Week 10 or is it Week 15? # 23 The end.

Now that I am at the end here are some comments;
1. Favorite discoveries- Library Elf- even though I only have one library account and receive emails from HCPL, I like the reminders and the calendar from Library Elf.
2. How has it affected my lifelong learning goals?- It has pushed me a little further into exploring the social Internet.
3. Surprises? I was surprised how hard it all is and how long it takes to do something when there are no instructions. What I thought would be an hour a week turned into several hours for a number of days each week. I usually gave myself a 2 hour window and after that I stopped.
4. Ideas to use technologies in libraries? It needs to be more user friendly and more people turned on at home. The last thing I want to do when I come home is log on to the Internet but I guess I am in the minority. It still feels like a clique or club and not something available to all the public.
5. What else to learn? I would like to explore blog making and figure out how to add all the neat things I see others adding.

Week 9 #22 Downloadable Media

1. I browsed the HCPL Overdrive site and listened to the overview. It has been a few months since I looked at this. I did check out one e-book, "The Alamo" which I will download once I get home. I have downloaded music before on my home computer. I don't have a MP3 player so am somewhat limited. Maybe Santa will bring me one this Christmas. I am always curious as to what is most popular and sorted many of the areas by most popular. I was amazed so much of the titles (fiction romance) could be burned to a CD. I did not remember seeing the little fire before to indicate what can be burned. That makes it easy to spot.

2. LibriVox- This site was primitive compared to Overdrive, but all I did was scan some of the recently cataloged titles and read through the FAQ. Since these are only titles in the public domain they are older and not as popular. I did recognize some, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin , and may come back to it on my home computer.

3. WOWIO- This company says it started in August 2006 and they are located in HOUSTON! They have an attractive website including cover art which is very important. Titles are provided straight from the publisher so they are fairly recent. The subject pull down menu makes negotiating the site easy. I saw many titles of interest but these are still not what library folk would call "best sellers" or high demand titles. Some may have interest but I don't think you will see them on the NY Times BS list.

Week 9 # 21- Podcasts -smodcasts

1. I looked at the podcast directories- Podcast Alley, Podcast Net and Yahoo.
Podcast Alley- I did a search for Book reviews. One I listened to was "Rachel's Reviews" Rachel sounded like a young adult. Her podcasts gave short reviews and she ended the book description by rating it one to ten bookmarks. Since I had just watched the movie "Holes" and really enjoyed it, I listened to her review. She liked the book and gave it 10 bookmarks. Then she had a friend come on to tell their favorite book. It was the Hobbit.

Podcast Net- I narrowed the search to animals and found two video-podcasts. One was from the Dog Whisperer and the other was from Wildlife Chronicles. They seemed kind of long so I just watched the beginning and cut it off.

Yahoo- I was able to get some searches for book reviews. Most of the searches led me to music for purchasing. The book reviews came up with three - An online news hour with Terrance Smith.

2. I subscribed to "Rachel's Reviews" on my Bloglines account.
3. Did I find anything useful? Not sure but it was fun.

Week 9 #20 YouTube and Video sharing sites

YouTube has always been easy to navigate and fun to look at all the funny personal videos. I have several favorites.. the cat flushing the toilet, the montage of cats jumping, running and sliding into trouble. I took a little closer notice when my nephew starred in a home made film and posted it on YouTube called "The Mill". It was directed by a friend who is in film school during their summer vacation in the Adirondacks. The following summer they made a sequel.
Here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zmph93kLF8

YouTube could be used by libraries to show special services available. The library website could have a short video explaining how to get a library card or how to use a self check out machine. They could have advertisements for upcoming programs. Pictures are great learning tools and the library could use these for staff training. People surfing the net or YouTube may be drawn to library websites to find out more and be inspired to visit in person.

Week 8 # Parade of Avatars

I did create an avatar. I added it to the S drive and it appears in the Parade of Avatars.

Week 8 #19 Zoho writer

zoho
I signed up for Zoho writer. I exported an excel file which listed the Large Type circulation stats for 2006 for all branches. This is a file I had exported from Web Reporter. I will try to add it to this blog? No can do. Nothing happened. Second try- no longer able to use excel so I tried to import a word document. This worked and I save the doc in Zoho. Then tried to publish on blog- no can do. Can's seem to get to my blog. Oh well- At least I exported and saved a doc. Maybe next week...

Week 8 #18 Social Networking

MySpace
I found two links to HCPL that were interesting in MySpace. One was from "fleaSha" who wrote that she just found downloadable audio books free off the Harris County library website. Her myspace site listed lots of books she read and liked along with a cute bookshelf of cover art from a site called Shelfari. I clicked on it and was taken to fleaSha's Shelfari site which listed more of her book favorites.
Then I found Dale MacNeil's personal website. He included his a entire resume of jobs including Octavia Fields Branch Librarian from 1988 to 1994. He had a flicker global map of places he has lived and would like to visit.
xanga- I looked up Bob Dylan and found some ramblings about Masters of War and Ballad of a Thin Man being as relevant today as when he wrote it. I could have told them that. Sometimes you read something and you know it will be timeless.
Facebook- I found my niece's website or at least her picture. I think her website was blocked to just friends.
I scanned myopera, cats and dogsster..I noticed Grace has used these on her blog.
enuf

Week 7 #17 Technology

I did try to add a comment to another blog but was not successful and that pretty much sums up my experiences with technology. I usually have to do it 3 ways wrong before I figure out the right way. Meanwhile I have alienated myself and it is no longer a fun experience. I do realize it may eventually help me and so I plug on.

Week 7 # 16 Wiki wiki oh nooo

I added my favorite movie to ihcpl Sandbox wiki. I did have an hour of frustration trying to figure out how to do that simple act. The wiki tour did not work. The only thing I could see how to do was add a page but nothing about adding or editing to other pages. I did try to post a comment on another blog but was unable to sucessfully type in my login or password and it was not the one I use to get into this blog. So it was a frustrating experience. I tried to add a login account but was not sure whether I did this? I did get out of it and come back and it had saved an edit page for me where I left off.

I had hopes of using this for librarians to comment on Reference books or Continuations but now I'm not sure. I couldn't even find a way to check my spelling?

Week 6: #15 Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I found all this very interesting since my job is becoming more and more affected by these new ways of looking at libraries and information. I loved the "icebergs". I am constantly stopping and asking librarians- why do you need this source if you don't use it? Usually the response is "just in case". The idea of libraries getting out of the way so the public can get straight to the information is great and I assume that's what all this tagging is all about. I did print out the Librarian 2.0 Manifesto because I'm old fashioned and like to see things in print not just on a computer screen.

Week 6 # 14- Techorati

I searched Technorati for Learning 2.0 and found some of the Wandering Eyre stuff. Then I tried ihcpl and found Grace's blog. I particularly like the speculation concerning the origin of spoons and forks. So with all that intellect behind me it is on to the next assignment. I did play with sports and technology and was overwhelmed.

Week 6 #13 Tagging

I listened to the 8 minute video on Del.cio.us. and also went through a tutorial. I tried to install it on my tool bar was unable to because it has to be done by the Adminstrator. So I'm not sure I can get the full fun of delicious. I looked at the ihcpl account and added sites in the past. I'm not sure I see the value but maybe if I used this at home it would be helpful. I rarely bookmark sites anymore and just use google to find things fast.

Week 5 #12 "The Library Elf " will remind you

Register your library card (or cards) with Library Elf and track your items and requests.
I registered my Harris County card.

Post on your blog what you think about this service
This would be helpful to someone who is trying to keep up with lots of library accounts. I do have two library cards but rarely use one of them. My HCPL account sends me emails but I went ahead and added it to elf just to see what it looked like.

Week 5 #11 Library Thing

1. Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.
Done
2. Add at least 5 books to your library.
Done
3. Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.
I looked at this in the past. Did not have time this morning to do anything more than adding an account and adding 5 books. For readers this would be valuable.
http://www.librarything.com/profile/Cornerstonepost

Random books from my library
Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum Novels) by Janet Evanovich
A Common Life (The Mitford Years #6) by Jan Karon
The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America by David Allen Sibley
A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester
Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley) by Elizabeth George
powered by LibraryThing

#10 Continued: Generator- Avatar from Meez

#10 Continued : Generator- Avatar from Yahoo

Week 5 Discovery #10- Play around with generators

1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like.
I liked the cartoons but never could figure out how to get it on the blog. I did copy and past the URL but it did not load the cartoon. I played witht the stamps and other stuff for the photos.

2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog. Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too. see above.
I created a couple of avatars- see above.

Discover #9 Finding feeds

1. Explore a few of the search tools located above that can help you locate newsfeeds.
2. Create a blog post about the experience.

I used the same search in all the newsfeeds. Looking up Tour de France in "Bloglines" was easy and I added one to my account. "Feedster" was sort of weird and ended up with viagra hits when I searched Tour de France. "Tipster" was nice and I liked the graph showing timeline of most news. "Syntic8" was not clear and it would take me more time than I have to figure out what on earth it was. "Technorati" may have possibilites but again it brought up sex related sites, I did see tags that might lead me to better feeds.

Discover #8- RSS feeds

1.Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders. I watched Rhoda's news video and the CNN explanation of RSS plus Helene Blowers tutorial.

2.Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and to at least ten newsfeeds through your reader. See the tutorial from the discovery resources, steps 1-3 for instructions.
I already have a blogline account but added a couple of new feeds.

3.Subscribe to some of the iHCPL participant blog feeds or HCPL Flickr photo feeds.
I subscribed to the hcpl delicious feed. I could not figure out how to subscribe to HCPL flickr photo feeds. I already subscribe to ihclp feed.

4.Create a post in your blog about this exercise.
This is the post in my blog.

Week 3. #7- Photo editing tools

Week 3. #7 Photo editing tools

I used Pixer.us. After reducing size, I cropped it and added some contrast.

This was from Baldwin Boetcher's "All Decked Out" photos.

Discovery #6 more flickr fun and mishaps

I experimented with Trip Planner in Yahoo and made a map to San Antonio and Kerrville. I guess I needed to have photos to add but do not have any. I did browse some other trips. The color plates in flicker were very nice but I'm afraid my ability to use Flkr has a way to go. It's like I can see it but I can't touch it. I never got a feel for how Trippermap is used, I did look at the site.

Week 3- Discovery- Flickr

Who are you?

You go girl!

My learning habits usually involve some self talk. Particularly if it is something foreign to me such as this exercise and learning new technology. The points made in the video about being positive, finding humor, motivating, organizing and giving myself credit are all good. The most important for me is being positive- my self doubt and cynicism can derail me. Once I get started I usually can motivate myself with some good old fashioned positive self talk. If everyone else can do it- so can I. Being able to laugh at myself helps along with my organizing skills which usually consists of making a list. My desk may not be neat but I can figure out priorities and get the job done. I'm not afraid to ask for help so the idea of having labs on Fridays are a comfort.

Internet Safety

What may sound like common sense to me must not occur to others. I don't even like to give out information about myself over the phone let alone type it into a network of connections broadcasting world wide. I can see where young kids communicating with each other may forget others are watching. The short video was good depicting the young girl not having a clue. Being able to print off an Astro's ticket and then just walking through the gate without standing in a "Will Call" line was a miracle. So being able to exchange personal information in a secure way is a great convenience.

What does "Will Call" mean anyway? No one ever called me. "Pick-up" would be a better description.

Creating the cornerstone

Day 1 is creating the cornerstone to build the building. This metaphor is going to get old but it gave me a place to start.