Thing 10 - Tagging and Delicious

Collaborative tagging, or social indexing, is organic, evolving and user-created, unlike a controlled vocabulary.

I already had an old Delicious account, but I had never really used it. I added some of my favorite recent bookmarks to it and used more tags rather than fewer this time. I do need to go back and clean it up. I am one of those who has used both "library" and "libraries" as tags, and that is not a tidy way to do it. My account is at http://delicious.com/gcarr55858

I took a quick look at Furl. I liked the opening page, graphics and the introductory information there better than at Delicious. At Furl you can save a cached copy of your bookmarked sites in case some of the sites disappear in the future.

At Pagekeeper there is a user-friendly mini tutorial that introduces its features. I really liked the layout of their sample page. I think Pagekeeper could be adapted for use in libraries to construct informational pages for staff as well as for patrons.

Thing 9 - Sharing slides, photos, databases

Still in a Valentine's mood, I went for some romantic poetry. This slideshow was very fast and easy to put together. It would be so much fun to make little book trailers for the library.

Thing 8 - Communication Web 2.0 Style

Instant Messaging

I use AIM at home, but I don't really like it because I see it as an irritating interruption.

However, there is something in this category that I have used a lot and love. That is Skype. I used it a lot in 2007 when my husband spent most of that year traveling extensively overseas. Skype uses Voice over Internet Protocol. The calls are loud and clear and FREE between Skype users. I easily talked to my husband when I was in Gainesville and he was visiting a research station on a coral island 40 miles off the coast of Belize in Central America. The connection was great and the sound quality was perfect, so much better than most phone calls.

Text Messaging (Short Message Service)

I do not use this, but my daughter does. As a non-user, all I can say is that I like that it's silent. I do think it's cool that the Australians have started Reference by SMS.

Web Conferencing

I enjoy webinars and am excited about OPAL. From their Archives, I listened to a few minutes of Pat Wagner's "Communication Skills For Front Line Library Staff." Webinars are great teaching tools for library staff.

One of my library school classes at USF used Elluminate last year for some class meetings. I thought it worked very well and hope that more of the professors start using it.

Thing 7 - Online Image Generators

Happy Valentines's Day


candy hearts at Image Chef

Image Chef was very easy.

These online image generators are useful for adding some sparkle to library displays, flyers and programs.

Thing 6 - Flickr Mashups

Countries I want to visit on a long vacation

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

I played with several fun things at Big Huge Labs and successfully killed a lot of time. Some of these things could be used to spice up library presentations and programs.

Thing 5 - Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmvnoos/2613855312/

Staying with my theme of chocolate truffles, I found this elegant bowl of truffles on Flickr. This photo was taken in Paris, which only adds to the allure, don't you think?

The folks at the Clemens and Alcuin libraries are so cool. The entries in their Edible Book Festival are really clever and imaginative. My favorites were The Grapes of Wrath and Gone With the Wind.

The Library of Congress photos are, of course, amazing. I spent a long time browsing there.

I also browsed through the Alachua County Library's Flickr photos.

Thing 4 - RSS and Newsreaders

Really Simple Syndication is a tool for subscribing to news and updates so I don't have to visit the sites and spend time looking for updates. With RSS, the updates come to me. I like the analogy that it is like a magazine rack in my house.

I watched the Common Craft Show on RSS in Plain English. To get an RSS feed there are two steps: sign up for a reader, then subscribe to my favorite news sites or blogs.

I picked Google Reader and it was all so easy and fast to get set up. I clicked their Browse for Stuff button and selected a bunch of their bundles: Environment, Science, News, Movies, Recipes and LOST. I also added the LIS News, Univ. of Florida News and Gainesville Residents News. I think the LIS News would be very handy to use at work.

Then I started reading and reading and reading. I can see this is going to require 23 out of 24 hours a day to keep up with it. Maybe I added too much....I am not sure I have the self control to deal with all this interesting stuff.

Thing 3 - Blog Search Tools

I found the link to Blog Search Engines: The Complete Overview in the Search Engine Journal to be very helpful. Seeing the features at a glance and reading the simple summaries got me off to a good start on this topic. It appears that Google Blog Search may be more to my liking than Technorati.

Now for my search - how about chocolate truffles recipes? mmm.... I conducted my searches using Technorati and Google Blog Search and was quite surprised by the difference in the results.

Technorati gave me 14 results that were largely irrelevant. Only 2 of the 14 had actual recipes for chocolate truffles in them. One of the recipes had obscure ingredients, but I hit the jackpot with a recipe from Design Sponge Online for Balsamic Chocolate Truffles (with a hint of cherry). I think this one is a keeper. Sorting of results can only be done by date.


Then I searched using Google Blog Search and got 69,157 results. The first ten results all had good recipes in them. The second ten looked very promising. I am up to my neck in chocolate truffles recipes. I could have sorted by relevance or date, but I did not bother.


So I am off to Publix to buy dark chocolate, cocoa powder, etc.

Thing 2 - What is Web 2.0?

Blogger John Blyberg describes L2 as a movement, an internal reorganization, a paradigm shift. It will require changes in the library's internal structure and mission. He says to "let go of bygone notions of what library is."

Rick Anderson talks of "user-centric service."

Stephen Abram says in his video that only by using the Web 2.0 tools will we be able to understand them. As for finding the time to learn all the 23 Things, Abram talks of being "addicted to the excitement of learning." I can easily find the time each week to work on a couple Things. I just need to cut down on playing solitaire on the computer every night and reduce my idle news browsing on cnn.com.

Dr. Wendy Schultz's descriptions of Library 3.0 and Library 4.0 (a knowledge spa?) blew my mind.

I have already used several of the 23 Things, but I look forward to learning about all of them and incorporating some more of them into my work and my personal life.

Thing 1 - Start the blog

Getting started was fun and very easy. I have played around and spent about an hour on this which was much more time than I really needed. But I was playing and having fun, so that's okay. I expect to tweak my blog later with various enhancements.

I watched the commoncraft introduction and was surprised that there are 70 million blogs out there, more than I would have guessed.

I spent some time reading what my friends have posted and adding them to my blogroll. Now I have to figure out which blog names my other friends and co-workers are hiding behind. Eric, I am looking for yours!