#23: Final Thoughts

Well, I took the survey and emailed my regional representative that I've completed all 23 Things. Wow - what a great feeling! I think the word I would use to describe this experience is "empowered". I already had a pretty good understanding of a lot of the Things, but others were more difficult. It felt good to be challenged a little bit, knowing I could work my way through it. It was also reaffirming that I did know quite a bit already and had the ability to learn even more. I would definitely do another 23 Things - bring it on!!!

Ever since I attended one of Michael Stephens's Library 2.0 Workshops, I've been intrigued with all this, so 23 Things was a great opportunity to get closer to it all. I don't know that my thoughts have changed very much, but I do understand a lot more about the nuts and bolts of 2.0.

This was a LOT to do, in a short period of time. I think most of us had to spend quite a bit of personal time in order to do all the Things. Sometimes in life that isn't possible and I know for some people it just wasn't an option this time around. Also, now that some people have completed the 23 Things I wonder if it could be offered again, so the more hesitant to jump in might do so, knowing there are people in their own systems who could help them work through the difficult parts.

One suggestion for a slightly different format:
I'd like to see a format of 5 Things over 6 weeeks or so, then a break of a couple weeks, to allow time to assimilate what we learned into our workflow. And then some more Things to dig into. Honestly, I learned a lot, but some of it's kind of a jumble at this point. I wish I had had more time to practice and use each of the Things, before having to move on to the next one.

THANKS!
There was obviously a lot of time and effort spent at putting this program together for us. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on that, so we all could benefit from it!

#22: Staying Current

How will I keep up? Some days I have to admit I feel a little like this:


(Too much ground to cover and not enough time and energy. And almost as dense as Homer some days...)

But really, I already subscribe to several library-related podcasts, listservs, and emails and a lot of Library 2.0 stuff comes up in those. I also signed up for some weekly WebJunction newsletters today: Crossroads and Tip of the Week. These will be delivered to my email, which works well for me. I think it's easier to stay current if the content is delivered to me automatically, instead of having to remember to seek it out. But I do have some favorite blogs (Tame the Web and Feel Good Librarian) that I can follow through my netvibes page.

I really enjoyed the 23 Things, so I don't think it will be too much of a hardship to continue to keep up with things.

#21: Other Social Networks

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick Ning and I think I added 3 friends and left comments for them. And I got comments! I uploaded a picture and customized my page just a little bit. I posted a comment to a forum, and joined another forum - all easy to do, and much more interesting to me than Facebook or Myspace.

Visit my 23 Things on a Stick Ning

WebJunction is a great resource. I've visited there before, for training resources and articles. But it's got such a wealth of information, it's good to have it back on my radar. One of the articles I read on WebJunction called online communities "Electronic Tribes". I hadn't heard that term before, but I like it. To me, it implies common interests or affiliations, with a free-ranging feel - like the possiblities are endless (and maybe even adventurous). Gather looks interesting, too. I'll be spending more time with that, I think.

I found a scrapbooking social network that looks interesting. In addition to social networking, it provides tips, scrapbooking resources, instructions, links to scrapbooking blogs, and a gallery with lots of nice layouts and ideas for scrapbooking. And they have a superstore, too, where it's fun to look at new products, read reviews about them, and sometimes see videos about using them.

NOW I get the social networking deal. I take back everything I said before, about social networks being mostly for kids. I can definitely see that 'belonging' to a group electronically has a big appeal.

#20: Facebook & MySpace

I created Facebook and Myspace accounts.

In facebook, it was easy to join groups. I joined several: ALA, Libraries Using Facebook, Librarians and Facebook, and 23 Things on a Stick Group. It looked like there were only 2 members in the 23 Things Group though - me and the administrator, so I'm not sure what was going on there.

I 'friended' some people and wrote on their walls and I became a fan of Hennepin County Library. I got a couple of friend requests, but I think one was somebody trying to sell poetry books and the other also looked 'spam-ish'. I didn't accept, since I'm not sure how much junk it might generate to my work email account. I'm not clear on the distinction between 'friend' and 'fan'. I think it might be that a friend means 'I like you and I want you to like me back', where a fan means 'I like you and I don't expect anything in return', but I'm not sure. I'll have to look at that closer.

I added the Hennepin County Library catalog search widget to my page, which looks very cool. It would be even better to be able to add one from my own library system. I also added a Flickr widget and posted the pictures I had taken for the Hot Reads program.

I made a Myspace page too, but I didn't like the feel of that very much. Besides the obnoxious ads, I'm not really sure why. Facebook felt more grown-up and maybe more professional. I thought the 'Grade Your Professor' option was thought provoking. What if we all started grading all the services we receive? Grade your librarian? Grade your pediatrician? Your church, your grocery store, your dining experience? But I guess we do already grade a lot of services: travel on expedia, products on amazon, restaurants on other sites. And then, there's the whole question of whose grading or review I'm reading - paid people, disgruntled people, people providing an honest review...

I can see that social networks are important to kids (my own kids and library patrons), and maybe they'll continue to be important to that generation as they age. But I think for most people of my generation, the desire to seek out new friends based on common connections isn't very strong. Between work, family, existing friends, and other commitments, there just isn't much of a need or enough time to spend on this. If I had some extra time, I'd really prefer to spend it with friends that I don't get to see very often, or extended family. But it was good to get a better understanding of why this is so important to some of our patrons.

#19: Podcasts

Well, I got an ipod touch for my birthday and I carry it with me all the time now. I've never been a 'gadget' person, and wasn't really interested in ipods before. But the touch changed all that for me. It's so intuitive. And I just love the way it looks, feels, and works - a touchscreen with no dials! Besides all my music, I have access to the internet, maps, mail, pictures, stock listings, weather, etc - all right in my pocket. Confession: I now buy pants based on whether there's a good pocket for my ipod. (This sounds an awful lot like advertising to me even as I write this, but I swear I really don't own any Appple stock or anything like that).

For directories, I love NPR's directory of podcasts - searchable by topic, title, or provider - very easy to use! I use itunes to subscribe to podcasts and for music, but it doesn't run well on my computer and it can be difficult to determine what's really happening. I suspect that's because I'm using it on an older PC, rather than a MAC. I think MAC users probably have a very different experience.

I really enjoy "This American Life" and "This I Believe", but never had the time to listen when they were on the air. Now I just sync them onto my ipod and carry them with me, so I can listen whenever I get the chance. The library-related podcasts I get are "Book Lust with Nancy Pearl", and "Sirsi/Dynix", both of which I found in normal internet searching and added to my podcast sync list. I also like the Comedy Central videocast, because there are some days when you just really need to laugh.

This American Life - NPR
This I Believe - NPR
Book Lust with Nancy Pearl - Seattle Channel
SirsiDynix Institute
Comedy Central Videocast

The University of California Berkeley offers some of their classes via podcast, which is pretty cool, since it's not necessary to be enrolled in the class to get the lectures. Anybody can listen in on a Shakespeare class, or a psychology class, or macroeconomics or introductory physics. Wow! Talk about democracy and educating the masses!

I used to subscribe to a lot more podcasts, but found that I wasn't listening to everything. I guess it's like anything else - gotta set priorities and choose what's most important at any given time.

#18: YouTube

I have a friend who sends me all kinds of videos every day, so I had already seen the one about the 'new technology' called books, and the March of the Librarians, and the blonde library joke (That one's on my sidebar). But the library dominos were new to me, and very cool. I loved the parody of Mac/PC commercials in the IT vs. Librarian clip.

This is my current favorite right now:


We should probably keep an eye on this future patron with our magazine collection...
Seriously, though, how can you NOT laugh, right along with him? What a day-brightener!

This is an interesting aside: One of our library computers didn't have the required software to play some of the YouTube videos mentioned, so I pulled them up on my ipod touch. It was kind of weird to be blogging on a PC, about something I was watching on my ipod.

I thought the library tour video was very well done and looked very polished, considering it was just still photos with captions, transitions, and a musical background. It looked like it would be very doable. I like the idea of having a very short library tour available on our public PCs. Or maybe a short catalog instruction video. Or a video directing patrons to our online resources, with a short intro about what each has to offer. There are lots of instructional kinds of uses that could be just a click away on our public PCs. But since bandwidth is such an issue in our building already, I don't see that being a viable option any time soon. Maybe someday!

I find it very easy to spend a lot of time with YouTube. I tend to gravitate towards funny animal videos. It's a nice escape, but could potentially be a time-waster for me at home! No danger of that at work, since the videos are so painfully slow in loading and playing, plus we can't really use sound in the public areas. I see a lot of kids on our public PCs with headphones, patiently waiting for a YouTube video to load. I guess they have more time to kill than we do...

#17: ELM Productivity Tools

Create a Search Alert: It seems I'm having the same problems that others are having. The video won't run on my computer, and while I can execute the search, get results, get to 'Create A Search Alert', and am able to copy the URL, it won't work in my aggregator (Netvibes). When I go to 'Add a Feed' and try to paste the url, I get the same message that others did: "Sorry, no feeds found at this url". I tried other searches, with the same result. I was able to set up an email alert, though, which might be the easier way to be informed of new articles on a subject, anyway. Wow! Back in the day, when I worked for a biomedical company and their R&D engineers needed to stay current on a specific process, I had to rerun saved searches through DIALOG on a frequent basis, paying each time. Things sure have come a LONG way!

Page Composer: I created an account in Academic Search Premier and then created a web page about Science Fair Projects, including a search box and links to web sites. I saved the page and emailed it to myself. This seemed like an easy and straightforward process, that could be used to create 'helper' search guides.

Proquest: I found 4 interesting full-text articles about social networking that appeared in the Washington Post during 2007. I marked those article and emailed them. Then I went back and removed the search strategies and updated the listing - that was a nice option to be able to do. I saved those results. This was a very simple and straightforward process, that I had never tried before. What a great resource for anyone doing research!

NetLibrary: I created an account and searched for occurences of branding within "101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site". It was easy to make notes and see them again. I liked that all the citation information was automatically provided. This would be great for bibliographies and footnotes. I couldn't help but think it would be a nice feature, to be able to highlight or underline also. I've used NetLibrary before, but the notes option was new to me. I look forward to the day that our system provides eAudioBooks through NetLibrary, or Overdrive, or whatever.

I think we have access to these same ELM products, through our MNLink interface - Basic Search, then choose the database from the 'Current Profile' dropdown menu. But I could be wrong...

It's amazing how much is available to our patrons through ELM! I wish there were an easy way to educate patrons about this. Along with AllData, Reference USA, and Ancestry Library Edition, these databases have such a wealth of information. But it seems like most of our patrons are still unaware of them. I think we (libraries in general) need to do a better job of marketing all of our online resources.

#16: Assignment Calculator & Research Project Calculator

Wow! These are great tools, especially for middle school and high school, when students are learning how to 'do research'. Having worked in an elementary and a middle school, I can see where the handouts especially, would be very useful. In particular, I really liked the 'What is Research?' and the 'Taking Notes' handouts in the Resources section. But, most districts don't provide instruction by a media specialist after the elementary grades, so in reality, the research instruction falls to classroom teachers, for the most part.

In the public library, we don't really get the chance to help traditional students with most of the steps in the research process. Unfortunately, we see a lot of students the night before a paper is due, desperate to get any information on their topic. The concepts of planning, note taking, and evaluating sources aren't usually considered in their panic to get a book on their topic. We do have a lot of community college students using our library, though. Often, these are adult learners back in school after a long period of not doing any research or writing papers. We tend to see them earlier in their research process, so I think they might really find this helpful.

I haven't been able to transfer the use of this assignment calculator to any projects I'm responsible for, in the library setting. Most of my projects are task-oriented, rather than research-oriented, so a simple calendar/timeline is usually enough for my needs.

I do think these assignment calculators would be great to add to our teen page, though.

#15: Libraries and Gaming

Well, I tried Puzzle Pirates. I mean I really tried. I created an account and a pirate. Then I spent some time playing a game that was an awful lot like bedazzled, except simpler and with a water theme. I think I earned some kind of currency doing that, and then I went on the boat and traveled somewhere, landing on a dock. From there, I couldn't seem to do anything else. Anytime I tried to talk to someone, I got the message "Shiver me timbers. We can't expand that circle to make room for ye." I think somebody may have been talking to me at one point, but I wasn't sure and I had to answer the real phone, so by the time I got back, they were gone. I tried going to the the inn, but it was so crowded, I lost myself in a sea of people and couldn't find myself to get back out. As far as I could tell, everybody was talking, but nobody was listening. I give up! I think I'll see what Second Life is about....

Bummer. I downloaded the client, but am unable to install it on a work computer, since I'm not an administrator. I'll have to try from home. I got a little farther at home and was able to install the software, but it wouldn't run properly. I think my graphics card might not meet the system requirements. Too bad, because the little bit I saw looked like there was a flying option, which sounded pretty cool. Also, each time I logged in, somebody tried to talk to me, so it seemed a lot more welcoming and interactive, right away.

OK, I tried a third computer and finally was able to get into Second Life. I went through walking, driving, flying (fun!), communicating, and tried searching to get to Info Island. I found a teleport button, but it didn't seem to work. Maybe I need to be more functional before I can do that?

Anyway, I spent a LOT of time and mostly this reminded me of the SIMS game my kids played awhile ago. Honestly, I didn't get much out of this, but I suspect I didn't even begin to scratch the surface, as far as what's available here. It was fun, but there's just not enough time to go in-depth on all the Things, I guess.

I think anybody who's raised a son is probably pretty familiar with gaming. Around the time my son was 6, he was showing me how to play games, with my strategy being to run as fast as I could, until my turn was over (think Sonic the Hedgehog). His interests and skills grew so fast that I couldn't keep up with it all, plus I just didn't have the reaction time or dexterity (or free time) that gaming seemed to require.

But, it seems like lately, with Guitar Hero, DDR, and the Wii system, there are more games available that anybody can play. They don't all seem to require a great level of expertise anymore, in order to have some fun. Last summer, when extended family got together at the lake, we ended up having a Guitar Hero tournament. Turns out all the cousins had brought their guitars and games along, so there were three generations competing on fake guitars. Talk about entertaining! And I have to confess my husband and I were a little disappointed when our son took his Wii off to college - no more doubles tennis with the neighbors for us!


[Here's an interesting article that appeared in the New York Times on March 22nd: "Taking Play Seriously at the Public Library with Young Video Gamers"]

#14: LibraryThing

Minnesota Mystery Authors

What fun! I added a bunch of books to my LibraryThing - all mysteries, since that's the area I maintain at my library, and I like to read them, too. I wasn't surprised that my selections were pretty popular, since they're books that are popular in our public library. The suggestions were fun to check out, and if I didn't work in a library, I'm sure I would have found some new authors. The UnSuggester was kind of fun, but I couldn't think of a practical use for it.

I spent some time with tagging and chose to add a "Minnesota Mystery Authors" tag to one book from each author. With that tag, I could choose to display just those books, which is what appears above. I can see using this on our website to highlight new acquisitions, or as a nice visual for a sign in the stacks. We provide suggested reading lists on our website, and maybe using LibraryThing could add some zip to the way those books display.

I have a lot of brothers and sisters who don't live here in town, and we all read the same kinds of books. LibraryThing would be a nice way to share book information with them. I can see book clubs finding this really useful, too - within their own club and in a broader sense, too.

One thing I've noticed with this Library 2.0 stuff is, if the application website isn't functioning, things don't display well on your own website either. For example, I lost a couple of things from PictureTrail on my blog, when PictureTrail wasn't working well. They reappeared the next day, without me changing anything, so I think it was something on the PictureTrail site. The same thing happened today, when Library Thing was really busy for awhile and the books on my blog weren't displaying. That really pointed out to me how much everything in Library 2.0 is so inter-dependent. It's great when things are working, but there's a potential for wide-ranging problems, when they're not.

#13: Online Productivity Tools

I chose igoogle for my start page, and I absolutely love it! It was so easy to set up and add gadgets - so intuitive, it was painless. It's definitely my new start page. A little weather, a calendar, time & date, bookmarks to my email, driving directions, a little news, a little humor, a to-do list, and my own little aquarium world. Plus, the daylight theme coloring changes as the day progresses. For some reason that was very cool to me (I guess I spend too much time indoors). Many of the tools I need during the day, all from my start page. Gotta love it!

I tried "Remember the Milk" (yet another account) and it looks pretty powerful, with lots of ways to manage tasks. One thing I liked was being able to group tasks by location, to make things more effecient. Maybe I just don't have enough to juggle, but in reality, the simple notepad gadget on my igoogle page makes more sense for me. It takes a lot less time, doesn't require an extra login, and meets my basic needs. But I can see where the sharing aspect of "Remember the Milk" would be a major advantage, if that was needed.

Things I'd like to spend more time with later:
I thought I'd come across something like this during the 23 Things and I found it today on the "Top 25 Web 2.0 Apps list". It's a password manager called KeePass. I'd really like to be able to keep track of all the accounts and passwords I've created, and while this looks a little complicated, it just might be the answer.

I watched the scrybe intro video and that also looked very intriguing for calendaring. It had what looked like a great option for working offline, with automatic synching when going back online. It seemed easy to use and kept things in context, so you could really tell what was going on. Too bad they're not taking any more users at this point.

Bottom line:
I love igoogle. It's already set as my home page.
I don't have a need for real detailed calendaring at this point, so I probably won't use any of those.
My list-keeping needs are basic, so I don't require many bells and whistles. The basic igoogle to-do list is good enough for now.

But, now I'll know where to go, when I do need higher-level tools, and that's always a good thing.