Saturday, October 18, 2008

Some posters and such...

Nifty posters you might find useful for patrons using the internet:

Many of these posters are well done and attractive!


Don't forget to look at the rest of the resources at the Iowa Library site...

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Interesting library news podcast

Interesting podcast content - it was last current in June or July but the idea of a library news podcast is intriguing...

http://libvibe.blogspot.com/

Also interesting to listen to as a podcaster - listening to the intros/exits and newsvoice.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Podcast in full swing!

I've been podcasting for a while now and have learned a lot....a lot! I've also been working on doing a write up on how-to as it's possible I might be presenting this information.

The volunteers have been awesome with the project - we all have a little diva in us!

What's been really interesting is what is popular for download and what isn't. Mother Goose? Not so much....Edward Lear's The Duck and the Kangaroo? Like gangbusters! Same with The Three Little Bears. (But who doesn't love that one? And it's an even older version with a naughty old lady - not Goldilocks. In my opinion, hilarious!)

Monday, August 25, 2008

Ideas for free email marketing...?

We were looking at Constant Contact here as an email marketing resource. Does anyone have any suggestions for a FREE mass email marketing resource?

Thanks!

Monday, July 28, 2008

Podcast up and going!

Alright, I've been hard at work recording children's stories (in the public domain) read by volunteers, editing them and then uploading them to our podcast website.

It has been a fantastic experience - I've learned a lot and am still learning. Some recording issues are unsolvable - like, what do you do in a building where EVERY room has a rattling air condition vent (or several) and if you render them useless you'll end up sweating out the volunteer and yourself?

I've found some great, user friendly tools and set-ups and some that aren't as easy but are necessary.

It took me about four months of research (the kind you do here and there and on weekends) .

It's a wonderfully geeky world with great volunteers. We're getting some favorites and eclectic materials recorded - it's great.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Check out the SELCO page - free classes for MN library staff

WHOA! Check out the SELCO page if you're a Minnesota library staffer - free online courses are being offered. Brush up on skills or learn new ones. A fantastic listing. And did I mention they are FREE? Register within the next two days or cry! (But not for too long - they mentioned that they'll be offering another round of sign ups after the 30th sometime.)

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Music & Podcasting

One of the challenges of podcasting is creating a polished work. Music in the intro or to segue can help you accomplish a more sophisticated podcast.

Some websites worth visiting and with great goals are:
www.musopen.com
www.opsound.org
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
http://freemusic.org.ru/

http://www.soundsnap.com/ - Sound effects and loops.

As always, visit the licensing page of the website/artist to find out if and how you are allowed to use their work and what licensing you must make your production.

Have some websites you'd like to share? Please do!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Neat tools to use from your cell phone!

I recently ran across these two tools:

Google 411 - Connect to any business for free from your cell phone

Jott - "Free voice to text service. It's like your own personal assistant." Use your cell phone to call in memos and to do lists etc that are then electronically converted to text. Now, I don't necessarily promote talking on your phone while driving...but it'd be a great way to make a grocery list or whatever when you are safe to use your cellphone and want to multitask.

Let me know if you use these and what you think.

Monday, June 16, 2008

23). Summary

Holy cow, I made it! *Happy dance!*

This experience has helped me find tools beyond what I knew. One of the best ways it helped me was that I felt justified in seeing more of what's out there - our library director was very supportive of this program.

My favorite discovery...well, I guess it has to be GoodReads or LibraryThing. The social networks were great - I'd belonged to Yahoo! groups in the past for hobbies and interests and to see how slick so many of the social networks have become. Wow.

I'm still looking for others to network with. If anyone wants an ear for a program or wild idea you've got rolling around in your head I'm here. And, once I've got all my ducks in a row I'll be happy to be a resource for anyone else building a podcast at their library. I've been researching this for a while now and am actually into the doing part so I have a lot to share. :o)

I'd really love to see a website dedicated to the 23Things or a wiki that we can start to put information onto so that it has a touchstone that we can continually come back to.

I would definately participate in 24 Things Plus program.

And, if I had to describe my experience in one sentance...

"This has everything you have been wanting to know more about (or didn't know you should) when it comes to learning about technology in the workplace and library."

Saturday, June 14, 2008

22). What did I learn today?

I resolve to keep blogging.

I do find useful tools and I have useful information and I promise to share it. Hopefully someone else will find it interesting or helpful - isn't that what started the 23 Things in the first place? (Besides the fact that the creator was organized enough to put it all together?) I can try to be organized. Really.

What you'll likely find here in upcoming months will some of my own findings on library podcasting. Updates on favorite new authors and books....Maybe some of my own musings on writing.

Some things that I find useful in trying to stay current...blogs. I have several blogs in my iGoogle Reader - I catch up with them when I can and I almost ALWAYS run across an idea or resource that is useful or inspiring.

I also pick up PC magazine or Smart Computing now and again on my lunchbreak. I've come across new and interesting things now that I do searches with the words "social networking" as the main goal. Never know what you'll find!

One thing I have really come to realize is that there is a tool out there for every need...almost. So, if you find yourself getting frustrated about something see if you can find something that will help you out! The internet is limitless and full of possibilities.

21). Beyond MySpace

Okay, so I joined GoodReads and Shelfari. Shelfari - didn't like the graphics. GoodReads - was THRILLED to find out that one of my very good friends is already on there and am happily waiting for her to add me to her friends list.

I also am happy that GoodReads has NO LIMIT on the number of books that can be added to your shelf. As LibraryThing did have a 100 limit and I was bummed.

This will come in handy for those nights of allergy-med induced insomnia. I can keep wracking my brain for all of the books I have read. Ever. YES! [Random high-five Jim Carrey style.]

I will be recommending GoodReads to all my friends who are readers - it'll be fun to compare and see what everyone is reading. Also check out the widgets and the author pages - very cool. Enjoying it like crazy! I enjoy reading authors blogs and pages so this was a fun find.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

20). Facebook & MySpace

Well, I looked at MySpace long ago and was turned off by it. I thought its design was too much like my freshman year locker to be of any interest - messy, stuff all over...

FaceBook is more attractive but you have to be careful not to get sucked into the many games and quizzes. I have a friend who started sending me stuff almost daily. Useless bits of quizzes. But I was able to find my old college roommate on there and reconnect. So that was awesome. (If a blast from the past.)

I get frustrated and perhaps a bit anxious with Facebook, however, in the fact that I do have personal information Out There. [Cue the Twilight Zone music.] So I try to keep things PG even though I am not a PG personality at all times. Sigh. I get tired of having aliases and pseudonyms.

I really would like do more work-related networking. Have a group of cyber buddies that you can talk shop with and bounce ideas off of without worrying about politics, dud ideas...just be able to throw it all out there.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

19). Podcasting

I prefer Podcastalley.com for podcast searching. I'm pretty enmeshed in podcasting right now. I've been designing a podcast program for the library. It's a collection of children's classic literature that's in the public domain (no copyright worries) and I'm soliciting patrons as readers for the content. I'm absolutely excited every time I get a new person interested in being involved.

I've also done recording with Audacity. Audacity is the perfect recording software. It's free and does all that you need it to do and more. For recording equipment we're using a usb hook-up mic to laptop and a few other various sorts of eqipment. (Pop filter, headphones....)

When we have our podcasts up I'll be posting the RSS feed link.

There are many possibilties for libraries to explore with podcasting - one that I've got rolling around in my head if this all goes well is the idea of collecting oral histories or doing a community reading (a different person reading each chapter) of a larger work.

Want to listen to classics or do some reading and share it with others? Check out LibriVox - it's a VERY awesome project. Also check out Project Gutenberg - tons fo eBooks and audio.

18). YouTube

This video cracks me up! My husband (who's from Nepal originally) tells me that India's Bollywood copies everything Hollywood does. He's right. The chance to see anyone else dress in red leather and dance like Michael Jackson is too fun(ny) to pass up.

I have fun surfing YouTube now and again - whether it's playing the old "I Love Lucy" scenes (like the grape stomp) or looking for the Hardee's commercial with the little old ladies asking "Where's the beef?" Of course, there is the undesirable (to me) instances of pornography. And of course there's the copyright issues. Ugh. But it's very fun for the consumer - you can even pull up old cartoons from the 80s that haven't come back by DVD (like the Snorks).

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

17). ELM Productivity Tools

Holy. Cow. This is one of those things that you know you should know more about and I'm glad to have finally had a chance to do more than just skim the surface. (Even though it was more like dipping than dunking - there's so much information here!!)

I will be happy to add this to my arsenal for reference questions...here at my library very few people are doing actual research - and when they do we often come up short when it comes to obscure topics or anything that falls outside of our popular categories (cooking, crafts, gardening, dogs, WWII just to name a few).

These tools would benefit patrons who are looking to do research or even recall an article from a magazine. If we had enough demand for it a class for patrons would be great.

I am already rethinking how I've been researching the topic of going green. (I'm on the green committee here -- I really lucked out compared to one of our poor librarians stuck on the safety committee who gets stuck listening to park and rec and maintenence woes.) Anywho. It's great.

Oh, and I will be working this into one of the classes I'm teaching this summer on how to research medical conditions and live a healthy lifestyle. It's mostly about webtools but this will be a great resource for the more research motivated patrons.

16). Student 2.0 Tools

The U 0f M Assignment Calculator is much more detailed than the Research Project Calculator, however, the RPC lets you sign up and get email reminders whereas the U of M AC is limited to faculty, staff and students of the U of M. You could save your research guide or print it out. I like to print things out so I can write all over them and take notes. And cross things off as I get done with them. Hehee.



Extra handy is the supporting materials page with TONS of helpful printouts. Check out under #4 - you can print out a "Copyright and Fair Use Tip Sheet" (there's an appropriate library handout!) and a "Permission to Use Copyrighted Resource Tip Sheet." There will certainly be helpful pages for longterm planning on projects at a library.

These links relate more to a previous Thing but thought I'd share these free and fabulous resources for organization and planning:
http://www.toodledo.com/

http://www.famundo.com/

http://www.mynotewall.com/

15). Online Gaming

Okay, so I surfed Puzzle Pirates. I was going to try 2nd Life at home last weekend but when it came to downloading more software onto my husband's computer (mine croaked and is now being reincarnated) I hesitated.

So, surfing Puzzle Pirates, I was intrigued to find a page listing all sorts of people who'd met, fallen in love and gotten married or became a couple from Puzzle Pirates. Ah, technolove.

The interactions with other pirates was fun...I wonder how many pirates are people hiding from their day job hunkered down in their cubicles? It was more fun than solitare on my computer - which I enjoy for the mindlessness of it.

Once my computer is back up and running I think I'll try 2nd Life then. I feel guilty putting time into surfing and game stuff in the summer but come winter I'll be ready to sit in the glow of my moniter, I'm sure.

Gaming at our library...well, that's about 95% of what the kids use the computers for. The one time I've actually been asked to help a kid with Word instead of www.PBSkids.com or www.nickelodeon.com I was pretty impressed that he was writing for fun. Yay!

Sunday, June 1, 2008

14). Library Thing

Yahoo! (In the sense of joy, not an internet search engine.) I love Library Thing.

I enjoyed exploring the Zeitgeist - see who the worst- and best-rated authors are, the 25 most-rated books and more. And check out the largest libraries.

On the search page you can do searches on usernames (hint: have fun doing a search under "librarian" and see all the users who come up and then look at their lists).

I also had a lot of fun adding books I've read - the only drawback is that you can only have a hundred books on the free account. Total bummer as I'm sure most library staff will fill personal accounts up quickly!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

13). Online Productivity Tools

I have start pages both on Yahoo! and Google. My Yahoo! page is my personal one - has all the fun non-work related gadgets (movie times at local theaters, horoscopes) and my iGoogle I use at work (to do lists, bookmarks).

I tried the one at PageFlakes also. It has a sleeker look...you might also want to know that Yahoo! has recently gone through some updating and offers some choices for personalization, however, it does not dare to even come close to Googles background pages smorgasborg. In fact, it looks like Yahoo is mimicking Google in that way but falling way-short.

I use both Yahoo and Google - what I find is that Google has more tools and gadgets and is more cutting edge. But, Yahoo is more established and is therefore more able to offer groups that serve your needs/interests. Google falls short on groups. If you want to network or chat/email with other people on just about anything, check out Yahoo. If Google was that advanced I'd certainly completely shift over. Well maybe. Only Yahoo offers the Ziggy comic strip for your start page. Google lacks that. (They both have Garfield.)

The PDF converters are nice tool - but I really wish they'd have the ability to convert a Quark file to a PDF. That's the one thing that all online PDF converters fail to have. Google offers a PDF converter gadget as well - just another thing on my iGoogle page to make things handier at work.

One last note...I LOVE 30 Boxes. LOVE IT!!! I'll be entering in friend's birthdays and my to do list stuff. I am a chronic birth-date forgetter. I have less than five birthdays memorized (and one of them is my own and one of the others is the day after mine) - I am horrible at dates so I'm looking forward to using this tool. This tool also has the option to email you ahead of time for events.

12). Social News Sharing

Newsvine for me was the most useful site for credible news recommendations. Digg and Mixx were more of a People and US magazine version of news - fun, flashy but not necessary sources of substance. Reddit offered up some interesting news bits and seemed more middle of the road for me as a source.

I find that I will prefer Newsvine over the Yahoo and Google news engines. I've used Google and Yahoo surfing for news to read because they're easy. (I like easy.) But they are very limited in their presentation and I guess I'm ready to graduate to a better level of news service. ((I know you'd think being in a library I'd read the newspapers we get but I've seen people read the papers who use other things than Kleenexes to rid objects from their nose and then go back to flipping through the paper. No thanks.))

Mixx and Digg leaned more towards being productivity drainers. Nothing wrong with that if that's what your looking for.

The article that I tried to add to Newsvine - I submitted it but it didn't show right away. I wonder if that's normal for a new submission??? The second article I tried to submit was already submitted - as it was a week old.

I'd really be interested in the demographics of the members of these groups. Just for curiousity's sake.

Friday, May 30, 2008

11). Tagging and Del.icio.us

Well, I did it. I've been meaning to do it forever, so finally a reason good enough to register with del.icio.us. I'd been keeping bookmarks at my iGoogle page which is handy but doesn't involve any social sharing with it.

I bookmarked some pages and did a search with "Library 2.o" and then looked at some of the peoples' bookmarks who had that in their tagging. What can I say? Treasure troves of nifty bookmarks of sites to go visit. If you're lucky you find someone else who thinks like you but who is ahead of you in the bookmarking game and you've hit the jackpot.

I love that the bookmarks are accessible. I have lost personal bookmarks before when my computer has died...bookmarks that took me five or more years to store and lovingly sort. It's horrible. So I like that they are out there in cyberland free from the lifespan of my personal computer and tendency not to back things up. (I'm getting better though - I really am! Cross my heart!) But I don't like that you can't organize them the same way as you do in your browser. I have a method to my madness that I can't replicate here and I am bummed. But I'll get over it.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

10). Wikis

Wikis are a great tool for sharing information and having it in a central location - the director of my library and myself put up a wiki (we used wikimedia).

In my opinion, schools should not be banning wikis as sources of information - but rather teaching students how to be responsible consumers of information. This is one of my top ten pet peeves. (That is if I was organized enough to have a list!) Students should learn to be discerning in how they rate their information resources - the format of anything, book, newspaper, wiki, should not make it credible or not credible. Just because it's a book with a hard cover doesn't mean the author knows anything --- and just because any joe can publish on a wiki doesn't mean he isn't knowledgeable about his material.

If we are taught only certain resources are "good" aren't we just getting lazy and becoming enabled to not think for ourselves? Ack! *hair pulling*

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

9). Sharing tools

Well, I decided I like the Google tools rather than Zoho....that's more based on the general fact that I use Google some much - all the tools are then centralized for me.

Zoho had some features that really markets it more towards the business end of things rather than personal so I can see where that would be a draw.

I made a spreadsheet for everyone to come visit and edit - I really hope everyone comes and adds their own three favorite books/authors to the list!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p7upnA1MbSx9tJyK7HycIbA&hl=en

8). Sharing one of my "Things"

I enjoyed looking at all these tools and have several people I'll be recommending the e-folio to. (How cool was that!?) I used Lazybase to create a database of books I've read. Every year I think to myself that I should start writing down all the books I read. So maybe here's the start.

Lazybase was simple but a bit frustrating - I like to be able to customize things more and it's not all that snazzy looking. But, perhaps databases aren't supposed to be snazzy. *sigh*

I'm looking forward to adding all of these items to a more nifty bookmarking system than offered by Google. I use that one in desperation at work since we're always at different areas. Time to start putting them onto del.icio.us I guess.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

7). 2.0 Communication Tools

Email is frequently used at our library. Some of our content we are in the process of moving (or duplicating) to a wiki. It's all about organization - so much communication here becomes a reference for later. (You know, I had a problem with such and such patron/couldn't get the microfilm scanner to work....how do I do this??)

I personally use IM frequently at home with friends who are long distance - it really helps us keep up with eachother since so many of us seem to use computers/internet to relax or manage personal finance.

Two interesting communication tools that I have seen are:

http://www.zoho.com/

http://www.lumifi.com/


Also be aware that if you use iGoogle you can share documents and work on them with another person (or multiple people). Neatest tool ever that I haven't been able to use yet. But if I could...oh boy!

4). Flickr - Cats in Space!

I had a lot of fun searching the tag "cat" - I found this in the creative commons by Zumi, owner of Malingering - TheDamnMushroom

Go visit Cats in Space.

I think Flickr is a good tool - we use it at the library and often post children's events and other interesting things.

As a personal account...I haven't used it. I tend to store my photos at http://www.ofoto.com/ and share them from there. I'm not too socially open on photo sharing.

5). The Flickr fun stuff....I could definately see our library using the movie poster and badge maker. Actually a lot of the tools could come in handy. I think I'll be trying them out for one of my next fun posters for an event/program. The Big Huge Labs and Image Chef are fantastic....ToonDoo I tried out but I'd get myself into trouble making stuff with that. :o) It'd be too easy to be sarcastic or some such.

6). Online Image Generators - I think these would be a lot of fun to put together to host a tweens/teens computer class or program. Legality issues are huge and often muddy when it comes to library priveleges. (For example - A librarian can read a book for a storytime audience but it can't be recorded and played back on a podcast without getting into deep waters.) I've heard conversation where Disney (do I need the copyright symbol after THAT now?) went after libraries that had used images to promote books/etc. Sticky wicket!

And just for fun ---- check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyLTqBARFt8 . This made me laugh so hard!

3). RSS Feeds

I love the fact that with RSS feeds I can put everything in one spot and that it saves the data so I can read it when I remember to when I finally have time. (Between lack of time and memory I can get really behind.)

I've found it useful because I've been able to find blogs and websites that are on the same track or farther ahead - easy to pick up something useful without having to dig for it.

Teachers and media specialists can make us this because it really makes everything accessible. And because the content is so fresh you can stay on top of things - or at least the things you want to stay on top of.

I like using Google Reader. In fact, I love Google in general - check out all those tools it has and the betas in testing. Wow!

My favorite reads: "Tame the Web," "The Shifted Librarian," "Library Stuff" and "Blog Junction."

As for using RSS for audio content (mp3 players) - check out www.podcastalley.com to find podcasts and audio to subscribe and listen to but first checkout Juice.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Curiousity Got Me - AdSense

Well, this will be interesting. I have added AdSense to my site - I'm curious to see what will be advertised - what do they think librarians need? (Please, let it be more creative than Amazon.)

Library 2.0

"L2 requires a fundamental change in a library’s mission

It behooves us to look at our mission through an L2 lens . . . It’s possible to “Give them what they want” with ‘L1′, but then, how many is “they”? Is “they” the dwindling elderly population, the soon-to-retire baby-boomers? We can still provide the same level of service to that segment while drastically changing the role libraries play in the lives of our younger constituents . . . A fundamental change in what we think our purpose is is necessary to engage our future tax-payers." (From 11 Reasons Why Library 2.0 Exists and Matters by John Blyberg)


This idea was one of the most compelling ideas expressed by Blyberg, in my opinion. Technology has posed a threat for various traditional institutions and businesses. If libraries and staff can't find newer ways to interact with the changing needs of patrons and how they get their information and entertainment what kind of presence can we maintain in our communities? It's an interesting challenge that must be met head on with the expectation of change.

Librarian Begins Checking Out 23 Things on a Stick

I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to technology. I guess it comes partly with being in my generation (I knew how to hook up a VCR when I was eight) and not having my mom's genetics when it comes to anything spatial. (Note: When I was a kid, my mom owned a video store and was unable to hook up VCRs back in the day when you would rent them out to customers.)

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I shudder when I think about how kids in general are so dependent on it without having the appreciation for it; I've had the experience of having to know how to do things without it. For example, I've used a typewriter and know the pain of retyping a page just to correct an error.

I'm looking forward to picking up some more skills and just generally getting to know some more people in the library world.