Reflection

The 23 things was a great learning experience and I enjoyed every minute of it. My favorite parts about it were the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. I also enjoyed the Digg website and the Google docs. My least favorite were the Libworm and creating my own wiki. I had some difficulty but overall these things are just not for me. I am so glad that I got to participate in this exercise and am thrilled that I got to learn all of them. I will continue to use all of these and I may even give my least favorite a second try!

Developing 23 Things for my Library

Fortunately for me all the staff at my location participated in 23 so they are well equipped with these new skills. But I think it would be a good thing for the rest of our library system to learn these tools, although our library system already uses Wiki and Flickr. The programs learned in this series can benefit everyone who has learned and in turn benefit our library. In the future Twitter may be an option that we can use since everyone is going mobile. I found some great promotions on YouTube of our library and they may be helpful if really pushed. Most of the 23 things learned are all used by our patrons and for us to keep up with them then we must know the latest and greatest in up and coming technology. For example several patrons ask if our computer system keeps track of the books they have read, unfortunately it does not but after learning 23 I can suggest LibraryThing as a way for them to store and keep titles as well as learn new ones.

Podcasts

So I checked out a couple of podcasts, one was from Cornell University Library on the history of hip-hop and the other was from the County of Los Angeles Public Library addressing teen books old and new. Both were interesting and takes me back to the times when all people had were radios and they listened to broadcasts and stories. I think that podcasts may be for the older crowd (no offense) and people on the run, that like listen to stories. I'm interested in all subjects so I think having a variety of podcasts from which they can choose from would be good. I think podcasts would interest our patrons if the downloads are easy and the material is worthwhile.

YouTube

I must admit that I am a fan and user of YouTube. I usually look up videos of my favorite artists and some of the skits from Saturday Night Live, but never thought to look up the library. I found some interesting things about them however, like the library book cart drill team. I not really sure what they where trying to promote but I thought it was cute. Then I found quite a few things on the Fort Worth Library itself. They are good promotions for the library but they haven't been publicized very well. Check out the one I posted below. :)

Google Docs

I like google docs, it is just like Microsoft but free. And the best thing is you don't have to worry if document will open or not if your home computer isn't compatiable with your work computer. There's no disk or jump drive to tote around, all you have to do is log into google, it's fast and best of all it's FREE!

Wikis

Fortunately I am a user of wikipedia, however I don't use it frequently because some of the information is not correct and some of it is incomplete. For example my search today of So You Think You Can Dance winner Joshua Allen. It says he was born here in Fort Worth and that he played sports in high school, but that was all the background information that it gave. The rest of the information was about the show, who he partnered and what dances he did. I was looking for more on him as a person. As for creating my own wiki, that didn't go so well and I don't think I would try it again.

LibWorm

LibWorm is not for me. I feel like I was pretty specific with my searches, but I didn't always get the result I wanted or thought I would get. I typed in new postings under search-any word and got job postings. When I typed in Wedgwood Library under phrase search there were no matches, but when I put in Fort Worth Library I got to results. One was from the keynote speaker from our staff day saying how wonderful it was and the other was about our Central Library location unveiling their new gaming program, that was described as an undeniable hit.

Library Thing

The LibraryThing is a really great website for those of us who like to read. Especially if you are into to series. This site allows you to keep track of things you have read and even better see what others are reading (in case you run out of good books). You can even join groups and if you have a spouse like mine who doesn't like to read; this gives you the opportunity to discuss the book with someone who has.

DIGG

If you are looking for sports, entertainment, world news and business than you can DIGG this. Digg is a website that offers all of these things. Many of my colleagues tried to start an account with this site and didn't have much luck with it. I took the easy way out and just explored it. I had no trouble with this option and actually enjoyed seeing so many subjects all on one page. I can find out what's new, what's hot and what's not. I can learn what's going on in the world, see who dumped who, who got traded in the draft, what new video game my husband might want and that a pac-man wedding cake exists. Don't believe about the cake, just check out the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/obajoo/3812027662/sizes/l/

Delicious

Yeah I just finished Delicious, my link is http://delicious.com/texmexlex. This site kind of reminds me of the RSS reader, because I can put all of my favorite links on one page. My mind doesn't retain information the way it used to, so having all of my web pages just a click away is great.

Tagging

I believe that I would encourage tagging. Tagging is another way of bookmarking items. So if we tag items into certain categories then the patron/ public will have more options and ways to look for things. Everyone's mind works differently so being able to tag things into groups may help them find the item that need without knowing the specific title.

Twitter

So I signed up for Twitter today and I must say I'm a little impressed. I am following 6 people, have one follower and my first tweet. One of the people I am following is Tyrese (singer, actor, model) he has pictures of his daughter and she is a doll. He has one tweet where she is sleep and he writes that she is his sleeping angel. I feel that way when my 20-month old daughter is asleep, in fact it is the only time she is an angel. The only problem I encountered was when I tried to look up a friend, their name nor username would pull up. Oh well there's always tomorrow in the meantime, I'll just follow Tyrese.

Instant Messaging

Instant messing, is something I think we have all used. Its a nice way of sending messages and depending on the receipents typing speed, quick way to get a response. I use Yahoo messanger and I love it. I can talk to one friend on line and the other on the phone and everyone is happy.

NING

Ning reminds me of facebook and Myspace as they all three are social networks. My husband is apart of a ning that was created for his high school by one of his alumni. They can post pictures, blogs, email each other, requests friends, all the usual. And they also post when reunions and class gatherings will take place. Its a neat thing and it lets him get and keep in touch with all his classmates.

More Facebook

Well I do believe that before now the only group I was apart of was the Chrisette Michele fan club. She truly has a wonderful voice and is even better in person. But anyway I found two other groups to join, my favorite being Fort Worth reads. I love to read and with our Summer Reading Program in effect, I thought it was most appropriate. :)

Facebook

Well I must admit that I am already a member of facebook. It's a wonderful way to stay in touch with friends, family members and co-workers. It allows you to interact with each other by posting pictures, saying what's on your mind and you can even play games and quizzes with one another. There are tons of social networks to choose from and groups to join. Best of all everything I post can only be seen by my friends and I have to accept them first. I enjoy this site so much that I check it several times a day.

RSS Feeds

Hello again. I'm back to tell you about the RSS feeds. It was just as easy as the blog reader. Just log into www.google.com/reader and follow three easy steps. At the end of the steps you will have learned to link all of your favorite websites to one page. It's fast, it's fun and it's convenient to have all of your favorites in place and with just one click you're there.

Blog Reader

The blog reader did not take me long at all. I just went to google, logged in, went to add stuff, hit a add a gadget and bippity boppity boo the link to North Texas 23 was visible on my google home page. That was truly easy.

Image Generator

Well fellow bloggers I had some trouble with "thing 5" because my original image generator would not display correctly. I had a flash animation that was really nice, but once I linked it to my blog it wouldn't run. So I tried and tried different formulas but had no success. Oh well my Warholized roses add flare and color and that generator was a breeze to complete.

Flickr- Gabby's Slideshow

Flickr Mashups

Is this not the cutest puzzle ever? And I thought it would be hard. The hardest part about it was choosing the picture I wanted, decisions, decisions. Once you have made your decision, just upload your photo and the flickr mashup does the rest. WWD Library has a Flickr page and we could use the mashup to create advertisements for our coming summer reading program.

Flickr

Hello fellow bloggers,

This morning I learned how to set up a Flickr account. I was very nervous about doing so, but once I got under way found the process to be quite easy. All you need is a yahoo account and then you set up your Flickr account name and URL. Then you go in and personalize your profile. You can change your default picture to suit your taste and once those things are complete, the fun begins, as you start to upload your photos. Flicker makes uploading so easy. Just click on the link and get pictures from your hard drive or USB, you can also download photos from the internet, like I did with my profile picture. I linked my flickr account
(Gabby's Slideshow) to my blog so check out my handy work. :)

Setting up my blog

Yeah, today I learned how to link other bloggers to my page and change my template.

Learning 2.0

2.0 is latest internet technology and if the library is to keep up with the fast changing times, not only will we have to learn and update to new software, we'll have to learn the language as well.