Random Thoughts/Final Comments

Twitter – not even considering  the issue of finding time to follow it, when I started getting two types of followers, I knew I would make it go away. First, there are people who I don’t know and I don’t seem to have anything in common with. I only posted a couple of things and then my Goodreads reviews and still, followers. Then there were the businesses who are probably following me because of my location, and  then hope I will follow them so I will get their advertising updates. And the only way they could have figured out my location was by the few people I follow who listed a location. Scary or creepy, I haven’t decided.

Along the Twitter line, I have read something that Twitter is a Gen-x thing. Not a teen thing, and not so much a my age thing. And cool. If we need to reach that audience and they want our Twitter, good for them . But lets target them to that audience. I don’t know that we are doing that.  Twitter can be a tool for our library, done by a Gen-x person, but I don’t have to. I don’t read them, and the patrons I work with don’t either. Yes, I’m generalizing.

I didn’t think I would like Facebook when I joined but I do. I think it’s because my Facebook ‘friends’ are people I actually know. The status updates are like tweets in a way, and I enjoy reading the links, the related comments, and it’s more visual. I use a computer, not a smartphone.

I remember reading a suggestion about using the same user name and password for everything, I wanted to do that, but even with my unusual name it wasn’t possible. Keeping track of all my new accounts on all my new things is an issue. I have to write them down somewhere.

One final comment -

Please, tech people, don’t take it personally when I don’t adapt all of your great ideas and latest things. Much of this, to me, is a life style choice as much as anything else. I communicate differently, I have different ways of relating to friends and colleagues. I get how we can use these tools as marketing to a select audience and probably should, but I am not that audience. We need to be aware of the many preferences our patrons have as we reach out to them. Reach them on their terms, not ours. Technology should increase our options for access and communication, but we aren’t at the point yet where all of our patrons have the same access or preferences. We shouldn’t limit what we do or put a value on one method over another.

And then I won’t take it personally when I hear things like librarians who aren’t all over the 2.o stuff should be encouraged to leave the profession.

Update:  I have taken most of my information off Facebook due to concerns. Including the link to this website, which I think was a requirement for the facebook assignment. Sorry.

Week 15: Wikis

It was easy to add my page to the 23 Things wiki but I was not able to add the link. Reading the comments I noticed that Safari and Wet Paint can be problematic, so will try to add the link at work with the more commonly used browser. Glad the comments were there to help me!

As I mentioned on the page, I had been thinking about making a wiki of book lists, read a-likes and other RA links, or whatever, for my use, but with all the advertising and steps to create the pages, may use Google Docs. I have heard they can be quirky, but they are cleaner. I want something I can add to at home and at work without resorting to having to have a flash drive or such. I can store it in the cloud with no physical thing to keep track of!

I did explore other wikis, but don’t have some expertise in mind that I feel I can add to any of them. Having now played with one, the 23 Things, I can see how easy it is, and if I feel so inclined at some point, or come across a wiki I can use or need, may do so later.

We tried using a wiki at my branch for our monthly report. The idea was to open it up, add the activities we did right after we did them and everyones ‘reports’ would be in one place for the manager. It never took off. Some staff weren’t comfortable with the process, it took too many clicks and steps to get to where we needed to be, the multiple steps for saving made some entries disappear and remembering more log ons and passwords was just too much.  For wikis to work for a group, they have to be comfortable for everyone and that isn’t always the case.

Week 14: Library Thing, Etc.

I have been a member of LibraryThing since May 2007 and have paid to be a lifetime member.  I have a personal account, one I used to add books for a webpage at work, and one I use for storytime books. I like LibraryThing because I can use all the tags I want, they are easy to search and manipulate, and there were sections for public and private comments.

I joined Goodreads in April 2008 from a friend request and use it as a social book sharing thing. I enjoy getting and reading the reviews from friends. My favorite friend is my 13-year old niece who lives in another state. We also send messages to each other occasionally. She is a prolific reader and posts often and I am now friends with a couple of her friends and now get some strange group invitations and poll requests. It’s been great to see ratings by teen on teen books. Mostly I just see the ratings of other youth and teen librarians. I have a Goodreads widget on facebook and on my personal blog. It is a flash widget and WordPress doesn’t support it so I can’t add it here.

I do keep both and often copy/paste my comments into both. I have many more tags on LibraryThing and use it more for work related searching and didn’t want to transfer everything I had to Goodreads. Goodreads is mainly a social thing for me.

I looked at the Shelfari site but don’t need another social site since my friends are on Goodreads.

I decided to explore the recommendation areas on LibraryThing for this assignment. While it was tricky at first, as in takes a while to figure out how the recommendations got there and how to find them, I think it has the potential to be a useful tool. I didn’t agree with some of the read-alikes and many are just titles in a same general age category, there were some that seemed perfect. Recommendations can be found on every book’s page.  Members can make recommendations and it was good to see that there are ‘rules’  or at least suggested rules.

Week 12: Screencasting

This is it, my short little screencast: http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c6fToN17N

It took me a while to actually do this thing for a couple of reasons, the most important being that I had no idea what to screencast about.  So, finally I just did this. I played with the editing feature, actually the pause feature, so I didn’t have to fill time while pages were loading. It was all so very easy!

I can see how this is can be a great way to share something with someone who isn’t with you. The whole picture/video is worth a thousand words idea. However, for training or doing anything in person, I would prefer to do it live. It allows for questions and input by those in the room. I can see how a few training screencasts could be helpful for reviewing information after the initial training.

I choose Screencast-o-Matic because I didn’t have to download anything. It was also easy to do with the built-in mic on the Mac. Gotta love it!

Week 13: Slide Sharing

Spring.

Above is a link to my Animoto video. I chose Animoto because it looked fun.  It was very easy. I’m not sure how I will use this in the future, but you never know.

Doing presentations isn’t really a part of my job, but it’s nice to know about these sites if I need them in the future.

Week 10: Video on the Web

I do watch videos on the web. I watch the funny ones posted on friend’s blogs and facebook.  I watch the TV shows I would miss working nights on the web. It’s nice I no longer have to tape or record them and get the settings right or miss something if the start time changed for some reason. Flash Forward is a favorite now.

The library I work for has web content staff  who do video. For instruction. For promotions. For finger plays. Yes, finger plays. We have our own early literacy initiative web pages which include finger plays. Like this:

We have just started a YAAC in our branch and the teens want to have a book trailer contest this summer. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with and learning from them.

I have a very old digital camera that takes short video, an annoying cat and iMovie.  The cat is getting older so isn’t as active, but have a goal to try to get him to do something and play with the iMovie.

UPDATE: It seems I can’t get the battery to last long enough on my camera to take the video. It could be an 8-10 year old camera, come to think of it. And it takes about 5 seconds of holding down the button to even take a picture. Don’t have a cell phone with a camera. I’m doing 23 Things at home ‘cuz it wasn’t required for my job and don’t have time at work. Can’t take a work camera home. So, can’t finish this one.

Week 9: Instant Messaging

I was introduced to instant messaging at work when our library had a few of our branches test using it for patron interactions about 3 years ago. It became difficult to have someone at each branch available at all times and it was dropped there, but our main location uses it as part of our T-Ref services.

We were using Meebo at the library and I actually impressed my teenage son when I could show him something he didn’t know about. He liked being able to be logged on to all his accounts at once in one location. I’m not on IM much now, but had fun on a video chat with him Mac to Mac recently.

I do use the chat feature on facebook, now.

Week 8: Cloud Computing

Trust the cloud!  but keep things in lots of places. Appreciate the warning.

This may be the time to add that in all of this, I have been impressed with the Common Craft videos and the instructions and help found on the ‘things’  themselves.  While sometimes it can be hard to find, or figure out the right search term, to get to the answers to my questions, when I do they are easy to understand and have lots of pictures with examples.

I’ve only explore google docs and played with one, and others, just to see how it works. When I do have a real world reason to use one, I will. I instantly appreciated the way the doc was set up. It has the same format as the Word docs we use everyday for edit, view, and all. That may seem like an obvious choice or a small thing, but sometimes the obvious and the simple aren’t the standard.

Well, Look at Me

I just tweeeted (and posted on facebook) a link to a blog post I read on my google reader. And I originally found the blog because of a link from a facebook friend.

Ooooo! Maybe I should tweet this with a #23thingsks.

Information Overload

I’m managing to keep up with the 23 Things, but not sure how much is actually becoming a part of my life.

It seems I sign-up for something, try it once, then must move on to the next thing. I haven’t found the time to go back into the things and personalize them or really integrate them into my personal or work life.

I had a goal to check out some of the other blogs and learn from others, but haven’t found the time for that, either.

It will be nice to have some new tools to play with, but I’m not even half-way through and am getting overwhelmed.