Thing 23

What a terrific opportunity this program was. Now that I'm at the
end of the "official" part, I see that there are many things that I want
to return to for a more in depth look. As I mentioned on my very first
post, the challenge will be finding the time. I will try and integrate
as much of these technologies, as I can, into the work flow. I now
have a much better grasp of how other libraries are using these technologies
because I have used them, even superficially. This will enable me to follow
the blogs and articles and try and see if any of this makes sense in our library.

I was surprised at the sheer number of people who have blogs. I will always
be looking for ways to filter out the stuff I don't want and find those diamonds in the dust.

My favorite discovery was bloglines. This has already reduced the amount of time I spend bouncing between websites to catch up on things.
Now I can find it in one place.

I would definately participate in a program like this again. The perhaps, unintended consequences of teamwork and learning about staff were appreciated. I can't believe how much I've learned in such a short time. The time involved was perhaps
underestimated. This should be considered if and when we offer another great opportunity like this.

A big thank you to Jim DeArmey and Ellen Ward!!! You guys rock!
Thanks for checking the blogs and for the encouragement.

Del.icio.us

I'm enjoying delicious (forget the periods - the name is silly enough)as an easy way to save links to things I"m interested in.
Why not give customers the ability to add their own tags to items in our catalog?
Not everyone thinks like Melville Dewey did.
I need to spend more time with this to get the feel of it. I set up an account and have the bookmarklet on my toolbar.

Thing 21 - podcasts

I have i-tunes on my home computer and regularly get updates to podcasts.
I've been looking about the free podcasts sites. Podcast.net is a bit overwhelming. I
am having trouble evaluating the podcast based on the description. There doesn't seem
to be alot that is compelling to me on this site. I've been unsucessful in getting the feed
onto my blog. I'll continue to work with this and also check out the other sites.

Thing 22

The Big Sleep
Originally uploaded by exLondoner

I've used the BCPL account for Overdrive and have borrowed two videos. After having some issues with the security on my machine, I was able to download Pulp Cinema with Humphrey Bogart. I started watching the Big Sleep. It's opening scene takes place at a Public Library with a Librarian type person providing reader's advisory to Humphrey Bogart. Bogart and Bacall, "that man and that woman" together again, as the trailer reads.

I also looked at Project Gutenberg and was able to start reading Jane Austen's biography on my screen. I suppose there must be folks out there who like to read huge chunks of text on the screen of their computers, but I am not one of them. However, it is wonderful to have access to all this material.

I won't mess with the audio books right now because I can't load them on my I-pod, although I could burn to CD those that allow this and then upload them to the I-pod. Too much trouble right now. I'll have to investigate the titles more closely. I only have a tape player in my car and this may be an alternative source of audio books for me as less and less tapes are published.

Of course I could spring for a CD player in my car, but hey, that would make it too easy.

The Simpsons Star Wars

I found this on Google video.

You tube

I placed the video into my blog by putting my blog address onto the YOutube site. I will
try and place it using the "embeddable player" as well.
I can see using Youtube for training. This would help to get us off the beltway.




IT WORKED!

Week 9 thing 20

I've posted this video to my blog from YouTube. THese are clear wing moths. They are dead ringers for hummingbirds except for the antennas. They have very deep green and red colors, which this video is not doing justice to. They have started showing up in my garden.
One note. WHen I go into my blog and edit this text, the video seems to disappear.

Week 8 thing 19 exploring Web 2.0 awards list

I've been mucking aroung the sites on the awards list. I like color blender and I can possibly see some application for this in my own creative endeavors. I wonder if graphic designers find this tool helpful. I've also been looking at the widgets sites. National Geographic has a pretty cool widget. I found this through the Spring Widgets site. Most of the widgets were about things that didn't interest me and seem to suck minutes out of my life that could be better used doing just about anything else. For example, do I really need to know how
many seconds until the release of a new movie?? Okay, maybe some political wonk wants to know the exact number of days, hours, minutes and seconds until the presidential election, but even that seems like a stretch.