Week 7, Thing 17 - Sandbox Wiki

Okay, that was fun, and gave me some good examples of wikis at work. I think I will try to create a wiki for collaboration among my peers here for ILL use. As soon as I get enough courage, I'll invite you in to have a look and share some comments and tips!
Okay. It's later again --- I created a wiki for in-house use and it's just barely begun, but I welcome your comments. Visit it at www.illquickref.pbwiki.com. It's private, so if you want to add comments, which I hope you will, just email me and I'll give you the password. I don't want the whole world to see it, since there are only two little bits of info so far. I do want it to be a collaborative effort, though, and grow, so please let me share the password with you.

Week 7, Thing 16 - wikis

Wikis seem to be a sort of "global conversation." It's a good way to pool knowledge or opinions, but because of that fact, it may not be a really reliable source of information. Learning about wikis did spark some questions in my mind. Who would have the final say or "authority" over the content of the wiki - the originator? I think the wikis created to help new attendees to the ALA conferences were a great tool, and the one for web 2.0 in 15 minutes a day. But I think he's dreaming - it's impossible in 15 minutes a day!
Thinking from the ILL perspective - this would be a great forum for a collaborative effort among reference staff, ILL gurus, and genealogy experts to gather info for hard-to-find items, websites for libraries that provide these things, and their preferred method of requesting their holdings.

Week 6, Thing 15, Web 2.0, Library 2.0

Okay. this really impressed me. I love the "feel" of the library and I'm not sure I welcome so much change! I know we have to move ahead with changing technology, but I hope we don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater!" In my advancing years I can appreciate the fact that many people my age and beyond also love the feel of the library and I hope we maintain the comfortable atmosphere as the library morphs into Wendy Schultz" vision - "what would Library 4.0 be like? It will completely connect the digital and the sensual, moving from virtual reality (VR) to augmented reality (AR): all the services of Library 3D projected over our immediate surroundings."
On the other hand, I like what Chip Nilges said concerning "More Powerful Ways to Cooperate" when citing the project Open Worldcat. This has made a huge difference in being able to provide what our patrons are asking for, and even enables them to find obscure items so they come in to us already knowing exactly what they want and where to locate it.
In some ways our job gets easier because our patrons are more informed; but harder, because they are so informed, we have to keep up with them!

Week 6, Thing 14, Technorati

I can't believe how many blogs you can access at one time here, and the list keeps growing. I don't think I want to "claim" my blog, because I put pictures of my grandkids on there. Do I want the whole world to see them? Technorati is almost TMI - too much information. It's hard to decide where you want to go because there's so much to choose from.

Week 6, Thing 13 - Del.icio.us

I didn't get to see the 12 minute tutorial, but I did explore the PLCMCL.2 account. I wasn't impressed until I went into a blog post I saw on Technorati and actually explored someone else's Del.icio.us site. Now, I think I will try to create an account. I thought at first that most of the things I presently have bookmarked require a password, and there would be no point in combining everything into one place; but when I saw how easy it is to "just click" into each website, I think I see its value. I can definitely see how valuable this would be for someone who doesn't work consistently at one computer and needs to access their info from different areas. It would be a great tool for our subs, who roam from branch to branch!

Week 5, Rollyo

Well, I investigated Rollyo, tried a few searches, and created my own search roll, using Worldcat, LOC, Amazon, and added Google for good measure, but I can't figure out how to save my searches. Here's the URL: http://rollyo.com/illbookbuyer/
I tried to focus on books and periodicals, since the Union List of Periodicals is no longer going to be maintained by Pratt. I got frustrated trying to save my searches, but -- after the fabulous Google training this morning by Trina and Kari, I don't see the need for anything but Google, really. I never knew you could Google so much!

Week 5, LibraryThing

Here's the url to my LibraryThing list.
>http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jspear
So far I only have four favorites in there. My summer reading favorite is Mary Alice Monroe's Swimming Lessons, although I've read all of hers. My personal spiritual favorite recently is Left to Tell, which taught me a lot about forgiveness. The best book I read last year was water for Elephants. I have a hard time remembering titles and authors. I have certain authors I love to read, but then can't remember the titles. So I have to go home and see what else is currently on my waiting-to-read list. I'll add others later. Okay, it's later. Now I'm "reading" Sunday Wife in the car on my way to and from work, on my cd player. When I added it to my LibraryThing list, the cover popped up on my blog - so cool!! I really wanted to keep adding books to my list as I read them, but I'm not sure I want all you guys to know what I'm reading all the time! I read a lot of women's fiction.

Week 5, Here's my generated picture!

I lost the image once. I hope it stays this time.
This was fun! I've loved this picture of my grandkids taken last summer at the Smithsburg Public Library. See - you never really know what's going on at the library!
You could be petting snakes or playing on the web.

Week 4 RSS and Newsreaders

Okay, this one was hard for me. I don't even watch the news on TV, so I had a VERY hard time trying to figure out what to choose for my blogline account. I ended up with a couple of local newspapers, and Flickr, which I have come to love. Thanks for the intro! Then, in just browsing around and trying to find something library-related, I found this very funny library video and more on youtube. Here's the url:http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=library+videos&search= . I hope you can get into it and have some fun seeing the creativity of other library staffers.