Week 7 Thing 16

Wikis I read many of the articles that explain wikis and their use. Libraries have used wikis for many things, including helping to locate resource information (lists,links to interesting resources), conference information, reader's advisory (lists of genres of books, with reviews posted by users), and intranet. Wikis are interesting, but the "worst" thing about them is the lack of security and openness to possible vandalism.

Week 6 Thing 15

Library 2.0 Okay, now my head is reeling and I'm dizzy! Since I've been a librarian, my job has gone from using lots of reference books, to rarely picking one up. I finally got the hang of "googling" and now there's all of these new more "interactive" tools to learn! I read the Wendy Schultz article about how the real techies aren't thinking Library 2.0, but instead Library 3D and Library 4.0, a "Knowledge spa". Sounds good, but I see a future of non-stop education for the library world!

Week 6 Thing 14

Technorati This is a blog directory. I did a search of Learning 2.0 and saw some entries -- some seemed to be from the 23 Things assignments, others just had the terms "learning" or "2.0" in the text. I looked at the top favorites, top searches, top blogs. Many seem to be linked -- stuff in the news (politics, celebrities), some were techie blogs about the latest. I searched for my own blog and found a couple of entries. I signed up for an account and you can add your favorite blogs to it. At this time, I can't really think of a reason I'd really use this feature.

Week 6 Thing 13

Del.icio.us I explored the delicious way to store favorites with tags that I can create. It's an interesting tool -- useful because you can bookmark some favorite sites, put some notes or remarks about the site, and it's accessible on any computer. Others can look at your tags as well, and you can look at theirs. It would be helpful to use delicious when researching any topic. So many times when you research something, the amount of hits you get is overwhelming. Many times the same article or information is repeated. If this is a topic you'll continually go back to, Delicious can help you eliminate all the duplication. You'll find the things that are helpful, assisted by your trusty notes and tags. I set up an account to have an easy access list to the videos my teenage son has on the Internet. I think it will be helpful when searching for a vacation spot in the future.

Week 5 Thing 12

I set up a Rollyo searchroll. I can see where this would be helpful in my job -- putting in favorite websites that I consistently use to answer reference questions. I would also be able to use this in my personal life -- often my husband and I search for places to stay on vacation. We have a few favorite websites that we use for our trips to Hilton Head Island and Florida. I'd be able to keep track of all of them with Rollyo. My site is at http://www.rollyo.com/stackdancer/.

Week 5 Number 11

Library Thing is a really cool tool! Since I am always forgetting titles of things I read, it's fun to have a list (including the picture of the cover) to refer to. It took me a while to figure out how to get it on my blog, but finally added it.

Week 5 Thing 10

Play Week I had lots of fun making my avatar on Meez.com. I had a little trouble posting it (I kept getting two images instead of just one), but I deleted some of the text and somehow edited it down to only one image. Can't wait to show my daughter this feature!

Week 4 Thing 9

I signed up for a Merlin account and explored some of their linked sites. Feedster was fascinating because you could plug a name or topic in and find lots of pictures, etc. I found blogs and articles posted just minutes ago by folks in Taneytown on the Topix link. Located my blog in Technorati.

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I signed up for a Bloglines account. It's cool that you can "tailor-make" your own site. I have everything from news to weather to jokes on my site.

I was playing with some of the Flickr features. I really enjoyed the Flickr Postcard Browser -- you could view postcards and photos from whatever location you typed in (ex. "Maryland", or "Cypress Gardens", etc.). Really cool. I took a look at the API site that you can register for so you can make your own mashups. Wow, does that seem complicated! My head is spinning -- hard to get used to the technical jargon when you're not used to it.

Hey I'm a covergirl!

My creation
Originally uploaded by stackdancer

Playing with this flickr toy was fun. I created my own magazine cover. It was tricky finding a photo that was a workable size, etc. and then you had to find a layout that would work with the photo.

reading road trip 060

reading road trip 060
Originally uploaded by stackdancer

I took this photo at our branch. This year's Summer Reading Club theme is "Take a Reading Road Trip". This box and literature advertises the Adult program. The pretty flowers are from our local garden club!

Posting pictures to my blog seems so complicated. I'm trying. Just finding the time to do this entire exercise is difficult as a part-timer with other duties, but am determined to work it in!

Flickr fun!

I set up a Flickr account and uploaded some pictures. Out of all of our assignments so far, this is my favorite! I can see how I'd use this to store and classify my photos. Maybe I'll have better luck with this than my non-existent half-hearted attempt to put photos in albums!