Moving the blog

So, as I mentioned way back at the beginning of this project, I haven't been too happy with the Blogger format, and I'm just now getting around to exporting this blog into WordPress. For the handful of you following, you may need to resubscribe in your aggregator to the new url: http://deskduty.wordpress.com/

In Search of New Things

So, I didn't win the grand prize (an iTouch!), but I did earn myself an extension on my Flickr account, not to mention all the 2.0 skills we've covered. I've heard rumors of a list of Things #24- #60, I'll have to start looking for those...

I've come across a couple of posts in gReader that I thought were appropriate for my 23 Things blog. One of the comments about this 23 Things project is that it took too much time, much more than the quoted 15 minutes, to get thru each thing. Sure, we don't always have the time to mess around with new websites at length, but we've almost always got a few minutes in the day we can try new things, right?

Check out this graph:

According to the folks over at Museum 2.0,  we can get pretty good at Twitter, Technorati, and Flickr in no time at all, plus, it doesn't take much longer to contribute to the blogs you read by posting comments. I certainly don't have the time (or interest) to make a podcast or run an online community, but surely I have time to follow people and leave comments. That's sort of what makes it 2.0, right? 

The other post that drew my attention I found via Library Garden. ALA has recently released a 5 page document, defining the "basic knowledge to be possessed by all persons graduating from an ALA-accredited master’s program in library and information studies." As a recent speaker mentioned in his address, a love of books just doesn't cut it anymore in this profession! 

Also, via Stephen's Lighthouse, this list of Top 20 Social Networking sites. I've heard of 13 of them, but only use 4 of them. While I'm not sure that anyone really needs to be on 20 different social network sites, some of these might be interesting to explore. I may have to rethink my rejection of Facebook...

Thing #23 - The End/The Beginning

SAPL's 23 Things program was a lot of fun for me. I was able to explore a lot of websites and online tools that have been on my list of things to try for a while now. I like that we were allowed to do this on work time, as I do think a lot of these tools can be put to use in our workplaces. I'm disappointed in (what seems to me) the small number of people who followed the program all the way through. While I'm sure there were more folks reading the staff blogs, it's not quite the same as doing it yourself, so I do hope more staff members will take advantage of the program.

My favorite things were the ones where we played with Flickr and explored YouTube. I'm embarrassed to admit that I never really looked too deeply into YouTube, I always thought it was a bunch of home videos and music videos that didn't interest me much. It's a lot more instructional and inspiring than what I thought.

Would I participate in another program like this? Definitely. As for making it more accessible, maybe we could highlight a different staff blog on the Intranet each week, have admin participate, designate a person or two at each branch as consultant, maybe a bit more explanation at the beginning, so staff can have an idea of what to expect.

Thing #22 - Downloadable Media

Well, maybe I should have taken advantage of the training that was offered a couple of months ago... As mentioned previously, I don't use my iPod all that much. That being said, I haven't had much interest in downloading books - I prefer to hold an actual book and read it myself. But it would be a shame to not take advantage of one of the services offered by the public library, so I tried out both netLibrary and OverDrive. 

My first problem with netLibrary was that I couldn't remember my user name and password! I had signed up with them back when it was new and couldn't get it to remember any of the email addresses I use now. Solved easily enough, by setting up a new account. Maybe I needed to spend more time on it, but I found it difficult to find anything interesting. Or maybe I'm just a picky reader...

OverDrive was a bit easier to browse, but like Jamie, I would have liked to be able to browse only Mac/iPod compatible titles. Or maybe sort the categories by format. Or more results per page. I also noticed a lot of titles had the option to "place a hold" instead of "add to cart", hopefully that means that people are using the service? Either way, you should be able to browse just the titles that are available. On the plus side, I really liked all the info you get on the title. Aside from the library friendly bibliographic info, it gives you reviews, an about the author bit, and then there's that Amazon-ish "If you like this title, you might also like these" suggestions. (I'm not sure how my being interested in I Am Legend means I might be interested in A Woman in Charge, so maybe that part's not quite working.)

So, I may have to chalk this one up as the Thing I didn't like. In the interest of public service, I'll practice it a bit more, but I don't see myself using this on a regular basis. 

Thing #21 - Podcasts

I usually use iTunes to find, download, and transfer podcasts to my iPod, so I looked around at the other podcast directory sites. I like the NPR one, it seems I'm always catching either the tail end of a broadcast, or I don't get to hear all of the story, so I may have to subscribe to some of these. I did a search for "book" on Podcast Alley and it brought up some interesting things. I may have to give one or two of them a try. Right now, there are only three podcasts that I listen to regularly: Ritmo Latino, an hour long mix of Spanish language music, covering just about every genre of musica en espanol that you can think of; Podrunner, from LA based DJ Steve Boyett, an hour's worth of fixed BPM exercise your butt off music; and Yarncraft, all about knitting and crocheting, from Lion Brand Yarn.

My iPod is only a 2G, so I'd probably subscribe to more if I had more room. I'd probably listen to more also if I had a longer commute to work. I do like the way iTunes works like an RSS reader, in that it goes out and checks for updates for you whenever you launch the application. But I don't think I'll add them to my Reader account, since you don't actually read them. I tend to use Reader to keep myself occupied at the reference desk, where headphones would definitely be frowned upon.

Thing #20 - You Tube

Didn't we do YouTube already? Anyway, here's an example of an instructional video found on YouTube. I've got a small laminated booklet that shows illustrations of crochet stitches, but sometimes, it's still hard to understand a stitch and watching it makes it much easier to understand.



As for the entertainment I came across this on another blog. Seems the dance in Beyonce's All the Single Ladies video was inspired by a Bob Fosse dance called Mexican Breakfast. Here's a nice hybrid of the original dance, with Beyonce's song.

Thing #19 - 2.0 Toolbox

There were several sites on the Web 2.0 Awards List that I've used before, so I chose one I haven't used and looked fun. Doof is a social gaming site, and if I'm not careful, I could spend hours there! As with the other social sites, you set up your profile with as much (or as little) info as you'd like. When you log in, you're "announced" to everyone on the site, in a small pop up window. You can see everyone who's playing your game, and you can challenge other players, too. I went for the easy gem swap game, so I could keep track of everything going on - the site is on the busy side. You can earn points, too, that give you more options for the site. The site keeps track of what you play and your scores, and also recommends games and people to meet.

As far as work applications, I'm not sure that it would benefit staff, except maybe as a stress reliever, but it might make an alternative site to recommend to tweens looking for games.