twitter, continued

So I just had to add that the White House (183 followers) and 10 Downing Street (889 followers) both twitter. They are not very interesting, so I'm pretty sure they are the real deal. I thought it was very interesting that 10 Downing Street actually responds to questions. Cool.

That's a wrap!

I have finished the 22 FVRL Discover 2.0 assignments, and this the the 23rd and final. The wrap-up. I heard about this program right after I started work at FVRL and I was very excited. I think it is awesome to work for an organization that values continuing education for all staff. I work behind the scenes, so won't have the immediate gratification of interacting with patrons and explaining/discussing these web 2.0 services, but I will definitely use them in my work. The tool that has been the most useful to me in my work has been Bloglines. I had used it in the past and quit using it, but I have really enjoyed using it again the past few months. There are so many online review blogs and I try to read many of them. It's so much easier with Bloglines to see if there are new posts or not. Also, I have increasingly more friends with personal blogs which they sporadically post on. Now I don't have to check them on a regular basis, I only visit the blogs when I know they've made a new post.

It was nice to look with fresh eyes at some of the technology I use in my personal life, and see how it might apply to libraries. Instant messaging, Flickr, and Youtube are services that I am very familiar with, but their uses in and for libraries are different than my own personal use of them. I visited some sites I probably wouldn't have otherwise, Jacketflap, Twitter, and Tumblr among them.

I think this was a great experience and really appreciate that not only were we encouraged to do this on work time, we are being rewarded for completing the program. So cool! My only suggestions for the program would be to break some of the assignments up. Since I'm not on a public desk, I was able to determine when and for how long I would work on the assignments. Some of them that had several articles and several examples to check out could really eat up time. I like to do things thoroughly, so I would visit each site listed and play with it. The time went by quickly. I think it might be difficult for some branch folks to have enough time to do the reading, visit the sites, AND create a blog post. But maybe I'm wrong. I think the blog format was very clever and enabled participants to actually use a 2.0 technology to discuss what they're learning.

Some things I thought we'd cover but we didn't: Ning, a program the library could use to create their own social network. YAABs and branches could have their own Nings. There are already several libraries on Ning as well as ALA, YALSA, and my library school. But what I really REALLY want to learn about is Second Life, World of War Craft and other online, multi-player games. I'm unlikely to use these on my off time, but I would appreciate some hands-on knowledge of them. So maybe Discover 2.0 could continue and we could get monthly suggestions for new technology to try out? Because, of course, technology is constantly changing and what we learned this year may be obsolete by next year!

Alt Blogging

I checked out Twitter and Tumblr. For personal use, I don't anticipate using either of these. Twitter reminds me of Facebook's option to say what you're doing. I like it ok on Facebook, it's fun to see what clever thing my friends say they're doing, but I don't need a whole website devoted to it and I don't need it on my cell phone. I can see that younger people and people with more active social lives than mine would like it. I saw a few libraries on Twitter and I can see the advantage of the library having an account IF our patrons are using Twitter. I don't know if it would be any better than sending out email with announcements about upcoming library events. Tumblr was much like Twitter and blogs. I don't really know what makes it that different than posting short blog posts of links. Interesting, but probably not something I'll revisit.

Podcasts

Unfortunately, I can't download itunes on to my work computer, my favorite method of collecting and organizing my podcasts. I tried all three of the podcast directories and still had the best luck with doing a google search on my topic and adding the word podcast. Podcast.net never loaded on my computer, I kept getting the File not Found page. Podcastalley required downloading a podcast aggregator, which I assume I also cannot do on my work computer. So I was left with the Yahoo audio search. When I typed in "children's book review" I got 3 results, 2 of which were PRINT not audio. The one audio result was for a podcast I am already familiar with, Just One More Book, which reviews kid's books. Another library-related podcast I listen to is A Fuse #8 Production, by New York Public Librarian Betsy Bird. She review books, does booktalks and shares industry news. When I did my google search for podcasts, I found the Seattle Public Library's podcast for teens. It was fun to listen to and a great example of what public libraries are using the technology for. It featured a book review by an actual teen, an informal discussion with a group of teens, and the chance to win a prize at the end. It was short and sweet.

When I left Multnomah County Library they were experimenting with podcasting. They had recorded booktalks for all of the current YRCA titles, but I don't see them posted on the library's site yet. They also recorded School Corps' Gotta Read This booktalking program for educators which I was a part of, but I don't think they ended up getting good quality sound. One thing I noticed about the podcasts I listened to was that they mostly sounded like they were recorded in a cave. Compared to the NPR podcasts that I regularly listen to the quality of home-grown podcasts leaves something to be desired.

I think a podcast of FVRL's newsletter would be nice, maybe some book reviews and booktalks. In general, I feel like we've passed audio podcasts and it's time to get creative with the video podcasts. I think Sam's One Minute Critic booktalk site is a great example of what library's can do with video podcasting. I especially like that he is getting other staff involved AND anyone can make a video and he'll link to it. Very cool.

Like with any new technology at the library, before we put alot of time and money into it, we should determine if there is any desire for it. Will people subscribe/listen/view what we are producing? Will we need to educate patrons on how to use the new media? Stuff to think about...

Audio continued

Ok, there were a few more sites I needed to look at for the first audio portion, but I felt the post was getting too long and texty, so I started a new one. I've been to the Internet Archive site many times, but always only to use the "way back machine." I love to see how websites looked 8-10 years ago and I LOVE to show it to students and remind them that NOTHING is ever really gone from the Internet, so don't put those skanky photos of you and your friends on your myspace page! I see I have a lot more playing around to do with this site. I watched one old Pall Mall (they pronounced it Pell Mell) cigarette ad. I'm definitely going to check this out from home and see what classic movies they have. And of course, who doesn't LOVE watching home movies of someone's vacation? Hours of entertainment! I'm not even going to get started, because I know it would suck up the rest of my day. And it looks like there is a good selection of audio, too. Fun!
I think I've used the Sound Effects Archive before, back in my movie-making phase. Gutenberg is hit or miss (if I'm remembering correctly) as far as audio quality goes. Some of the recordings I've heard are real duds. Mango Languages is new to me and seems pretty cool. I like that you can get 50 lessons for free. I'd definitely do the free 50 lessons before traveling to a non-english speaking country. I think it would give me a few phrases to have on hand, though certainly wouldn't make me fluent!

Audio

Alright, I'm checking out the audio sites. First up: last fm, the social music revolution. Right away one thing I don't like about the site is that you can't listen to a song while navigating around the site. That's weird for a music site. I do like the social aspect...connecting with other users, finding similar music,etc. I could see myself using it to find music similar to stuff I already like and previewing it. I didn't like that it wanted me to sign up to listen to some music. I just don't need another user name and password, so I'm going to skip that! Next up: Pandora. I've been using Pandora for a year or more and I really like it. I think Pandora does a good job of selecting similar music. Sometimes I just like to have it on in the background while I work (though not very often AT work due to the bandwidth issues.) I like it's simple interface as opposed to last fm's very cluttered and busy site. And finally, Imeem. I hadn't heard of this site. It looks like it might be better for music videos, I'm having a hard time just find audio. Again, it seems like I need to create a profile before I can access full length songs, and I'm not going to do that. My absolute favorite music audio site (at the moment,) is Songza. I don't need an account, I type in the exact song I want to hear and it plays it! It's that simple. It really is like having a free jukebox. Yeah, not all the songs play, but the majority of them do and I've found lot's of covers and re-mixes that I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise. Oh, and I love that I can email a song to a friend or post a song to my blog, like I did here.

Are CDs dead? Not yet. My preferred method of music acquisition remains checking out CDs from Multnomah County Library and saving them to my computer. However, when I just want to OWN that one song, I do go to Itunes and buy it for .99. Instant gratification. Vinyl isn't dead yet, so I don't think we need to worry too much about CDs just yet. But what about the library? Should a library, like FVRL, who doesn't currently have a CD collection consider starting one? That's a tough one. I have a new car that has a port for my ipod, but the majority of people don't have new cars. Do they have ipods and ipod speakers? Are there companies out there providing downloadable music for libraries like the ebooks, video and audio book providers? I'm not sure, but if they haven't started, I would think they will soon. It's the never-ending dilemma between keeping up with current technology while attempting to provide access to everyone.

Video

I skipped ahead and did the video assignment this morning. Because of our bandwidth issues I needed to do it first thing this morning, even though it felt wrong to be watching TV at my desk at 9 am. (Somehow more wrong than watching TV at my desk at 3 pm. Go figure.) I checked all of the suggested sites (because it's so important to me to do the assignments correctly!) and saved youtube for last. I'm already quite familiar with youtube but had never seen any of the rest. I tried searching sewing and vegetarian cooking on each of the sights. Some had no results, some few, and some quite a few. Youtube won hands-down on every search. I did find Threadheads on Meta Cafe and it was my favorite sewing video. I thought that the two science video sites, ScienceHack and Jove, were excellent. I can see how these would be really useful for teaching and you don't have to wade through all the softcore to get to the videos. The other video related sites were all interesting and I'd never heard of any of them. I have reservations about the suggestion to use Dabble to collect how-to videos into a library account to share with the public due to the amount of potentially offensive videos in their most popular videos section. I like the idea of libraries collecting online videos to share with patrons, but I don't think a commercial sight is the way to go.

Here are a couple of public library ads I found on youtube. They're clever and well-done. I like the idea of YAAB groups making commercials for the library and maybe competing in a contest for the best video. I think that would be a great way to get teens excited about the library AND to make sure they know all the great resources the library has to offer.

Here's Cambridge Public Library's Locker Ad:



Here's one from Fulton County Public Library:




And don't forget my Topeka Barbie bookgroup post!

Ok, I guess now I should do some real work!

Google Docs

I was unable to load the "quick tour" and the video didn't work for me either, but I have used Google Docs in the past, so am somewhat familiar with it. I didn't know I could publish to my blog from here, so we'll see how well that works out. I really love GD. I collaborated with a group of colleagues from different library systems last year on an article and we used GD. It was great because we could all access the document and edit it from wherever we were. However at least one librarian had a difficult time using it and ended up sending her edits through email. I am a Mac user at home and so it is very frustrating when I receive attachments in Word (like my FVRL paystub,) and am unable to open them. GD allows me to view these documents without purchasing the pricey MS Office suite for Macs. (Though it is rather time-consuming and it would really be easier if our paystubs at least were PDFs.) The spreadsheet and presentation software also seems very useful. I wonder how much money a library could save by getting rid of MS and just using Google? The downside, of course, is permanence, privacy and it continuing to be free. There might be limits on how much information you can store and for how long. Overall, I think it can be very useful but will unlikely make MS Office obsolete.

Now I'll try and post this to my blog.



Ok, I just did it and it was INCREDIBLY EASY! Maybe even easier than using Blogger to post. The only think I'd have to do is go back and edit my tags in, and I'd be very unlikely to take the time to do that. I mean, what's the point? It's so easy to add tags as I type in blogger.

"Cool Stuff"

So I wasted some time playing Wordshoot,which was awesome. But then I started to feel guilty that I was sitting at my desk playing a video game, so I quit and headed to Yahoo Answers which seemed vaguely more work-related. I wasn't too surprised by the dumbness of the questions asked:
Club penguin?
i kno theres a cheat so that you can buy stuff but not spend your money. i kno i sound cheap but my friend needs to buy alot of stuff and i want to help her so please help me! ♥
But I was blown away by the quantity. Obviously people (esp young people) have got some questions! In 10 pages of questions, the oldest question was asked 5 minutes ago! The majority were unanswered and will probably remain that way. Who's going to scroll through pages and pages of questions in order to answer one? I did feel for this guy and considered replying, but I didn't want to go through the log-in process:

I need help with the college process?
alright, i have a couple questions:
1. How do you know whether or not you can get a full ride somewhere? Is it after you apply to the college, or do they tell you before so that you'll want to apply there? Do you have to ask them if you qualify for merit based scholarships?
2. Around what time should I ask my teachers to write letter sof recommnedation? And do you have to ask your principle and guidance counselor for one, or do they all do that themselves?
3. What are some good national clubs and organizations to join that look good on college applications?

I'm glad librarians "slam the boards" once a month and answer questions. I'll try and remember to check it out next month.

So what are we doing wrong that ref questions are falling while online questions are skyrocketing? How could we improve our marketing to reach those questioning citizens?

So I'm at the FVRL website and the "Ask a Librarian" button is in a really good location on the homepage. But then I click on it and I get this long list of fill in the blank questions, including my name, my contact info, my library...etc. We've already lost the majority (?) of young patrons looking for answers. And where's the librarian avatar (thank you, Manya!)? I'd love to see a place on the website where questions could be posted anonymously and answered by a FVRL librarian.

When a problem comes along...

YOU MUST WIKI! Ok, I have so far managed to avoid the cutesy post title, but I've just gotta sing about wikis! I really like the idea of wikis, I like the way they're organized, I like that lot's of people or only a few people can edit them, I like how most (all?) of the wikis I've seen are very visually plain with the emphasis on the information, not the graphics. And I love, love LOVE Wikipedia. I can't tell you how many times I've stood in front of classrooms of students, (elementary-college age,) and warned them of the perils of using Wikipedia for homework, just to turn around and use the heck out of it at home. I've even used it on the ref desk! (Wikipedia is great for current and past pop culture.)

In the library, I think wikis are great for booklists, for technical manuals, even for committees to post their minutes, agendas and collaborative projects. I've edited wikis and find them very easy to use (much like this blogger software.) At MCL I helped with a multicultural booklist wiki and found that even some colleagues who were wary of editing the wiki quickly became comfortable using it. I created my own wiki, zines for teens, on which I was going to review zines that would be of interest to teens (it's HARD to establish collections with little to no reviews out there,) and setting up the wiki was very easy. Maintaining it, (reading zines and writing reviews,) proved too time-consuming.

The main thing to watch for with wikis is sources. I looked at Wiki Books Wikijunior and the Bugs page I looked at listed a bunch of great information about beetles, but not a single reference. Another page I looked at said it was a "junior version of the wikipedia article." So then I'd need to go to that site to see what sources were listed. I'd definitely steer kids clear of using this for homework.

But Wiki Books Cookbook is a perfect example of the greatness of wikis. A searchable cookbook that anyone who writes in English can edit. I'm less interested in their nutrition information (the page I looked at had no references other than Wikipedia,) but for recipes or cooking techniques, I think this could be very useful.

LibraryThing & Goodreads

LibraryThing: I joined LT because I've heard about it more/longer than Goodreads and because the instructions for joining Goodreads were waaaaaaay longer. I entered 5 books in my library and was hoping to get suggestions, but I'm not seeing where I go to get them. Do I have to tag my books first? Or write reviews? Good grief, I'm looking at the tags for "After Tupac and D Foster" and someone has tagged it "Tupak Shakur". Scary if you can't spell words from the TITLE of the book! In addition to being misspelled, some of the tags are very strange. I guess this is what happens when the masses are allowed to do a librarian's work, no? :)

Actually, what I think I might be more interested in is the LibraryThing groups. I joined a librarians group and a YA lit group and they both seem pretty active. Again, there's just not enough time to keep up on everything! I don't know if I will ever re-visit LibraryThing. I do like the widget that automatically adds book covers to your blog. If/when we do a collection development blog, I think it would be nice to have a new titles widget in the sidebar.

Goodreads: "Have you ever wanted a better way to see what your friends are reading?" Um, no, not really. I find the best way to find out what my "friends" are reading is to ask them. I do like the interface of Goodreads a bit better than LibraryThing. Not sure exactly why, the soft browns, not overly texty, the logo. I have a friend who uses this, so I've seen her account and I don't feel the need to sign up for another book account today. So I checked out the groups page and one of the first ones I notice is "The Haters Club" from Portland, OR. I can't see how this is book related, but whatever. They don't list nearly as many groups as LT and I don't see any that I'm in the least bit interested in joining.

I'm not really interested in writing book reviews for most of the books I read and if I want to read reviews from random people I'll continue to go to Amazon.com for those. I think these are interesting services, but not especially useful to me. I did add a book sharing application to my facebook account, but there was an implication that I would actually share the physical books with people, which is strange. It also gave me the option to read/write reviews for books. Social networking is exhausting!

technorati continued

Ok, I watched the video. But I swear, the technorati I see and the one in the video don't look the same to me. I like the one in the video better. I was reluctant to get ONE MORE ACCOUNT, which would include a user name and password that I would promptly forget, but I thought maybe if I "joined" I'd get that more interesting interface. I didn't. I don't know if I'm just losing it, or what. I don't think I'll be using my technorati account, but I'll give it a try.

So I did the three searches that were also part of our assignment. I searchd "library 2.0" (sorry, learning 2.0 just sounded too boring to me!) in posts, tags, and the directory. The posts and tags results were very similar. They appeared to be blog entries where someone had marked the entry (tagged it) as "library 2.0," like I do on most of my posts. I was more interested in the results of the blog directory search. These were whole blogs that were tagged with library 2.0. I saw a few I already read and checked out a few I'm not very interested in. So it was interesting and I will go back and do some more searching when I have more time...

technorati

Didn't we already do a technorati assignment? I thought so. So I guess we're going in deeper this time. I'm still *waiting* for the technorati tutorial that I'm supposed to watch to download...it's taking for-ever! In the meantime, I checked out the Percolator and Popular features. I wasn't very interested in the Percolator which, "show(s) the blog posts and mainstream media stories getting the greatest attention from other bloggers in a topical area right now. The percolator tends to update these around three times an hour; enough time to track trend and attention data, and short enough to keep pace with the blogosphere." I guess it's kind of interesting, and if I had all the time in the world I'm sure I could spend some of it looking at the Percolator...but alas, I don't. More interesting to me is what's "popular." "Library" went from #14 most popular search to #12 in the past few minutes. Maybe I should keep clicking on library and see how high I can get it. If my clicking on it makes it jump that fast then I wonder about the number of technorati users...Oh, now it's down to #13.

ANYWAY...I got the image above by clicking on library and then saving the "viewings by day" graph to my desktop. I wonder why the recent spike in library searches? Interesting. I'm still not very interested in the results that technorati gives me for library. I guess the library use for this could be checking out what is popular and in the news at any given moment. But it seems that that is easily accomplished by looking at a Google or Yahoo homepage or CNN.com or any of the other news pages.

Ok, I'm going to watch the tutorial now...

Recent Comments

Look at me and my recent comments widget on the sidebar! I saw it on someone else's blog, noticed the link for how to get it, and I got it! It did take me maybe 10 minutes to get it to work, but it's a cool widget. Or it would be, if more people commented!

Item #12: Image generators

Hmmm, I didn't realize how many crappy pictures there were on Flickr until I started looking for something to manipulate. First I tried Mt. Fuji, now I'm looking for Japanese Maples. Really, it's impressive how many out of focus, uninteresting photos there are of bright red Japanese Maples.

Soooo...using Sketch Generator, I changed these lovely red leaves into a "sketch." It's very easy to do. I don't really like how blogger has placed the photos, but I guess it's livable. Any thoughts on how to make the images go exactly where I want them?

The other part of this assignment was to mention what 2.0 sites I'm enjoying and using on a regular basis. I've definitely become completely addicted to my bloglines account. I check it from work and from home. It's something I look forward to coming into work and doing first thing in the morning. Mostly I look at reviews of children's books and library 2.0 blogs, but I also have some news feeds, the addictive "blog" of "unnecessary" quotes (speaking of which, I just ate something called a "Veggie" Ham & Cheese Veggie Wrap. I'll be taking a photo and submitting that, fer sure!), and a few friends who occasionally post. In the past week, a few of my friends have created Facebook pages, so I may begin to use that more...too soon to tell. It's weird how when I log on I get a notice that my friend shani left this message ____ for another friend. Obviously you need to be aware at all times of what you're posting and who (everyone?) will be seeing it. And we'll see how much I use JacketFlap...

NOT a cheater

Ok. Because I never cheat on anything and I certainly don't want to risk my one free day off due to not following instructions...I'm joining a new social network. After reading the buzz on the Child Lit discussion list all morning, I joined JacketFlap.

JacketFlap, which doesn't seem to have a wikipedia entry just yet, is a social networking site focusing on children's and YA literature. Its members include authors, agents, illustrators, publishers, librarians... I'm still working my way around it. I see that like a wiki, I could edit the biography of an author who has not entered a bio. Does that mean YOU can edit MY bio? Why would you want to?
Instead of using my own words to describe JacketFlap, I'm going to let their FAQs do that for me:

What can I do on JacketFlap?

JacketFlap is all about Children's books and the people and companies involved in making Children's books. If you are in the business or are a Children's book lover, you can find loads of information here on pretty much any Children's book that has ever been published. If you are looking to get published, you can research publishers in our database of children's book publishers. If you want to keep up-to-date on the lastest news, reviews, and people in the Children's book business, then you'll love our Children's Publishing blog reader, which includes up-to-date postings from 500+ industry blogs. If you're looking to connect with other people in the Children's publishing world, then try browsing through our People section. If you're looking to see other books that people are reading and discuss books, please try our Books section.

My thoughts:
Search: is funky. The terms don't come naturally to me...I guess "published people" and "book titles" are the ones that seem the least intuitive to me. And why does the search default to publishers? I'm pretty sure I read that a publisher is behind BookFlap...but I can't remember who and I'm too lazy to use my research skills to find out.

Blog reader: it's great to be able to sort blogs by their categories...librarians, reviews, industry, news, etc. But the actual blog reader screen is too cluttered for me. Of course, that is solved easily enough by clicking on "Read the rest of this post" and getting redirected to the original post.
Reviews: I was expecting a really big database of reviews...but not yet.
Um, and there's some way you can earn "points" that are redeemable for amazon or booksense gift certs. Strange, but, ok.
Publisher info: looks good. Kinda like a Children's Writer's Guide for FREE!

Will I use JacketFlap? (I actually just forgot the name and had to double check. I thought it was BookFlap. Not sure if that is a sign of my future use of it or not...) I'm going to give it a try. I think the news blogs will be worth reading and they have a newly published section.

On the Facebook front: I added a library application (it freaks me out all the applications facebook wants you to add) and i tried to play scrabulous with a friend, but apparently we both have to be logged on at the same time to play. :)

Other thoughts on social networking and work: *I thought it was interesting that when i did a fort vancouver regional library search on Facebook, of the 15 people listed, everyone's "location" was Portland. Interpret as you wish.*

Also, I'm vaguely uncomfortable with the mixing of work and social life on these sites. Facebook encourages people to link through their place of employment, but if I put it out there that I work at FVRL, can I really feel right about telling the world that I "partied my butt off" this weekend? Or post a revealing photo? Do I want to look for dates AND advertise where i work? Does it make me a cool librarian?

Facebook

Here I am on Facebook!
I'm cheating a little on this assignment because I have had a Facebook account for a few months. I researched Facebook, Myspace, and other social networking sites last fall when I created a presentation for parents on social networking as part of my former job. I created accounts on different sites and the Facebook site is the only one I sorta update. Myspace is just too busy and loud for my 30-something self. I know I would have loved it when I was younger, but now I'm just frustrated by the graphics and music. I do have a friend or two my age who use it, but the majority of people my age that I know are either not using any of the SN sites, or they are on Facebook. But then again, sometimes I look at Facebook and wonder, 'what am i supposed to be doing on this site?' It seems a bit too vanilla to me at times. So what I'm going to do for this assignment is delve a bit deeper into Facebook and see if I can find anything relevant to me, besides my few friends who are already on it. Here I go...

What do you think about libraries taking part in social networking sites?

I like it. Our YAAB page is a good example of what a library can do in myspace. I think it's a great place to have a presence and advertise books and library events. I think FVRL could also have a page that marketed our online HOMEWORK resources and had the option for homework help chat with a librarian. The arguments against it, saying 'we need to stay out of teen spaces cuz they might not want us there,' are moot because we wouldn't be soliciting friends. We're just there and if teens want to be our friend, then cool.

When I worked as a librarian at Portland Community College one of the student library helpers was adamant that the PCC library should have presence in myspace. She said that she was on her myspace account several times a day and she would appreciate getting messages from the library on that account. What kind of messages? How about new books, change of hours, you need to renew your materials...

I think FVRL would also benefit from a Facebook account. This would attract the "older" crowd and could include messages about hours and events. This would also be one more venue to solicit feedback and ideas from the community regarding the library and what our users would like to see us do.

I think the main concerns are: keeping up with the current social networking sites...don't stay on myspace once the majority of users have moved on; make sure that the personnel time spent on managing the pages is worth the PR and interactions we are getting out of it; can these sites be accessed at the library, or are they blocked by filters?

Tag Cloud

I love the look of tag clouds. I really wanted a tag cloud for my blog, so i googled "add tag cloud to google" (without the quotes) and found several sites with step by step instructions on how to manipulate the HTML on your blogger blog to add a tag cloud! I used the KC-Studio instructions.

The only thing I would add to these instructions is to make sure you have added a Label to your blog. And I would go back and edit your posts to add tags (labels) before you add the code. It was pretty easy!

Mozdev.org

One more thought today. When I use Firefox, I love the search box next to the address box that let's me do a quick search on google or amazon.com. I use this ALL THE TIME. This afternoon I thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be great if I could search Worldcat that easily?" So I chose "manage search engines" from the drop down box and pretty easily added Worldcat. Then there was a link to Mozdev, (no idea what that means,) so I thought I'd see what they had to offer. On a whim I typed in www.fvrl.org to see if I could search our catalog. No results. Then I tried www.multcolib.org and easily added Multnomah County Library's catalog to my search box. Can someone make this happen for FVRL? Please?

Meebo & IM

I love Meebo and have been a user for a year or two. When I started using IM I had a yahoo account and I had to download software to my computer to use it. That was fine for my home computer, but what about someone else's computer? Or work? Meebo makes it easy to chat online from any computer.

My heydays of online chat have passed, (I'm too busy at work and don't feel like typing too much when I'm home,) but I do still occasionally sign on to Meebo and chat with a friend. I've heard we have an internal chat program at FVRL, but I have not been signed up for it yet. I definitely see the advantage of coworker chat, especially at a library system where people are in many different locations.

I also see a point to having the ability for the library to IM with the public. I agree with H2 regarding teens and IM, but just because teens have moved on it doesn't mean everyone else has. I think a Meebo widget on our homepage to connect with users is a great idea, and I think it would be attractive to users of all ages.

RSS addendum

Well, I've been enjoying my bloglines this week. I like that it added the Bloglines bookmark and Sub with Bloglines buttons to my toolbar so that it is simple to add new feeds and easy to go to my Bloglines page. So far I haven't had to re-sign in, which is good because I have so many logins and passwords...I just can't remember all of them.

I am enjoying the fact that I don't have to waste my time clicking on each bookmark to see if a page has been updated. I can hit refresh on my bloglines a couple of times during the day and see whether my fav sites have been updated or not. Yea bloglines!

RSS continued

Oh, it seems I'm not done with RSS yet!

1. Feedster: the link didn't work (and i really wish the FVRL 2.0 blog would open sites in a NEW window so I don't have to hit back to get to the assignment!) Here's the message I get when I google Feedster: Feedster
Feedster.com. Version 2.1 BETA. Feedster is Changing... We'll be back up soon with exciting news! So, no thoughts on Feedster.

2. Topix: I'm not a fan of the overcrowded home page. It's a bit text-heavy for me. I do like the little interactive graph that comes with the search results, but if I'm looking for news, I'm going to do a Google news search. No question about it.

3. Syndic8.com: Ewwww, I hate the homepage. I didn't realize I had such feelings about graphic design, but these are some unappealing sites! This is definitely uglier than Topix. Reminds me a bit of the old Librarian's Index to the Internet site, though I see they haven't improved much. Hmmm, why on earth would Syndic8 default to chronological order starting with the OLDEST news? That is bizarre. Hmm, it's so ugly I have to move on.

4. Google Blog Search: I've used this many times. It has the familiar Google "brand" logo, familiar search interface, option to create an email alert. Seems solidly Google.

5. Technorati: it definitely has a more eye-pleasing design (to me) than the majority of these sites. The first result that popped up under libraries was from 24 minutes ago and was this: http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2008/librar-ify-your-igoogle-start-page/
A google gadget that customizes your igoogle homepage with a new library related image from Flickr every time you log on. Very cool. I may have to reconsider my igoogle homepage....

The wikis were interesting and COMPLETELY OVERWHELMING! My favorite method of finding blogs of interest remains looking at the links from my favorite blogs. It was interesting to see the lengthy list of Public Library blogs...i'd love to see FVRL on that list!

RSS

Here's another example of "new" technology that I tried out a few? couple of? years ago and didn't stick with me. I'm willing to give it another go. For some reason, going through my bookmarks seems easier to me than using bloglines. I'm not a big fan of the interface for starters. I just don't like the way it looks, I get overwhelmed with the number of posts I haven't read and then I just quite reading them all together.

I had some success with a personalized igoogle homepage last year. I liked picking my own background and that I could read the post on my page or open it in a new window. I guess maybe it's just and aesthetics issue for me. Huh. But I don't check my google homepage anymore and I don't even remember my login. I'll try the Bloglines for the next few days and see how it works for me and report back.

I do like the idea of RSS feeds and libraries. I know we send out a monthly newsletter to folks who subscribe, but I'd also love to see the option for little reminders through RSS feeds. Upcoming reading group at Ridgefield? Add it to the blog and let RSS subscribers receive the message in their bloglines. Friends booksale this weekend? Ditto. ALA Newbery and Caldecott winners? Storytime break? Hot new book by popular author in the catalog and ready for holds? I guess the first step is to get some FVRL blogs going and advertise them so that the public can sign up for them. I'd love to see this happen and I'd love to be a part of it!

What if Topeka Library had the COOLEST way to promote teen reading?

Mashin' it up

So I have to add a couple of things I found since my mash ups post. First, the MashUpAwards site regularly posts cool mashup sites. A lot of these seem to be Twitter-related, and I see the Twitter assignment is coming, but I've looked at it a bit and really, who wants to know what I'm doing on a moment by moment basis? You don't, trust me.

But I did find THE COOLEST mashup site ever. I'm a huge Pandora fan (also an upcoming assignment), but Songza let's you listen to any song you want any time you want. I'm still trying to figure out what the catch is, but for the moment I'm wracking my brain trying to decide what song I want to listen to! Who knew Ben Folds did a cover of the Postal Service's Great Heights and the Postal Service did a cover of Phil Collins' Against All Odds? How have I lived this long without songza?

Del.icio.us

Oh my, I feel like I'm coming out of a fog. Where did the past 30-40 minutes go? One moment I'm doing research for my library 2.0 post and the next thing I know I'm reading The Best of Craigslist 2007. How did I get there? I don't know...one bookmark led to another...I know I started at the IS Desk del.icio.us account.

Del.icio.us is one of those programs that I always hear about and have played with some, but have never really become addicted to. I like the idea of being able to access my bookmarks at home, at work, at my in-laws, etc. But there is also something very personal about bookmarks and I wonder how I'd be judged if the world could see my eclectic tastes?

I love that the IS desk has an account. I definitely see this as useful on the reference desk. I also think that the library could have Del.icio.us accounts that we advertise to the public. It could be another place to have the "Resources by Subject" link list that we have on the FVRL site. I would like to see an easy way to search by user so that the accounts of libraries, museums, schools, etc, could more easily be located.

Will I sign up for my own account? Probably. But will I forget the password within the month and have it go the way of my Bloglines account? Possibly.

more flickr

I love mashups. I used the beader (right) and the warholizer (below) to manipulate my Outside of a Dog photo.



How could libraries use mashups? I'd love to see a google map with photos (external and internal) of all of the FVRL locations and hours and contact info. That would be so much better than the current map on the FVRL site.