Week 13 - Thing 23

Well, this is it!  I'm a little sad.  I have enjoyed my time with 23 Things enormously and I feel I learned a lot.  I think my favourite "things" have been:  blogs & blogging, RSS feeds, widgets, online mapping, and LibraryThing.  My least favourite thing had to be Prezi - not because I didn't find Prezi a useful "thing", but because it was the most frustrating "thing" to learn how to use.

I would like to thank the LDC and the contributors to the 23 Things program.  You did a super job of leading me into being a little more tech savvy!

Week 13, Things 21 & 22

I love Wordle!  I think I could play on it for hours.  Not sure what I would do with all of the word clouds I made though.  They are pretty and amusing but not terribly useful.  Hmm - that sounds like a line from a Jane Austen novel. 

LibraryThing was great.  Very useful - I can't wait to use it on my home computer.  My small family owns LOTS of books and I find it very frustrating that I can't easily determine what we own and what we have borrowed from the library.  This is especially true for my eldest - a voracious reader whose books all seem to have the same blurb on the back cover.  I can't tell you how many duplicates have been purchased/borrowed over the years.  On LibraryThing I could make lists of every family member's personal collections plus their "wanted" lists.  Yippee!  Finally a website that caters to my desire for organization.

I briefly looked at Smilebox.  I can see how it would be useful but it holds no appeal for me. 

Week 12, Things 19 & 20

I enjoyed playing around with online mapping using Community Walk.  What a neat way to highlight the great venues that Saskatoon has to offer its citizens and tourists.  I can see how this could be used to show patrons how to get to the nearest public library or bookstore. 

I tried Google maps - entered the address for my parents house, the house I grew up in.  I was going to try adding my hometown to my blog.  What a shock!  The map had a picture of the front of the house and I could see my dad & brother sitting on the front porch.  Yikes!  It was blurry and you would have to know the people involved but it does seem invasive.  Still, I've been feeling rather homesick lately and seeing my dad's face made me smile.   Technology is a wonderful, terrible thing ...

Week 11, Thing 18

Yippee for countdowns!  I not only created one for the end of 23 Things but I also created one for my vacation time this summer.  It seems a depressingly long time away (my vacation, that is) but it is neat to see the seconds rolling away.  Only 125 days, 8 minutes and 7 seconds to go ...

Week 11, Thing 17

Well, I spent parts of the last three days looking at Diigo.  I can see where it could be useful in the Library.  There are usually one or two assignments each semester that have a question that is asked repeatedly at the Reference Desk.  As it is never the same person on the desk it would be useful if we could bookmark a page so that the same information is given to all patrons.  I took a look at some of the other social bookmarking sites also.  Newsvine was interesting although very U.S. oriented.  I don't think I would ever use a social bookmarking site for personal stuff though.

Week 10, Things 15 & 16

Some pretty interesting things this week.  I was, quite reluctantly I might add, prodded into joining Facebook around a year ago.  I'm pretty relaxed in my use though - I only remember to visit every couple of days and I rarely post.  It seems a bit voyeuristic to me - and yes, I  know people give me permission to enter their worlds.  I do find certain parts useful/enjoyable though - it's great for keeping up with my older nieces in Ontario and I enjoy the occasional "conversation" with friends and family back home.   

Twitter is another story all together.  I was extremely reluctant to tackle this thing.  I cannot figure out what is the purpose of Twitter.  To me, it seems like an abbreviated version of Facebook.  It seems to be designed for those who want to talk but not in person.  To me this seems odd.  However, I was dutiful and signed on for a Twitter account.  I even admit to enjoying looking at the various interests out there.  I signed up for 11 streams!!! (two of which were library related).  It remains to be seen whether I remember to check my Twitter account on even a semi-regular basis.

If nothing else this 23 Things experience is going to drag me into the world around me.  I guess it's up to me to embrace this new world ...

Week 9 - Thing 14

Well, here is this week's thing.  I knew all about the private side of Flickr.  My husband & I already have an account to share family pictures with our realtives out East.  It's a great tool for feeling a little closer.  I have to admit I never really looked into the public aspect of Flickr though.  Not sure how useful it would be for the Library ...

Photo by: Tattooed JJ.

URL: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4146/4844402543_6a5513ca71_b.jpg

Week 7, Things 11 & 12

I just finished this week's "thing".  I have been using Wikis for about a year now - my LLDP group used our Wiki almost daily and found it helpful.  One thing I didn't like about the Wiki was updating attachments.  It was complicated and time consuming.  The update feature to e-mail is great - I would never remember to check the Wiki otherwise.  The Murray Reference Support Group has a Wiki also.  There is a "Tips & Tricks" page that I know is going to get a lot of use!  Wikis are definitely a useful group tool.

Week 6, Thing 10

I can't say that I liked this "thing" very much.  I'm not sure that I would use podcasts for anything/any reason.  I did look at quite an interesting one done by the Reference Desk staff at Emory University.  However, the podcasts were all really old - maybe they got bored?  I finally settled on one about books.  Here is the url if you want to check it out: http://books.podcast.com/show/1095/NPR-Books-Podcast/

Week 6, Thing 9

Can we all sing along?  "C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me".  Ah, it brings back memories.  Well, C is for Cookie and C is for Christine and Christine works in a library so here is my video!

Week 5, Thing 8 cont'd

Yay!  I finished my Prezi.  It was an interesting process, if somewhat frustrating.  But once I was able to access videos in YouTube and recover from a possible virus scare (yikes!  Thanks, Mike!) it was pretty worthwhile.  I hope you enjoy.

http://prezi.com/rctwz7xt96uq/music-to-shop-by/

Week 5, Thing 8

Well, this is frustrating.  I was all set to work on Prezi and I can't access any of the videos on YouTube.  I guess I will have to set this aside and work on it next week.  Back to searching for ILLs I guess ...

Week 4, Things 6 & 7

Short week of work and day shifts - life is good.  This week's "things" were really quick but I can see the potential for Google docs.  It would have been a useful tool for our team project in LLDP.  Much easier than trying to share documents in our Wiki or by e-mail.  I think the next step is to try accessing it remotely.

Week 3, Things 4 & 5

Good "things" today - I am looking forward to finding more RSS feeds.  Not sure how relevant this will be to my position in the Library.  I guess I'll know more once I do some exploring.  I wonder if the Food Network has a RSS feed?  I could sure use a few new recipes to rotate into the 5 boring ones my picky boys will eat right now ...

Week 1, Thing 1

This was a pretty easy "thing" for me as I already use an iGoogle page for my home page at work.  Learning how to create tabs was a real bonus though.  My iGoogle page is much cleaner looking now. 

Week 2, Thing 2/3

A day of firsts - creating my blog, writing my blog and soon registering my blog.  I definitely feel as if I have stepped into the 21st century.  I am enjoying the whole 23 Things process - learning at work has never been this much fun!