#23 Yea!

Favorite discoveries: Avatars were the most fun and I didn't know they existed; RSS feeds for later when I have time to spend on the Internet at home (and have a high speed connection); Picture editing on Picnic and Mashups were fun. I have no time for all of this now. Might use the picture editing and mashups for library posters if I can remember how to do it.

Assisted lifelong learning goal: Became better acquained with the world of technology.

Takeaways -- Unexpected Outcomes -- I now know a lot more about the "modern world" than I did. That was the most beneficial aspect of the 23 Things and I think it is the overview which will be helpful for library patrons who are not up on all the different technology out there but have heard and wondered about.

Ideas for using at HCPL: "New Books on Our Shelves Wiki" to let patrons know what is new; online sharing of book musings -- online book idea exchange or book club (which the teens have but I don't think we have it for adults)-- would be a good way to share thoughts for a "big read"; MTV vidio as a library marketing tool; tagging as a reference tool.

Other Things to Learn: more indepth understanding and or practice with using most of the things we looked at. I feel like I really only had time to get an overview and for me to become a real user of any of these "things" I'd need to spend a lot more time on each than I could really afford in this training. I see it as a good introduction but I need more help and a slower pace to really become proficient in any one of the functions we were introduced to. I often found it frustrating because trying to figure out how to do something could be very frustrating and time consuming and I often felt I was spinning my wheels.

Week 9 # 22

LibriVox and Wowio both have a more commercial look and offer patrons some features the library ebooks or downloadable books do not. Wowio offers suggestions for similar books "if you like this book, you will also like..." which would be a nice feature. Librivox has community podcast about various titles. It appeared that books could actually be downloaded from these websites, whereas the library ebooks can't be downloaded nor can parts of them be copied and pasted. The books on these two websites are books that are in the publc domain so there are not copyright issues as there would be with books in Netlibrary etc. The books in Librivox appear to be recorded by volunteers instead of professional reader. The quality of the book reader may vary due to this. I couldn't find any Sue Grafton books listed on Librivox but we have the entire series A - S available in Overdrive. And yes, I would like to go back and listen to the older Sue Grafton books.

Cancer Podcast RSS Feed

http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/xmlfiles/cancerconnection.xml

Week 9, #21 Podcasting

Creating the RSS feed on Cancer seemed fairly easy if I did it right and it works which I'm not sure of yet. If it works, yea! and it was fun. If it doesn't I'd call it frustrating. It helped to have the printed directions to follow from "How to Publish Your Podcast on Blogger.com." The RSS feed I selected is on cancer because it is a topic I'm very interested in at this time.

Week 9 # 20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP1cRJdwQHs This was my attempt at downloading a video from Utube but I don't think it worked. I like Utube because it is fun but is also a good way to get a message across to people. I really liked the library music video and think HCPL should have something like that. Maybe get a local rapper to do it (not that I like that kind of music, but most of the younger generation does). I tried to paste Cat Diaries: Cat Tower # 13 which I picked because I like cats.

Week 8 #19 Web-based Apps.

I copy and pasted a word document from word files into the Zolo wordprocessing file and it looked fine on the Zolo website but I see that the document looks a little funny when I published it to the blog. The wordprocessing feature is very user friendly and looks like word so it is not a problem to use it. I am pleased to know about Zoho Writer as it is something I might actually use down the road.

Pearl Harbor Day

Attack on Pearl Harbor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a preventive military strike on the United States Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by the Empire of Japan's Imperial Japanese Navy, on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941. Two attack waves, totaling 350 aircraft, were launched from six IJN aircraft carriers which destroyed two U.S. Navy battleships, one minelayer, two destroyers and 188 aircraft. Personnel losses were 2,333 killed and 1,139 wounded. Damaged warships included three cruisers, a destroyer, and six battleships. Of those six, one was deliberately grounded and was later refloated and repaired. Two sank at their berths but were later repaired and both rejoined the fleet late in the war. Vital fuel storage, shipyards, and submarine facilities were not hit. Japanese losses were minimal at 29 aircraft and five midget submarines, with 65 Japanese servicemen killed or wounded.

The intent of the strike was to protect Imperial Japan's advance into Malaya and the Dutch East Indies – for their natural resources such as oil and rubber – by neutralizing the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Both the US and Japan had long-standing contingency plans for war in the Pacific, developed during the 1930s as tension between the two countries steadily increased, focusing on the other's battleships. Japan's expansion into Manchuria and later French Indochina were greeted with increasing levels of embargoes and sanctions from the United States. In 1940, the US halted further shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools and aviation gas to Japan, which Japan interpreted as an unfriendly act. America continued to export oil to Japan, as it was understood in Washington that cutting off exports could mean Japanese retaliation.   In the summer of 1941, the US ceased the export of oil to Japan due to Japan's continued aggressive expansionist policy and because an anticipated eventual American entrance to the war in Europe prompted increased stockpiling and less commercial use of gasoline.   President Franklin D. Roosevelt had moved the fleet to Hawaii, and ordered a buildup in the Philippines, to reduce Japanese aggression in China and deter operations against others, including European colonies in Asia. The Japanese high command was (mistakenly) certain any attack on the United Kingdom's colonies would inevitably bring the U.S. into the war.  A pre-emptive strike appeared the only way Japan could avoid U.S. interference in the Pacific. The attack was one of the most important engagements of World War II. Occurring before a formal declaration of war, it shocked the American public out of isolationism.  Rooseveltcalled December 7, 1941"… a date which will live in infamy."

Week 8 Social Networking

I'm finally back at this again. I read a number of the Newsweek article on Facebook and found them very interesting. Just browsing them provided an overview of some of the issues facing users of social networking sites. I personally have no desire at this point in time to sign up for any of the social networking sites not having much time to socialize network or any other way these days. Perhaps when I retire I'll think it is fun. I am happy to know a little more about these sites and to know what people are talking about when they refer to them. I liked the look of Facebook better than Myspace and thought Catster was the most interesting and fun. Since it has a narrower focus I imagine people would want to also belong to one of the other sites. I don't care for the cluttered look of Myspace. I guess that is why I liked Facebook better.

Week 7 # 17 Technology

I appreciate technology for what it does for us, particularly since I remember the days before online databases and when we had card catalogs to work with. I think of technology as a tool and something I have to learn to use to accomplish something. It is a means to an end, but not the end in itself. I really don't enjoy technology or think of it as a toy but I could not do my job today without it. Learning about all the different "things" about technology has been enlightening but I don't know how many of them I will actually use or participate in when our class is over. At least now I know what people are talking about, and that is a good thing.

Week 7 #16 Wiki

Book Lovers Wiki was fun to look at and reading the reviews gave me ideas for books I'd like to read.

I really like the SJCPL Subject Guides web page with the links to subject specific links. It was easy to us. "New Boookson Our Shelves" feature is a great way to let library users know what new items are available. The talk page is a good way to share ideas on books.

Wikis will be a great way for libraries to communicate with many library users. It is definitely something we should be developing.

Week 6 # 15 Library 2.0

I like the concepts of Library 2.0 and agree that they are really an extension of what many libraries have done for years. Web access will make it much easier to identify user needs and provide an easy direct access to user thinking. It will be easier for libraries to quantify needs and act on them. I like the idea of users being able to share their ideas on books they've read with each other online. Many will participate in an online environment book club type situation when they wouldn't in a face to face environment. We should get in front of it instead of behind it. It seems to me HCPL is doing a pretty good job of doing that.

Week 6 #15

I read all of the discussions and found them interesting. It makes me think of the early days of media -- the Media is the Message -- it took 40 years to get there and most libraries are not there yet. Certain segments of society will be on the forefront, especially the affluent but I don't see rural Texas libraries being in a position financially to participate fully. In response to the Iceberg -- my generation will need to die off before books disappear from the scene. It is great to get all kinds of information online, I love it but when it comes to reading a novel, I want a hard copy. The other acceptable option is to listen to a novel. I know that many library useres have no interest in using electronic books, even younger users, and some really like the idea. So I think for many years to come libraries will have to continue to cater to the needs and wants of a wide range of information access preferences.

Cooperation -- I really like the idea of the Open Worldcat. That will be great!

Week 6 #14

Searching Technorati by keyword brought up a number of entries but there seemed to be no blog tags for "learning 2.0" when I searched in the blog option for it.

Looking at Popular it was interesting that you can see what the blog is about by looking at the tags listed. I looked at one that made me realize the F word is not censored out of blog postings. I hadn't thought about the censorship issue in relation to blogs. I was surprised to see that Arianna Huffington has a blog and that one of the most popular blogs, Problogger, is about how to make money blogging. I hadn't really thought about blogging as a money making situation but of course it can be.

Tagging (week 6 #13)

I really liked delicious and have tagged about 10 sites I found on the HCPL delicious. The tagging is great and I do see a real use for this as a reference tool. I put Fedstats in just because it will be a handy way to get to it. This is a neat tool I'm sure I will use for reference and personally to provide easy access to websites I'm interested in.

Ribbon Generator

Week 5: LibraryThing and Library Elf exercises completed.

I thought I'd done a post on Ribbon Generator and found it in my draft. For some reason it has disappeared. I need to find the ribbon generator again or ceate another one. So I am not yet finished working on that part of week 5. I've tried and tried to add an Avatar -- so I'll try to post one from Weeme again. So I am not finised yet with this week (5). I did set up 5 books in Library Thing and have set up and am receiving the library elf message about overdues.

Avatar from Weeme

Both Week 3 and 4 Completed

For the completion of week 3, please see post on PicNic. That was the last exercise I needed to do before it was completed.

RSS Feeds are an interesting thought and I may actually use them in retirement but right now I don't really see how I will have time to even look at them. I went to Topix to add a feed on breast cancer. That is the only one I'll probably make a point to look at. I liked the Topix site the best because it was actually news instead of what appeared to be posts from drug companies. So, I do think having this feed on my blogline will be something I will use on a regular basis. I may also look at the NYTimes book reviews as well. I am behind because of being on vacation for a week and I was behind before I left. Racing to catch up but exercises are so time consuming for me since I am more technology challenged than some.

Picture Edited by picnic

I edited a picture in picnic but now I'm not sure how to save it to the blog. I wanted to put it in the blog. It is saved in picnic under the name aimeann if anyone wants to take a look at it and I marked it public. The title is pencil sketch of blue hills. Let me know if there is something else I need to do to complete this assignment. It was fun but took about two hours after trying all three picture edited approaches. I had little luck with the other two.

Flickr Fun -- # 5 and # 6 completed

Well, it looks like Flickr will be fun if I ever get good at it. I've heard of Flckr but now I have a personal relationship with it. The tripmap feature is a neat way to send your travel pics to friends, more interesting. I'd never heard of mashups before but I tried the Mashups sketch and it was fun. In color picker -- it was fun to play with. The trip planner looks like something I might use. I've uploaded two pictures to Flickr so I've completed Flickr #5 and #6 but I have not edited a picture. I will have to work on that when I come back from vacation.

Blogs

I never thought I'd sign up for a blog! It took awhile but now I have it. I know I learn better by doing so this was a good way to learn. Now all I have to do is try to remember my information so I can log in each time! That is the hard part!

OpEd Section

The Iraq cartoon in the Sunday Houston Chronicle OpEd section was funny. RE: The Way Forward.