#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.