Thing #18 - Online Apps

One of the best things about Google Docs is the ability to have multiple authors on one document. That would be really helpful when you have to get several people's opinions on things, and it's a lot easier than emailing an attachment back and forth. I've not had the chance to use it for work, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for opportunities for collaboration!

So, I'm going to try to make this one interactive: If you've left a comment on my blog, I've invited you to be collaborators on my Google document entitled "List of Pet Peeves." (I had to use work emails, blogger won't show me emails used to leave comments.) Feel free to add your pet peeves to the list and share with friends!

Thing #16 & #17 - Wikis

St Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides are fantastic! Oh, and did you notice the library's url: "library for life" that alone makes a statement. I like the linky-ness of the subject guides, but really they're not that much different from what we've got on the websites by topic pages. What makes it different, and better, is the ability for people to comment. I noticed that only "librarians" can edit the info, so it's not completely open for editing, but anyone can comment on any of the pages. Talk about community involvement! It would be interesting to see something like this for library events, especially for things like book groups, it might increase attendance, or it could be the start of virtual book groups.

After a good 15 minutes mucking about the plcmclearning wiki, I was about to give up on adding my blog to the "Favorite Blogs" page. Then I saw the red print in the left hand corner about scripts being disabled, and ta-da! Now the page isn't blank anymore! It's surprisingly easy to add links, but I think this particular wiki is a bit large and unwieldy. Of course, it's a "sandbox" and not a final product, so that's ok.

Things #13 - #15

Who does this sound like? "It has been a while since I visited this blog - sorry for the absence." heehee. And I don't even have the excuse of a busy schedule. Well, it does take a bit of work to get all the 2007 magazines withdrawn, so I'll use that as my excuse. I'm cheating a bit and tackling a few things in this one post.

Thing #13 - Social Bookmarking
I first heard of Del.icio.us a few years ago, probably from one of the library themed blogs I follow. Anyway, as with most of these things, I thought it was kinda cool, but didn't think it was for me. Who cares what sites I find interesting? (This is also the reason why it's hard for me to maintain a blog.) But getting to the point of this thing, it's the social aspect that counts. And that's where I have the issues. No, really! Even my Birkman results will tell you I'm not much of a joiner.

If I were involved with the online librarian movement, or "biblioblogosphere", I might be persuaded to keep a site like delicious active. I could see other library folks checking it out and finding useful sites that would help them in their jobs. It's not that I don't want to share what I know, it's just that I'm not sure that anyone really wants to know. :)

Something like delicious might be good for maybe the Central Reference staff to use, so that we in the branches could find info we need. We don't get as many reference requests at the branch, but when we do, it might be helpful to have a handy list of sites that reference folks use often.



Thing #14 - Technorati

I've explored Technorati before, on my own, and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that, well, I don't get it. I wasn't really finding the sorts of things I was looking for, and could usually get better results when using Google. Maybe I was doing something wrong? Looking at it now, it's a bit easier to understand. I like the What's Popular page, reminds me of a feature one of the search engines used to have, that would show you the latest search terms. Strangely enough, they list the first 5 of their top 100 blogs, and I already read 4 of them!

I understand now how tagging your blog posts helps to make your searches better. That's something I need to work on, not surprisingly, that ties in to that whole social aspect of these 2.0 things, doesn't it?



Thing #15 - More on 2.0
OCLC is doing some cool online things and I really like their newsletter, NextSpace. I went back to Issue No. 1- Extreme Makeover: Library Edition and found some things that I found to be very applicable where SAPL is right now. For example:

Organizations exist to provide value. If that value is no longer perceived to be in sync with the consumers’ needs, the perceived value of the organization, and its brand, will be minimized.

Being a City department, SAPL is always having to improve the "perceived value" of our organization, especially around budget time. Things like a new bookmobile, a new website, online services, and outreach services are all ways for us to stay relevant to our community. By now, everyone's read the articles about how our country is in a recession and library use is up, now folks are starting to realize we're more than just books.

Then there's this part:

Changing the library’s image in the marketplace, however, must start with changing librarians’ perceptions. That means adjusting the librarianship culture and operations before persuading consumers that libraries have been reborn.

This is where it comes down to us. We are the face of the library and our attitudes contribute to the perceived value of SAPL. How many of us work with librarians who don't know how to copy and paste? How many of us have staff that are nicer to stray dogs than to our customers? It doesn't matter that you didn't learn how to upload pictures in library school, if it's something you've been asked about more than once, it's your job to learn!

We've introduced our patrons to CMS, where they sign themselves in to use the computers, self-serve holds are in several branches, self check-out is just about system-wide. These things are supposed to "free us from the desk" and although the learning curve is steep, we're starting to see some patrons really take advantage of these services. My question to you is this: What are you doing with this "extra" time to improve the perceived value of your library?

Thing #12 - Rollyo

Select...Crochet infoSearch The Web

Looking for crochet patterns or instructions? Use the custom search engine above to search seven crochet websites! My preferred sites are Lion Brand Yarn and Ravelry, but a search engine isn't very comprehensive with only two sites, so I added a few more. Some of them I'm familiar with, others I haven't used as often, but they are a wealth of information. I wanted to include Crochetville, but it's a discussion forum and I wasn't sure how that would work in a search engine. Another good source for instructinal videos is You Tube. You can easily search for a particular stitch and find a demonstration to help you along.

Thing #10 - Image Generators

This mini READ poster was made using ALA's image generator. I wish it would give you the option of resizing your photo, like you can do on Ravelry. Then you'd be able to see that my son is reading his first year scrapbook. Seeing how he's 5 now, it'd be nice if he could read his 1-5 year album, but I would have to create that first...

Using yet another Big Huge Labs app, called Motivator, I created this "motivational" poster with a picture from my children's 5th birthday party two weekends ago. Not quite as clever as Barney's motivational posters, but still kind of fun.

Also from Big Huge Labs comes this fun jigsaw puzzle maker! Made with my most recently made elephant amigurumi, you can also order actual puzzles from the website. That would be a great gift for family and young friends, especially if they are featured in the photo.

Thing #11 - Goodreads

Well, for this Thing, we're supposed to sign up and explore Goodreads. It looks like a great app that shows what you're reading and will update your friends with the info. I've seen it on a couple of blogs, but, I don't really think it's for me. I'll admit, I can be a girl of a hundred lists, but I'm decidedly 1.0 about it. I tried using Remember the Milk, even integrating it with my gmail, but I gave up on it after a couple of weeks. I prefer to keep lists on paper.

As for books, I keep an Excel file listing the books I've read, when I read them, a rating (1-5), and notes about the book. I can tell you that my reading always slows down towards the end of the summer - I'll go from reading 3-5 books a month, to one or even none. No, it's not very social, as the list lives on my flash drive, but I'm not sure that anyone else would really be interested in my reading choices. I also keep a list of books I own on LibraryThing. Ok, ok, I haven't used my LT account in a while, and the books skew heavily towards anthropology and Latino writers. I essentially quit buying books when I started working for the library. :)

There are so many social networking sites online, I simply don't have time to keep up with all of them. I've resisted joining Facebook, and only set up a MySpace page so I could help the teens fix up their pages. I have a Twitter account that I use, sparingly, am an active newbie on Ravelry, a long time lurker on a couple of scrapbooking sites, and have a LinkedIn account that I check every so often. I just don't have the time to be active on all those sites, much less to add any more!

Thing #9 - RSS Feeds

As a lot of people have expressed, I think I'm at my limit of subscribed feeds. It's hard to catch up if I skip a weekend of reading, so I'm not keen on adding more. However, there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with feeds. If you take a look at the sidebar at the right, I've added a clip of the feeds I have filed under "Librariana". That's just a small view of some of the library-related blogs I read. Reader also allows you to make a webpage of individual folders. Here's one for what I call "Personal Development" which is mostly blogs on personal finance and productivity sites. I don't want to clutter the sidebar, but you can also add a "blogroll" to your site. Since blogger is a Google product, it's super simple to add these things to your blogger-hosted blog.