is just too hectic at work, and I need time to think about what I write. Since I really wanted to learn, this was certainly not a problem for me.

In order to remain relevant, I think the Learning 2.0 program needs to be updated on a more frequent basis. Some of the things I looked at, including Technorati and Rollyo, don't seem all that useful at this point. Instead of Rollyo, I think it would be great to do a project on creating your own search engine, using Google Custom Search.

There are also new things out there, such as Twitter, that would be really helpful to know more about. I am on Twitter, but I really don't understand it very well, and I know I'm not using it all that effectively. I think the library could be Twittering, and if we were to consider that, it would be most helpful if the staff had a working knowledge of the codes and lingo used there. Twitter is not even mentioned in the version of Learning 2.0 that we used.

It also would have been nice if there would have been a little more feedback. I tried to post comments on other blogs involved with this program, but very few of my colleagues returned the favor. It was a little lonely writing only for myself!

I will continue to blog, as it's a nice way to think about and share ideas, and so far as SCLD's program goes, I am very pleased that there is now a blog for sharing continuing education information and another for sharing book reviews. I hope to continue to contribute worthwhile content to both of them!

Facebook

When this project first started, I opened a Facebook account. I had looked at MySpace, but hated it's messy layout. Facebook seemed tidier. My daughter was desperate to open an account on one of those two sites, but I was not willing to allow her, without really understanding what it entailed myself. So, there I went.



The first week that I had my account, I re-connected with a couple of classmates from highschool, which was fun. Then suddenly, nearly every member (including my 74-year-old mother) also signed up for accounts. Then, acquaintances from other on-line social networks that have undergone some changes, reconnected as well, and I found myself spending more time than I like to admit, catching up with all of them.



I finally allowed Siobhan to open an account after school let out for the summer. I've had sufficient time to learn the ins and outs of privacy settings, and she is instructed that we must remain "friends," in order for her to continue.



I still see some huge pitfalls with this very entertaining website. If a kid "Friends" most of their classmates, and then sees that there is a meet-up somewhere, to which they have not been invited, that will be a very sad moment. If somebody writes something nasty on somebody else's wall, every friend they have will see that, reflecting badly on possibly everybody that reads or partakes in that conversation. I have also learned that it is possible to "block" somebody, which can cause terribly hurt feelings. My teenaged niece puts such random posts up that it litters my wall, and makes no sense. I think she is having a private conversation and doesn't realize that where she puts it makes it public for all 700 of her friends. Another relative put up some highly private (in my opinion) information about herself that I felt would damage her reputation and possibly come back to haunt her in job searches. She too has hundreds of "friends," so even though not everybody has access to her information, I believe that she may be putting herself at risk.



My privacy settings were set so high, that nobody could find me; in fact when my daughter signed up, between her privacy settings and mine, we could not find each other, by e-mail or name. At the moment my privacy settings are a little looser, and I have had a few friend requests since. Once I feel like I've connected with the folks that I might like, I will lock it down tight once again.



For now, if you want to find me, look for "Wilma Gyswyt Flanagan." I have filled out all the profile information and followed all the steps on "The Extra Super Bonus Set" of the Learning 2.0 project.

Thing 22: Downloadable Audiobooks

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with our down-loadable audiobooks. This is mainly because my computer is a Mac, and even though I can now get some books in the MP3 format, which can be downloaded onto the Mac, most things are still only available to download via a Windows machine. I have hope that as time goes by, this will change, especially since recently, many books that were previously unavailable for use on an iPod have now become iPod friendly. When the software becomes more Mac-friendly, I will be using this service a lot more, I'm sure!

My daughter uses the service all the time. She uses my little Netbook to download and transfer her books to a 2 GB Sansa Clip. She has certain books that she listens to over and over again. Although her rights to listen expire after the two week check-out period, she leaves the files in place, and re-reserves the books. Then when she gets the new check-out, she simply re-installs the rights, and doesn't have to re-download the whole book. Clever child.

I have assisted a number of customers with difficulties in getting the software properly installed on their computers. I even made a "housecall" once, to a customer who turned out to be a neighbor of mine!

I still prefer to actually read my books, but under certain circumstances, like a long journey, a good audiobook is just the ticket. Among long journeys, I count my longer bike rides, where I can listen, using earphones that still allow me to be aware of what is happening around me. The Overdrive program is great, because you don't have to permanently store the data on your hard-drive, and of course the price cannot be beat. I'm waiting for the day when we add digital downloads of the print versions as well for e-book readers. Our libraries can be smaller, and hold so much more. It's a good thing, as Martha Stewart always says.

Thing 21: Podcasts

I've been listening to podcasts for a couple years; mostly when I go to the gym, or when I go for a long bike ride along a well known route. I always make sure that I am quite able to hear what is going on around me, so I really don't think I'm being dangerous. I wear headphones that allow outside sounds in, and I don't keep the volume up at all.

There are two kinds of podcasts that I listen to. I have several subscriptions to knitting podcasts (was shocked to discover that there's a lot to be said about pointy sticks and string!) and I also time-shift many of my favorite NPR programs and listen to them via podcast. I particularly enjoy Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Fresh Air. Sometimes, I also download a segment of On Point, or Talk of the Nation. I get video podcasts from Apple with tips and hints about using OSX, the operating system that my Mac runs on.

Most of the podcasts that I listen to, I've found either through the blogs that they are attached to, or through iTunes, which is also how I manage my iPods, music, and movies. I've not tried iTunes on a PC, but on the Mac, it's extremely simple and intuitive to use. I have an iPhone, an older Nano, and an older Shuffle. The computer recognizes each one, and keeps track of which subscriptions I like to sync to each one. My Nano doesn't do movies, so the video podcasts don't work there. The shuffle is the simplest, but also the least flexible, so that's become mostly just a back-up device.

It's easy in iTunes, to see which podcasts are up-to-date, and once I've subscribed to a particular one, anytime I open iTunes, if there's a new one, it will automatically download. I can also go to the podcast section of my iPhone, and download podcasts from there via WiFi. I can even download whole video podcasts right onto the phone. It's amazing!

I spent some time poking around with Podcast Alley, and found a number of Library podcasts. However, after clicking on the descriptions, and then clicking on the link to download or subscribe to them, discovered that most had not been updated in more than a year. I could not see any way to sort them according to how up-to-date the listings are.

Podcast.com works a little better, because each listing shows when it was last updated. If it hasn't been updated in a year or more, it is probably not worth subscribing too. However, it might still be useful to find a podcast on a particular topic that one would like to hear. An example of this might be the very informative This American Life segments that have explained how the downturn in the economy happened, in a way that non-economists could easily understand!

If you want to try a quick, fun, and very useful podcast, I highly recommend Grammar Girl, hosted by Mignon Fogerty. Each podcast is under five minutes long, but explains language usage and writing style in an entertaining and easy to understand way.

Thing 20: You Tube & Video Sharing

My very first post contains an embedded video that I made last summer, while cycling along the Centennial Trail. I've made a variety of small videos, mostly having to do with bicycling, but also one showing a very clever cast-on method for knitting a hat from the center out. I tried to demonstrate the cast-on in a knitting shop, but developed stage fright, which caused my hands to shake so bad that I could barely do the steps. Making the little movie in the privacy of my dining room, and then sharing it via You Tube was a whole lot easier for me!

Embedding video from YouTube (or many of the other sites) is extremely easy. Usually, to the right of the video, or underneath it, is a link you can click to share the video. From that you can either e-mail a link to a friend, or you can copy some HTML to "embed" the video into your own blog. (You can do the same thing with slideshows from Flickr).

Here is one that I'm quite proud of, because it was created by my thirteen-year-old daughter:



Doesn't that make you want to go and read this book?

And that is one way that I think libraries can really use YouTube. Get teens (and other ages as well) to create little video reviews of books, and post them, then link to them through the library website. Teen film-making classes, video tutorials for using databases, or software could also be very handy.

Besides YouTube, there is one other video sharing site that I like to visit. One of the cool things about Vimeo, is that many of their videos can be downloaded. This makes it possible for me to save and play the videos on my iPhone. The filmmaker has control, so can allow download or not.
There are ways to download YouTube videos as well, but at least with the Mac platform, it requires separate software.

Here's a Vimeo video that I particularly enjoy:

Gorge Fog from Andrew Curtis on Vimeo.

Thing 19: Award Winning Web 2.0 Sites TWITTER

I looked at the link for the 2008 SEOmoz Web 2.0 Awards, and was rather puzzled to find that those awards were bestowed on May 9, 2007. Given how fast trends change and websites morph into other things, that seems like a really old set of awards. And why was it called the 2008 awards more than half a year ahead of time? But aside from that, I enjoyed poking around and looking at some of the websites they featured. Many were familiar: Facebook, Myspace, Delicious, and more that Learning 2.0 has explored. Others are long gone, or require a paid subscription to access.

The Tool that I have spent the most time with is Twitter. I signed up for an account back in January, and posted a couple of pretty boring updates: "I'm waiting for the bus." or "Having a cup of coffee." This may be why I have so few "followers!" On the other hand, I quickly caught on to the fact that it's fun to follow Tweeters who have something to say. I don't like to spend a lot of time with it, so I don't follow many, but I enjoy following Scott Simon and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me from NPR. I follow Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and several of my knitting sheroes. I follow Steven Fry (British voice of Harry Potter, and Jeeves, from the Jeeves and Wooster series). He's geeky and fun, and very up with all sorts of world events. He also likes to try all sorts of Web 2.0 apps, and shares them regularly via his website and tweets. Besides people, I follow Bike to Work Spokane, which keeps me up-to-date on what's happening with the local cycling scene. And, I follow the tweets of Sno-Isle Regional Library.

Sno-Isle sends out several tweets every day with reminders about upcoming programs, book recommendations and more. They post links to more information so the 140 character limit of a tweet is no problem. I subscribe to the general Sno-Isle tweets. They also have a Twitter account just for Teens, in which they promote their services just to teens.

I think it would be fun to see how we could make this service work at SCLD as well. Like Sno-Isle, it would be great to remind followers about our many programs and services, but I also wonder if it could be used to do some quick reference services. Our customers could tweet us with a quick question, and we could reply within a certain time frame, say every 1-4 hours. Since it isn't necessary to do it in real time, the way QuestionPoint is, it could be easily managed from the reference desk. Something to explore, I think.

I log in to Twitter in two ways; via my computer at home, directly on the web. I also have a program on my iPhone, called Twitterific, which allows me to check what's new, and post my own tweets. I can even post Twitpics that way. And, whenever I post anything, I have it linked into my Facebook account, so the Tweet or Twitpic shows up there as well.

Thing 18 Part 2

Aaron, Chester. Alex, Who Won His War. Walker & Co. 1991
Aside from the worry of his brother away fighting in the war, Alex's life goes on as usual, until one day while looking for treasure on the beach, he finds a body instead, and falls into the hands of two Nazi spies intent on sabotage. Grades 7-10

Aaron, Chester. Gideon. Lippincott, 1982
After losing his family and friends, blond, blue-eyed and Jewish Gideon must bury religion and identity in order to survive the Warsaw ghetto and Treblinka concentration camp during World War II. Grades 5-10

Ackerman, Karen. The night crossing. Knopf, 1994.
In 1938, having begun to feel the persecution that all Jews are experiencing in their Austrian city, Clara and her family escape over the mountains into Switzerland.

Ackerman, Karen. When Mama Retires. Knopf, 1992
Henry, Will and Charley learn to do things around the house when Mama considers retiring from housework and becoming a wartime riveter. Grades K-3

Allan, Mabel Esther. A Lovely Tomorrow. Dodd, Mead, 1979
After her parents are killed by a rocket on New Year's Eve in London, fifteen-year-old Frue must leave her dreams to be an actress and rebuild her life in the wartime English countryside. Grades 6-9

Allan, Mabel Esther. A Strange Enchantment. Dodd, Mead, 1981
Sixteen-year-old city girl, Prim joins the Women's Land Army during World War II, expecting to love country life, but the conditions are much different than she expected, until she becomes re-acquainted with a teacher who was very harsh, but now seems to feel very differently towards her. Grades 7-10

Anderson, Margaret. Searching for Shona. Knopf, 1978
During the evacuation of children from Edinburgh in the early days of World War II, shy, wealthy Margaret, on her way to relatives in Canada, trades places and identities with the orphaned Shona, bound for the Scottish countryside. Grades 5-10

Anderson, Rachel. Paper Faces. Holt, 1993
Although life in London during World War II has been difficult for Dot and her mother, the young girl is frightened by the changes that the end of the war brings, particularly the impending return of the father she has never known.

Arnold, Elliott. A Kind of Secret Weapon. Scribner, 1969.
During the Danish winter of 1943, Peter Andersen discovers his parents printing an illegal newspaper and becomes involved in dangerous Nazi resistance work with them. Grades 4-8

Avi. "Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?" Orchard Books, 1992.
In the early forties, when nearly everyone else is thinking about the war, sixth-grader Frankie Wattleson gets in trouble at home and at school because of his preoccupation with his favorite radio programs. Grades 4-6

Avi. Don't you know there's a war on? HarperCollins, c2001.
In wartime Brooklyn in 1943, eleven-year-old Howie Crispers mounts a campaign to save his favorite teacher from being fired. Grades 4-7

Baer, Edith. A Frost in the Night: a Novel. Pantheon, 1980
During the years of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Eva Bentheim's Jewish family enjoys a comfortable life, hardly noticing the hints of the Holocaust to come. Grades 5-12

Baer, Edith. Walk the dark streets : a novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Continues the story of Eva, a young Jewish girl living in Nazi Germany where she and her parents experience increasing tensions in daily life while considering possibilities of escape.

Baer, Frank. Max's Gang. Little, Brown, 1983
Max and a small group of friends, separated from their school group, beg, work, and steal to stay alive on the long journey from an evacuation camp in Czechoslovakia to their homes in Berlin. Grades 5-9

Banim, Lisa. American Dreams. Silver Moon Press, 1993
Developments in World War II force Amy Mochida and her family to move from Hollywood to an internment camp with other Japanese Americans, changing Amy's friendship with eleven-year-old Jeannie. Grades 4-6

Banks, Sara Harrell. Under the shadow of wings. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c1997.
During 1944, life in rural Alabama brings changes for eleven-year-old Tattnall as she realizes that she cannot always protect her older, brain-damaged cousin.

Barrie, Barbara. Lone Star. Delacorte, 1990
Moving from Chicago to Corpus Christie, Texas, in 1944, Janie, a young Jewish girl, copes with her parents increased fighting, the possibility that her brother will go away to war, and the alienation of her orthodox grandfather, when she sneaks a tiny Christmas tree into the house at Hanukkah time. Grades 4-7

Bat-Ami, Miriam. Two Suns in the Sky. Front Street/Cricket Books, 1999.
A poignant historical novel that centers on a little-known event on the World War II homefront and two teenagers from different worlds.

Bauer, Marion Dane. Rain of Fire. Houghton Mifflin, 1983
All of his friends believe the stories Steve tells about his brother Matthew's heroism in World War II, until Celestino, the new kid in town call's Steve's bluff. Grades 4-7

Bawden, Nina. Carrie's War. Lippincott, 1973
Carrie is happy even though she is an evacuee in Wales because of the war, until she does something so terrible that it haunts her for thirty years. Grades 4-7

Bawden, Nina. Keeping Henry. Chivers Press, 1990.
Evacuated to the English countryside during World War II, a fatherless family tries to raise a baby squirrel that also lost its home.

Bawden, Nina. The Real Plato Jones. Clarion, 1993
Thirteen year-old Plato Jones tries to come to terms with his mixed hertage while visiting Greece, as he finds out more about his Welsh grandfater, a World War II hero, and his Greek grandfather, a supposed traitor.

Baylis-White, Mary. Sheltering Rebecca. Lodestar, 1991
In the days before the Second World War, twelve-year-old Sally becomes friends with Rebecca, a young Jewish refugee from Germany and learns what it means to be a refugee who was able to escape, knowing many family members are left behind and trapped. Grades 4-6

Bennett, Cherie. Anne Frank and Me. Putnam Publishing Group, 2001
Knocked unconscious after explosions ring out during a field trip to an Anne Frank exhibit, Nicole Burns wakes to find herself living a parallel life as a Jew in 1942 Paris. Her family survives the Nazi occupation with the help of friends, but when her father is exposed as a resistant, their fate takes a dire turn, and Nicole finds herself riding in a crowded train car with Anne Frank. Grades 7-12

Bishop, Claire Huchet. Twenty and Ten. Viking, 1952
A small group of homeless Jewish children are rescued and hidden by a nun and the children in the orphanage that she runs in France during the war.

Bloch, Marie Halun. Displaced Person. Lothrop, 1978
Fourteen-year-old Stefan, a Ukrainian refugee, struggles to survive as a displaced person in Nazi Germany during the final days of World War II. Grades 5-9

Blume, Judy. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. Bradbury, 1977
In the year 1947, Sally thinks she's found Adolf Hitler, masquerading as an old Jewish man -- alive and well in Miami Beach, Florida. Grades 4-6

Booth, Martin. War dog : a novel. Margaret K. McElderry Books, c1996.
After her owner is arrested while poaching, Jet is requisitioned by the British Army and sees duty on the beach at Dunkirk, searching for survivors of Germany's bombing raids on English cities, and in Italy at the end of the war. Grades 6-8

Borden, Louise. The little ships : the heroic rescue at Dunkirk in World War II. Margaret K. McElderry Books, c1997.
A young English girl and her father take their sturdy fishing boat and join the scores of other civilian vessels crossing the English Channel in a daring attempt to rescue Allied and British troops trapped by Nazi soldiers at Dunkirk.

Boyne, John. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: a Fable. David Fickling Books, 2006.
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence. Grades 6-9

Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker. For freedom : the story of a French spy. Delacorte Press, c2003.
Despite the horrors of World War II, a French teenager pursues her dream of becoming an opera singer, which takes her to places where she gains information about what the Nazis are doing--information that the French Resistance needs.

Bunin, Sherry. Dear Great American Writers School. Houghton Mifflin, c1995.
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Lee's letters to a correspondence school describe her life in a small Kentucky town during World War II and her growth as a person and as a writer.

Bunting, Eve. Spying on Miss Müller. Clarion Books, 1995.
At Alveara boarding school in Belfast at the start of World War II, thirteen-year-old Jessie must deal with her suspicions about a teacher whose father was German and with her worries about her own father's drinking problem.
Burgess, Melvin. An angel for May. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1995.
Tam travels back in time to his small English town at the time of World War II, where his friendship helps a traumatized girl living on a farm just outside the town.

Burton, Hester. In Spite of All Terror. World, 1968
When fifteen-year-old Liz is evacuated to the English countryside with the rest of her school at the beginning of the war, she finds the happiness she lost with the death of her father when she was twelve. Grades 6-10

Campbell, Barbara. Taking care of Yoki. Harper & Row, 1986, c1982.
In St. Louis during the Second World War, Bob makes secret plans to save the life of an old horse that pulls the milk delivery wagon. Grades 4-6

Carter, Peter. The hunted. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994.
In 1943, with the surrender of Italy to the Allies, Corporal Vito Salvani finds himself and the orphaned Jewish boy Judah trapped in enemy territory in France, where they must flee from an obsessed Gestapo agent.

Chang, Margaret and Raymond. In the eye of war. Margaret K. McElderry Books, c1990.
During the final days of the Japanese occupation of China, Shao-shao celebrates his tenth birthday, observes traditional holidays with his family, and befriends the daughter of a traitor.
Ages 10-13.

Chotjewitz, David. Daniel, half-human : the good Nazi. translated by Doris Orgel. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2004.
In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish, threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg, Germany, is becoming nightmarish. Also details Daniel and Armin's reunion in 1945 in interspersed chapters.

Coerr, Eleanor. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Putnam, 1977
Sadako was two when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Now, ten years later, she has leukemia and has vowed to fold a thousand paper cranes so that the gods will grant her wish to make her well again. Grades 3-10

Cooper, Susan. Dawn of Fear. HBJ, 1970
The war between England and Germany is not as real to Derek, Peter and Geoff as their war with the gang of children from the White Road, until a bomb falls, changing their lives forever. Grades 3-6

Cormier, Robert. Other Bells for Us to Ring. Delacorte, 1990
Darcy learns all about Catholicism from her best friend, Kathleen Mary O'Hara, but it is an old nun who teaches her the true meaning of religion, when her father is declared Missing In Action, and Kathleen's whole family disappears. Grades 3-6

The list is very long, so to see the complete document, try either of the links below!

Here is the link to the Google Document

Here is the link to the list on WorldCat

Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

I used to have a "briefcase" associated with my Yahoo account, in which I could save documents, and then open them from any computer with the correct software and internet access. I used it to keep track of documents associated with my work on the board of the skating club that Siobhan belonged to. It was nice to not have to carry around floppy disks, and nice to not have to store those documents on my personal computer. About a year ago, Yahoo closed that service.

Since then, I have moved the documents that I want to have portable access to, over to Google Docs. I create my documents either using Word 2004, Word 2007, or Pages (a Mac office application). They are easily opened in Google Docs, although occasionally some of the formatting gets a little messed up. Once I fix things the way I like, I then save the document into Google. It's like a back-up, but if I change the original, I would have to remember to change it on Google Docs as well, as that is not automatic.

I can imagine that it's very handy to have Google Docs for any document where more than one person needs to have access to make changes, from a variety of computers. The interface is very simple for anyone who has ever used an Office application of any sort. Since I've never created documents with really elaborate formatting, nothing that I've ever done has been difficult to translate.

In my next post, I will share a document, which is a booklist of all the World War II fiction that I have read since I was a teenager. It is a list that I started then, as a file in a recipe box, and have since maintained on floppy disk, on the SCLD server, and on my various computers at home. Now, I have it on Google Docs, and a version on my WorldCat account. Nice to know that even if my computer crashes, my documents can still be found and updated!

Thing 16: Wikis

I have a confession to make. When a library customer asks me about something that I have no idea about, I often check Wikipedia first, just to get an idea of what he or she is talking about. Based on what I find out there, I then go to other sources to actually get answers for the customer; and sometimes the information gathered at Wikipedia perfectly satisfies the customer.

Yesterday, I was listening to an essay on NPR, about online resources and their reliability, and the author stated that Wikipedia has turned out to have amazing accuracy and reliability. Occasionally there will be mis-information, but fairly quickly, the mis-information gets edited out and replaced with accurate facts.

Wikipedia is the wiki that most everybody has heard of, but there are wikis for just about any topic one can think of. I once contributed a booklist to a wiki of booklists; I can't remember where I found it, and forgot to bookmark it, so now can't find it anymore. There are craft wikis, fan wikis, club wikis and ... you name it.

I love the idea of everybody being able to edit and contribute, although I think to be truly reliable, you have to have some official entity in charge and keeping things organized and up to date. I would love to have a Storytime and Programming wiki for the library, where ideas could be exchanged and kept up to date.

A long time ago, I developed a website called My Storytime, which was very popular, with complete plans for preschool storytime, including flannelboard patterns, book suggestions, fingerplays and more. I stopped maintaining it about five years ago, and have often thought that it should be re-imagined as a wiki. It became too much work to keep up by myself, but would be fun if lots of people could easily contribute.

This entry is part of my Learning 2.0 project at Spokane County Library District.

Thing 15: Worldcat and OCLC: exploring 2.0

This picture has nothing to do with the rest of this post, but since I am thoroughly tired of winter and the snow that continues to fall, at least sporadically, I present this photo of tulips from last year's tulip festival in Skagit County! Within a month's time, this year's tulips should be in their glory!

And now, on to Web 2.0 and OCLC. For years, the library has had access to Worldcat through a pay-per-use subscription. Because it required typing in a user-name and password, which I could never remember without looking up, I used it very rarely. Then, a couple years ago, I started using the free access to Worldcat. The library still has the fee-based search service, which allows enhanced searching of additional databases, such as ERIC, MEDLINE, GPO and others, but, I really love being able to customize my options and search Worldcat through my personal account. I first found it, through Librarything, which gives you options when you find a book title, to search for ways to purchase or borrow the book through a library near you. The portal to the library is through Worldcat.

You can sign up for a personal account, which allows you to create lists of favorites, books you own, or want to own, and you can search for the nearest library which has the title you want to read. Even if you don't sign up for an account, by putting in your zip-code, the catalog will show libraries close by with mileage estimates for getting your book. For Spokane county residents, with quite a few different library systems close by, this makes it easy to tell if you are likely to have a longer or shorter wait for that Interlibrary Loan request. If you decide that you don't want to wait, if the book is in-print, or available through popular use-book sources such as Alibris or Abebooks, there is a sidebar with that search option available.

Worldcat also currently provides plug-ins for Facebook, Google and Firefox, which allow you to quickly search from those applications. There is also an application which works on the iPhone, which allows you to search and link to your home library anywhere you have access to your phone. Long gone are the days, when you could only make use of the library (and its card catalog) during the few hours the library was actually open!

While I do appreciate how convenient all of this is, I still feel that one of the most important services that the library provides is its physical presence and ambience. In her article, To A Temporary Place in Time..., Dr. Wendy Schultz discusses four levels of library service: Commodity, Product, Service and Experience. All are important, with Experience and how that comes across as something we must not forget as we plan for the future.

Thing 14: Not feeling so Technorati savvy today!

I've spent a frustrating hour or so trying to figure out Technorati. I was able to sign up and "claim" my blog quite easily, although I don't really know what the point of that is! Actually, if my blog was something that I was hoping to really get the word out for, this might be a useful thing. Since mine is a pretty amateurish effort, I don't think it makes much difference.

I watched the little video introduction to Technorati, which was made several years ago, and I suspect it's very out-of-date. I didn't see the colors or the topics anywhere on the signed out or signed in home pages, and also couldn't find the little hearts which are supposed to make it easy to "favorite" a blog.

I searched for some of my favorite blogs, and found them, with pages where I could write a review. I also found my own blog! However, in searching for my favorite blogs, most of what I found were posts by other bloggers, referring to those blogs.

One of the searches I did, was for The Yarn Harlot. My first search yielded nothing but references in other blogs to that blog, or the author of that blog. (It also provided some links to videos of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who is The Yarn Harlot, and that is cool!) Trying to limit the search to blogs, instead of posts, gave me zero results. Then I remembered that probably the address for the blog had the word "yarnharlot" instead of words, "yarn" and "harlot." Of course that was the case, and I found the blog, which amazingly enough has no reviews on Technorati. This leads me to think that Technorati probably is more geared to technical or professional bloggers, than to hobby or arts blogs.

In the end, I've decided that Technorati is a good way to search for what bloggers are saying about other blogs. Kind of a big endless circle of a search... I don't think I'll be doing much with it!

Thing 13: Yummy! It's Delicious

I signed up for a Delicious account a year or two ago, and imported all the bookmarks from my personal computer to it, to get me started. I decided that would be a good way to save my favorites in case something ever happened to my computer. Before Delicious, I had set up my Yahoo home page with my personal bookmarks, which worked in a similar, though somewhat less efficient way. I could access it from any computer where I could log in to my Yahoo account. Over time, I became less happy with my Yahoo home page, and eventually switched to a Google home page, so accessing the bookmarks there became even more cumbersome.


Importing my bookmarks was easy, and the default for importing them was to keep them private. I've gone through and marked many as public, but there are also some that I am happy to keep private, such as my links to my hairdresser, doctor's office and so on.


At this time, I have over 300 bookmarks listed on Delicious. Most of them relate to my interests in yarn, cycling, fan fiction and cooking. I've tried to organize the tags, so that I don't have ten different ways of tagging the same sort of thing. If I find that I have tagged something incorrectly, or misspelled a tag, it's quite easy to globally change the tags, or change the one that is incorrect. Sometimes I will bookmark a site, and find that a lot of other people have also bookmarked it (or tagged it). Then it can be fun to look and see what those folks have additionally found, and go exploring that way. I try not to do that too much, as it can be a big time-suck (as so many of these social sites tend to be.)

Thing 12: Rollyo

I've spent some time with Rollyo, and looked at other people's search rolls, as well as creating a few of my own. It seems what this tool does, is turn your favorite bookmarks into a searchable entity. Of course mine all had to do with either knitting, or bicycles, my current passions. I then went back and tried to search for stuff that I knew to be available on the sites that I had "rolled." The results that came back were interfiled with a lot of "Sponsored Links," and the layout was not easy to follow. On my Mac, using Safari 3, the layout was particularly awkward. It looks better using Internet Explorer.

For the sort of searches that I typically do, I think Google is far superior, however, it might be a good way to manage the content of some favorite blogs, or sites with collections, such as recipes.

I suspect this will not be a "thing" that I will spend much time with, beyond this project!

Way Back Machine

Yesterday, I noticed that someone had commented on a picture of a hat that I uploaded to my Ravelry page last week, so I looked at the commenter's profile. She is a lady that knits a lot of hats in the UK, and she has made some really pretty things. One of the items really caught my eye, a scarf with a very intriguing woven pattern mixed with the knitting. Naturally, I checked the Ravelry database to see if I could find this pattern, and I did find. But, it was a pattern that had been removed from the internet, so no longer available. Very sad:

I clicked the link, just to make sure, and found this:

so, indeed it is gone. Then, I remembered The Wayback Machine. I found it, and copy/pasted the dead address into the search box, which gave me this:

Clicking on the purple dates gave me this:

Voila! The pattern, minus the pictures, but the important one was easily found on Flickr, by searching for the Blog author's photostream. So in the end, I got the pattern, and have added it to my queue of potential projects.

Oh, and the hat that started it all? This is what it looks like:

 

Thing 11: March Third

Two years ago today, I joined LibraryThing. I just checked my profile page, and was very surprised to see that it was on March 3, 2007. March 3rd seems to be a very significant date in my life, as I started working at Valley Library (as it was then known) on March 3, 1980. I suspect that is years before some of my present colleagues were even born, but I won't think about that too much! Another March 3rd, I successfully battled the big C with the help of some amazing surgeons. Today was a pretty ordinary day in comparison...

When I joined LibraryThing, I quickly became a crazy woman, trying to catalog every book in the house. They had a scanner for sale, but it was pretty expensive, so I did it by typing in ISBN numbers. I never did complete my collection, because my husband's collection is so large, and much of it is in boxes. For awhile after I joined, I had a very hard time weeding my personal collection, because I became obsessed with having the largest collection among my "friends" there. Now, I've got friends whose collections number in the thousands, so I've completely given up on that. I only have limited space, and don't relish the idea of my upstairs bookshelves crashing through the ceiling onto the main floor. Weeding is good!

What I love about LibraryThing is the ability to find people with similar interests; groups for people who also belong to Ravelry; Librarians who LibraryThing, Austenites, and so on. I like to read reviews by readers, and see who else has a book that I've got, or that I wish I had. I haven't really gotten involved with too many groups, because I'm more involved with the groups on Ravelry.

There are several other book oriented social sites out there; among them, Book Jetty, Books Well Read, Good Reads, and Shelfari. And of course there's WorldCat. I've been having fun with the I-Phone interface for WorldCat. I search for a title that I'm interested in, and because I've stored my zip code on my phone, it knows to look for the closest copy. I'm given the option of reserving the book from the two public libraries, the community colleges or various universities. When I choose which institution I'd like to borrow from, it opens a new window, for the catalog of the chosen institution, and I can reserve the book. I can do this from any coffee shop or rest stop on my travels, so anytime I feel the need to look up a book, with my trusty phone, I can do that. Worldcat lets you create lists, build bibliographies, and has a widget for a Facebook application. I will have to give that a try. I may try recreating my list of World War II fiction for children which I've been keeping since Library School, and see how that looks on Worldcat's Listmaker.

The last Library oriented program that I will mention is a piece of software that I have on my home computer, called Delicious Library. It lets me use the built-in camera on my computer to scan the barcode on books, cd's, dvd's, games, tools and electronics and searches out the information via the web, to put them into my library. I can tag and organize my stuff however I wish, and if I want to loan something out, simply drag the item to the appropriate entry in my address book, and it's checked out to that person. I could publish part or all of this catalog to my personal website, and if I did that, could access it from my iPhone as well. Delicious Library isn't as social, but it's more useful to me, because it functions as an inventory of all the hard to manage stuff I own. This is one of the coolest pieces of software I own, and I highly recommend it, but only if you have a Mac, as that's the only platform it works on.

There are so many ways to search for and organize your personal library, that there's hardly any time left over to actually read!

Thing 10: Wordle and other Image Generators

I played a bit with Wordle and made this picture, using the text of President Obama's inaugural speech. Then I customized the colors, and let the program use up to 400 words. It made a lovely word picture, I think!

Another word picture I created was based on the word "Book." Using the Google translator, I translated the word into as many languages as I could manage (being somewhat limited by the fonts available in Wordle). The picture I came up with looks like this:

I think this would make a nice T-Shirt picture!

Then I played with Word Heart and made one I think my daughter might enjoy:

Inverting the colors made it look like this:

I used the Wedding Sign Maker to create a fun picture for my niece who is a newlywed bride:

Find it here!

Things 8 & 9: Bloglines or iGoogle or Safari or Mail or...

I've had a bunch of favorite blogs to follow for quite awhile, so I've been subscribing in various ways, but never using Bloglines. I've had fun poking around with Bloglines, and really enjoyed Cindy's post about that. I completely agree with her about how wonderful the Subscribe Bloglines button is. Unfortunately, I don't think we can use it on the computers at work, because the toolbars are locked down there. At home, I use Safari as my browser, and it's a simple task to drag that button onto my links bar where I want it!

Safari makes it extremely simple to subscribe to an RSS feed. The little orange button appears in the address bar of any item that you can subscribe to. When you click on it, it reopens the window giving you the option of subscribing in links (which appear in your favorites, or the links bar at the top of the screen. It looks like this:

Or, I can click the Subscribe in Mail link, which will send that feed to my Mail program, where it will look like this:

In Bloglines, the screen for the same feed looks like this:

The actual blog looks like this:

It might be alright to read a newsfeed in Bloglines, or through the Mail or Safari links, but I prefer to go to the actual blog, whenever the content has anything to do with art. I find that the blog author usually has set things up to show his or her artwork to best effect by the way they've designed their blog. Reading it through a reader is not going to give me that experience!

When this Web 2.0 project first started, I "followed" several blogs, which is another way of subscribing. I decided that was too cumbersome, and instead set up my iGoogle page to show me the blogs that I'd like to follow. That page looks like this:

I can quickly see if there's an update to a blog, and then click on the plus sign to see a preview, or if the blog author has given their post a title, click on the title to open the post in a new window or tab.

My iGoogle page has another tab on the side, called "Home," in which I follow well known blogs, and have gadgets that I like to use, such as Worldcat and Library Thing. My log-in for iGoogle at work, is my library e-mail address, so the content I have is all stuff that I like to use for my work. It looks like this:

As you can see, there is yet another way to subscribe to blogs, which is shown in the middle of this page. It's Google Reader. I tend to use that method of subscription for blogs that I like to keep aware of, but perhaps won't read as religiously. It's very easy to click "Mark All As Read," and move on. There's only so much time in a day, and I like to keep some of my reading time for books!

I'm not sure which is the best way, but I'm glad there are so many options!

Ravelry

You might have noticed the flashing button on the right side of the blog that asks "Where my stitches at?" It's for my favorite Web 2.0 site of all time, Ravelry. Unfortunately, you need to get an invitation to really get a good look at it. It only takes a few days to get your invitation, but in this day of instant gratification, that might be too long.

If you are not into knitting or crochet, you might want to stop reading now, as this will probably not be of interest, but if you are a fiber person, you really must know about this site.

Ravelry is an online community for knitters, crocheters, designers, yarn shop owners, and fiber artists. You can organize your projects, plan future projects, shop for patterns, find free patterns, and connect with other people with similar interests.

Once you have an account, and a user name, you get a spot for your notebook. The front page looks like this:

There's a drop down menu where you can access information about your projects, the groups you belong to, messages for you, and any groups within Ravelry that you belong to. On the right side of the screen, if you've added photos of your project, they will show up. If you've got a website, or a blog, you can have recent posts show up on this page as well.

The project page looks like this:

When a viewer clicks on a project picture, one can find out what pattern and type of yarn was used, where it was purchased, and any notes that the knitter added about the pattern. I search out patterns before I buy the supplies, to see what other people have done with them. Sometimes I see yarn choices that I would have never considered, but love, and sometimes I find out about alterations to the pattern that I really like. Whenever I see something I really like, I add it to my favorites. That way, I can easily refer to it later, when I'm actually ready to start a project. There is a link to search for patterns on the web, and if it is a free download, there is special button. Many patterns can be purchased through Ravelry, and downloaded as PDF files. I keep a list called a Queue, of patterns I hope to make someday and I can link that to my Stash, which is a record of all the yarn I've already acquired.

I keep my personal library of knitting books and magazines organized on Ravelry, which keeps me from buying the same magazine twice. Even more important is the tool which allows me to keep track of all the needles and hooks I've acquired over the years. It's awfully easy to forget what I've got, and more than once, I've bought a size of needle that I already had.

One of the most enjoyable parts of Ravelry is the Groups section. There is a knitting group for every imaginable interest. I belong to 21 different groups currently, with my favorites being the Bicycle group and the Mac Lovers group. Inside each group's page, you can see what various members have been working on, as well as join in on discussions, knit-alongs, tutorials and more.

It takes time to use all that Ravelry has to offer, time which could be spent knitting or crocheting. However, I justify my time there, because I've been saved from bad project or yarn choices, and I've been inspired to try projects I would never have tackled otherwise.

If you have read this far, my guess is that you might be interested in joining Ravelry. I highly recommend it, and if you do, please find me and let me know you belong. I'm Dutchgirl73, so look me up when you get the chance!

Thing 7: The ups and downs of our tech world.

Technology is supposed to ease our lives, give us time savings, and make our tasks simpler. In some ways, of course it does: I love my toaster which senses how brown the toast is, my washing machine which senses how big my laundry load is, and my car, which knows to remind me that it's time to buy gas or get serviced (I don't have one that tells me how to get where I'm going... yet).

However, technology has opened up so many possibilities for doing things that were never possible before, that I seem to have less time than I did before technology was so prevalent in my life! I spend hours tweaking photos on my computer, instead of just pasting them in a scrapbook. I spend time organizing my recipes in files, instead of cooking them. And, if I want to be cool with my teenage daughter, it's better to text her than to call her on her Cell phone. My fingers don't go as fast as hers, so that's a lot slower than calling and saying "Time for dinner, you need to come home!"

Sometimes, it's a wash, as with the software I use to keep my checkbook register organized and reconciled. I remember spending hours at the kitchen table surrounded by cancelled checks, and sheets of paper with arithmetic scribbling. Those days are gone; I rarely write a check, and use a check/card. I still spend a lot of time adding forgotten transactions, and getting everything tagged and organized the way I like. I could download the transactions from the bank, I suppose, but that requires setting up the account a certain way, and I haven't had time to do that!

Now that I'm exploring 23 more options for adding technology to my life, I'm excited and a little scared. There is so much, but all of it requires sharing a bit of myself "out there." How much privacy am I willing to give up to make full use of all of these toys. And, if I decide to back out at some point, can I erase my tracks? And even more importantly how do I guide my daughter through the joys and pitfalls of this big new world. It's a lot to ponder!

Thing 6: My trading card

My trading card
Originally uploaded by Dutchgirl73

Here's my trading card. I'm not sure how useful this "toy" is, but it's fun. I was surprised to discover that you have to upload a photo from your computer, and then upload the finished project to Flickr. If you want to use a photo already on Flickr for your card, you have to download it to your computer first. Not hard, but of course that's an extra step.

I also tried Mappr, which was nifty. This could be quite nice for students doing a report in which they need pictures from a place (middle school travel brochure projects come to mind). The color pickr would be useful if you need to color coordinate your brochure!

I wasn't terribly impressed with Montagr, as I've seen and used much easier collage and mosaic software. Andreamosaic and MacOSaiX are two programs that let you create mosaics on your own computer. Mosaicmaker, Hockneyizer and Warholizer are linked under Flickr's Big Huge Labs area.

Here's my daughter's fifth grade school picture, redone with MacOSaiX:

Thing 5: Having fun with Photos and Flickr

I've had a Flickr account for more than a year, but this has provided an excuse to learn to use a little more of it. Up to now, I've posted my pictures, and got them into Sets, and that has been the extent of it. After poking around a bit the last few days, I discovered a link to Big Huge Labs, where you can have fun with Motivator, to create an inspirational poster.

Here's mine:

There's also Warholizer, which lets you mimic the style of painting Andy Warhol used in his painting of Marilyn Monroe. You can create fun frames, desktop wallpapers with or without calendars, Hockneyize a single picture into a collage, or create a collage out of up to 36 pictures using Mosaic Maker. I tried that one with the following result:

There's a lot more there than I've listed, so if you haven't checked it out, I recommend that you go and play.

If that's not enough photography fun for you, here is a list of some other fun websites that I've found and enjoyed:

Picnik, which integrates with Flickr, Picassa, and many other web based photo services, allows you to edit, tweak and do fun things with your photos. You can save, download, or have your pics printed.

FlauntR lets you create effects, and frames, as well as edit the picture for exposure, cropping, and so on. You can link directly to your Flickr collection, which makes working with this program extremely simple, and of course you can also upload photos from your computer and then store them on the FlauntR site. Here are a couple things I have done using Flauntr:

PhotoFunia is a site where you can upload a photo with a detectable face, and then create a fun altered photo out of it, and save it back to your own computer. Here's a couple of examples:

And, if you want to make a poster of yourself in the style of the famous Obama poster, you can do that with Obamiconme. Here's mine:

I'm looking forward to reading the posts of others who are doing this project, to see what they have found!

Thing 2: Lifelong learning habits

What is my easiest habit out of the seven and a half? I think it's #6, which to use technology to your advantage. Of course it helps if the technology works well. At home, I use a Mac, iLife software, including photo, web, and music organization, and integrates all of them with simple clicks. In addition, I've got a fun program called Delicious Library, which has allowed me to catalog my entire home collection of books, CD's and DVD's.

I just recently added a small netbook to my arsenal of technology, and it is driving me crazy. It's slow, keeps wanting to update, and then needs restarting. By the time I get done with tasks on it, I don't feel so productive! (I bought it for use with my embroidery enabled sewing machine, which does not work with the Mac.) So, when the technology works, I can be quite productive, but when it doesn't, it's a huge time suck!

In that vein, my biggest challenge is #3, viewing problems as challenges. I want things to work, and I want them to work now!!! I have to remind myself, that even when things aren't going the way I want them to, the possibilities are so much greater for learning, than they were when I first started out.

I took a computer class when I was in "Library School" at UofW. It involved punching chads in cards, then making sure they were in the correct order to feed into the computer that would read them. I think the program was called BASIC. I have no memory of what kind of program I wrote, and I couldn't then imagine what I would ever do with it. I really hated that class; hard to believe, but now I'm the computer geek in my family.

Thing 1, 3 & 4: My first post!

My first post on blogger. I chose the name Spokaliciousness because that is the name of a little movie that I filmed last summer, while riding my bicycle to a library event in Spokane Valley. Since it has been about two months since I last rode my bicycle, I'm feeling rather nostalgic about those lovely late summer days!



More later!