Pod Casts - radio broadcasts at your own time?

I looked through the one podcast search tool that was available - yahoo podcasts (the others were blocked by web sense) Most of the search terms I put in led to web sites where I could pay to download something. Some of the terms led to news radio stations where I could (and did) copy links into my Google Reader. I now have links to my favorite shows "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and "Car Talk" that I don't often get to hear on Sat. mornings.

For the most part, tho, these pod casts didn't seem to be of a lot of use, unless one is looking to buy and download music. Music seems to be plentiful and not overly expensive. We could create pod casts to add to our library web page, but I don't think it would be frequently accessed. I do think that the idea of video casts - like the story times we've already videoed - are a great idea and a good reason to pull patrons into exploring our web site.

1987 - Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad

Videos - U Tube, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k8BKX2eQ0Q
This is a clever library work-out video. It's so easy to be sedentary in the library.

I thought U-Tube a fun and intesting site. I saw videos on Mentos + Diet Coke experiments, the Trans Siberian Orchestra, my nephew's band. I learned how to marshall jets. I played with the search engines somewhat, but also looked at the videos currently in view. Interesting. And several clever LIBRARY videos too. The web site has so many interesting videos - the variety is almost intimidating. And I think it's not a good thing that people can so easily steal copywrite material to post it - material that will only be taken down if & when the copywrite holder discovers the theft.

U-tube could be useful for the library, tho. We could post videos of our events - show patrons how much fun it can be to come to the library. We could post promotionary videos. We could also post reference videos of things, sort of like a FAQ video or most asked reference questions.
Or a clever video of our locations, hours & phone numbers.

So Many Flickring Tools!

There are so many Flickr tools and so many look cool or useful - teaching spelling, a letter at a time, creating letters from pictures, streaming pictures, uploading pictures from your cameraphone, finding people, places, colors. I found the color pickr was a lot of fun to play with. I think the mappr might be quite quite useful for research and school projects. My mom keeps sending me photos from her phone - she'd find it useful to send them to a Flickr group!. I liked the utilities that would allow me to download original-sized photos - some are quite spectacular. I like the FlickrFox - that looks like fun.
Several of these tools I'll take home and put onto my computer/Flickr account. Others I'll access from work for homework help. The list of tools is a page to tag for useful reference.

Tagging brings the community together

Tagging is important because it allows users to identify the photos they're sharing, indentify them in ways that others can more easily find them. Tagging helps place photos on the web so that anyone searching for "nurse, st_mary's, 1914" or any other can find just what they're looking for. And items tagged are further identified by new tags placed by the people who find them. So a "st_mary's" is further defined by "new york" or "black & white" or "hospital" or whatever, defining an item from general to specific. And the more people who tag an item, a photo, the more people who can then find that item. Tagging creates communities of like-thinking individuals who discover each other by learning how the individuals in the group further define tagged items.

Nurse Archer (center) at work

Nurse Archer (center) at work, originally uploaded by Fran/Scatterd.

My grandmother in 1914. A newly trained nurse working at St. Mary's Settlement hospital in New York City. I'm thrilled to be able to share this with all the rest of my family.
Flickr is a fun tool!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

The joy of web awards!

This is a fantastic site - a lot of interesting web links and just a fun place to play. I looked at the mapping awards and chose Google maps. I found a satellite map of my house! This could be useful for library patrons, not only looking for directions, but for those looking for information on a place they're moving to, on a place they're researching, for people who want to see what other parts of the world look like. I found the google maps easy to use and extremely versitile.

In fact, I looked through the lists of tools on a lot of the award categories. I've played with Flickr - how fun. And Picassa looks useful. Under "Books" I found a searchengine for out of print books. Useful. Music, games, desktops, bookmarking (I was interested to note that delicious was not one of the top 4, but Furl, the one I will use, is. Also ma.gnola.), visual arts. All of these could be useful to our patrons as they come to the library to work on projects and do research. Will tag THIS page as IMPORTANT RESEARCH TOOL.

technorati, the search

This is a useful tool for searching the multitudes of blogs out in the world today. I notice that in the advanced search, if I typed in learning 2.0 under the tags I got a different list of blogs than when I typed the same under the blog directory search. That's useful to remember when doing research. This technorati, then, is another very very useful research tool. And Icerocket is as well. I noticed that I got even more hits typing in vbpl 2.0 under icerocket than I did in technorati. Interesting.

delicious - how useful!

I can see where this is an excellent research tool - it allows you to search & search the web, tagging as you go. You can then come back to the tags and sort through what you've found. You can easily share what you've tagged, you can find more info by following tags that others have made. You can further tag to redefine what you need. Useful indeed for research.
And useful for work - allows you to tag sites as very very useful for work. Then these sites are available no matter which computer you're using.
This delicious is handy indeed. And furl looks to be wonderfully fabulous for genealogical research where I've found that web sites tend to vanish over time. Furl, with it's cache capacity, can save info for me so I don't need to make hard-copies any longer. A nice tool.

MySpace - to be there or not to be

Everything I've seen of MySpace looks to be fun and interesting. There seems such potential for communicating with others, for reaching others, for showing off what an who one is. It looks very easy to use. In fact, it looks easy to not only use the basics, but to make one's space look very special indeed. It almost looks like fun. I can see that it's popular because of all the interesting people and organizations that have a page there: libraries, artists (I've run across tom hanks & jimmy buffet & know there are more), bands (my nephew's band) all sorts of weird and interesting people. I don't feel the need to publicize my self by putting out a page, but it's been intersting to find others there. I can see even more value in our library putting up a MySpace page, if we can make it interesting & exciting - a place people'd like to visit. We could maybe stream videos of some of our programs, add web links to book lists & shelfari-sort of places, have various blogs from our staff and connect to our "Ask the Library". It could be quite cool and would be fun to help design.

Social Networking and knowledge portals

VBPL should create a place on MySpace to bring more teens to the library. If they make the site active and vibrant, with lots of photos (especially of teen events) and add easily accessed links to places important and/or useful to teens (i.e. the Virtual Library) then it should be attractive to the young. Another useful and fun link for the teens is our "Ask the Library" feature. It's under-utilized as it is, but if people can find a way to reach it through a social networking site them might be a lot more likely to make use of it.

Reader's Advisory - Dick Francis

My favorite author! It was very easy to edit the Staff Picks page of the Reader's advisory. And the books he writes are so great - more people should read him. The toughest part of adding to this wiki was in deciding which of his books was my favorite!

Francis, Dick. Break In: The book begins with an exciting, extremely challenging horse race which jockey Kit Fielding finally manages to win. After the race Kit gets caught up in a family feud, adventure, mayhem and murder. An all-together gripping story, one of the best written by a very prolific and hugely enjoyable author. Tags: Murder, Adventure, English Horse Racing, Family Feuds.

Wikis - could be interesting.

Wikis here could be useful indeed. What a great place to post not only reader's advisories, but also our patron's own ideas about what books/dvds/cds are great. Seeing what our public is willing to write about may even help us to keep our collection active.

We could also have a place for patrons to comment on and/or suggest policy. A lot of that might be negative, but in working the check-out desks here & there I've also heard a lot of good suggestions that people might actually be willing to write for us.

Ask the Library

A few weeks ago staff at my library offered a short course in the "Ask the library" program. It covered both how a patron would use the program and how the staff would handle their end of the IM. It seems very easy to use, for people at both ends, even those without a lot of IM experience (as I am).
Our instructor did say that a lot of the questions were about hours and other all-too-easy things, but that some of the questions asked involved definite research. He said that staffing the program was interesting for the most part. I think that I would enjoy doing this at some point in time.

Instant information exchange

I've actually used several libraries' IM feature "Ask a librarian". It was so cool both times. I was, as usual, researching my ancestors and frustrated by a lack of information. I queried a librarian in Oak Park and she actually found my great grandmother's obituary and said she'd mail me a copy. She also gave me several links to follow for more information. How cool!

It's so much easier to be able to ask a live person when you're looking for info and frustrated. The librarian can help you more clearly define just what you're looking for and, wow, can help to find it.

My experience was good & positive. I'd enjoy getting onto the VBPL IM team and helping others to have the same positive experience I had.

Adding headlines

Using the search engines to find RSS feeds was fascinating. Not only did I find the sorts of news I'm looking to follow, I also stumbled on several other related web sites that, even if I didn't necessarily tag them for the feeds, were still quite interesting to read. I love serching for things on the internet. I always end up in such interesting places!

Fun with RSS

This is going to be very useful indeed. I've set up a reader with my regular email account and can now scan both the library headlines that are so interesting, but the headlines in various genealogy publications as well. I've run into so many genealogy headaches, being able to scan these headlines for help is wonderful.
And I love the fact that I can sort my feeds into groups and folders. Helps so much. I'm going to really like this new tool!

A Challenge???

Library 2.0 seems like a wonderful challenge. I'm looking forward to exploring and learning more! Working with Flickr & the idea of RSS and the Second Life sound fascinating.
But when we talk, some of the folks I've talked to are a bit concerned about all the lack of privacy on this new web. I personally don't have a lot to actually blog about - keeping a record of this training course, of course, but in the normal course of things... what I'm doing and/or thinking are not really for sharing. It's even a bit scary that all this public life seems to be the way of the future for everyone. My daughter, who knows a lot about all of this new Web 2.0, accepts it all as run-of-the-mill.
We'll have to see how this all plays out.

The first time

The 7 1/2 Lifelong learning habits were interesting. Most seemed self-evident. Easiest for me was taking responsibility for my own learning. If I'm not self-motivated then I'm not going to get anywhere. Problems are definitely challenges - usually interesting ones. Running into stumbling blocks, especially when I'm researching history, leads to fascinating discoveries.
The hardest part of those 7 1/2 Habits was the part about setting up a Learning Contract. That seems too much like work. If I'm going to study something I make the decisions about the parameters of the study and then go at it. Codifing it is too tedious.