Thing #21: Podcasts

I couldn't find it in any of the recommended podcast directories, but I have added the Nebraska Library Commission's podcast to my Bloglines account. While I was at it I also found and added the BookTalk podcast. I have added a blogroll of my Bloglines account subscriptions to the column on the left so that you can see my podcasts and other RSS subsciptions - I should have done that earlier for the Bloglines Thing.

As with YouTube, wikis, etc., podcasts are a way in which libraries can share their knowledge and practices with their staff, patrons, and professional peers.

Thing #20: YouTube

Here are two of my favorite musicians - Damon Albarn of Blur and Ray Davies of the Kinks - performing one of my favorite songs - Davies' "Waterloo Sunset". I don't spend much time exploring YouTube because I am afraid of getting too much into it and letting it steal all of my time, but I do like looking up the occasional music video or music performance.

As for YouTube and libraries, the possibilities are endless: advertisements, instructional videos, online copies of archival film holdings, etc. Any video that a library creates can be posted to YouTube if the library so wishes, thereby reaching a wide audience - if anyone can find it in amongst all the other stuff on YouTube!

Thing #19: Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Via seomoz.org I discovered the yourminis site. Yourminis offers a bunch of widgets that people can add to their websites. I used it to add an "O! What a Geek Deadline" countdown widget to the side of my blog.

UPDATE December 2, 2008: I replaced the countdown to the old deadline with a countdown to the new deadline.

Thing #18: Web-based Apps

This posting was created using the Google Docs word processing program. That program is remarkably similar to Microsoft Word, at least in its basic features. Likewise for the Google Docs spreadsheet program and Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet program was running a little slow when I was looking at it, with multi-second pauses whenever I tried to change anything, but it did a really good job of uploading an existing Microsoft Excel file. Every computer that I use at work and at home has Microsoft Word and Excel installed on it, so I don't think I'll have much use for Google Docs. But I can see the use for the people who are on the run a lot and/or people who do not own their own computer and have to use public computers.

Thing #17: PBwiki

I have added my blog to the plcmclearning Favorite Blogs page. It was easy enough to log in to the wiki and add the URL for my humble blog. I used to have a PBwiki account (I no longer remember why I signed up for it) but my username and password are no longer valid, so I just used the plcmc login. I declined to add a few of my favorite things to the wiki.

Thing #16: Wikis

After looking at some of the library-related wikis I can see that wikis are a useful tool for libraries. The question is when to use them. If a library system is comfortable with the idea of letting all of its staff or even any member of the public to edit content then a wiki would be an easy way of making information available. On the other hand, if the ability to edit a wiki is going to be limited to select staff members then a wiki is not necessarily an easier format than some of the alternatives. A lot of the information found in OPL's SamePage could be done in wiki format, but if the only staff members who were allowed to edit that wiki were the same ones who are currently allowed to edit content in SamePage there would be no point in using a wiki instead. But I can see the usefulness of something like the BookLoversWiki, especially if everybody on the staff, and everybody in the general public, is allowed to add their own book reviews. It's a question of trust. Goodness knows Wikipedia works much better than I ever would have expected it to.

Thing #15: Library 2.0

I have a confession to make: I really, really hate readig or listening to discussions about Library 2.0. They so often have a smug, hysterical "This is the soul of civilization that we're fighting for here!" quality that drives me right up the wall. I like some Web 2.0 applications (blogs, delicious) and am indifferent to others (LibraryThing, Technorati). I think that, on balance, the Web and Web 2.0 technologies have allowed me to become a better informed person than I otherwise would have been, but I also think that sitting in front of a computer screen reading stuff does eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. The whole idea of people spending vast amounts of their time communicating with each other online often sounds very narcissistic and unappealing to me - until I remember that I like to spend a portion of my time reading those communications and benefit as a result. Librarians should have at least a passing familiarity with Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 tools, and libraries should adopt at least some of those tools, but no one should expect a golden age to dawn or a dark age to descend.

Thing #14: Technorati

I still don't find Technorati very interesting, although I can see how the Popular feature might come in handy when trying to satisfy one's curiosity about what is popular in the blogosphere. It is interesting to see that Boing Boing is the most popular blog in the world since after looking at the blog I have absolutely no idea why it is so popular. Not my cup of tea.

Anyway, here is my Technorati tag: PLCMCL2

Thing #13: Delicious

I already have a delicious account. Delicious is one of my favorite Web 2.0 tools, as I explained in an earlier post. The PLCMCL2 account demonstrates one way in which delicious can be used as a reference tool as it brings together dozens of links and makes them into a kind of searchable database that participants can use. Perhaps the OPL's web link pages could be converted into a delicious account. It might be easier than updating the OPL website whenever a link needs to be added or subtracted.

Thing #12: Rollyo

I have created a Rollyo search engine that searches the OPL's three digitization projects: the Trans-Mississippi collection, the Early Omaha collection, and the Nebraska Memories collection. In the past we had no means of searching all three at once, but now we can. This, or something like it, could be a great boon to staff and patrons.

I have also added a search box for the new search engine to the left-hand toolbar.

Thing #11: LibraryThing

I first set up a LibraryThing account two or three years ago. I remember planning to enter every book I have ever read (I have a list of them), but after entering about a dozen or so books I came to the conclusion that the endeavor was pointless - or, at least, not worth the time it would take to complete - and gave it up. Logging in to my LT account today for the first time in many months I found that I had deleted everything I had originally entered but had, for reasons I can no longer recall, added Jack London's The Call of the Wild back when I re-read it for Omaha Reads. Now I have added the five books I have read most recently to my library.

Thing #10: Image Generators

From the Vinyl Record Generator.

Exercise #9: Finding Feeds

I actually don't find Topix, Syndic8, or Technorati very useful. Topix and Technorati just seem like jumbles of random links to me. I know they're not just random collections of links, but they're not really selected or edited either, and they feel like a mess to me. I'd much rather go to a handful of online news sources (BBC News, various online editions of newspapers, selected blogs) to keep up with what is going on in the world than use either of these sites. And if I want to search for websites on a given topic I'd much rather just go to a search engine and do a search for the subject than try to use Syndic8, which seems very clunky and awkward to me. Since, as I said below, I don't really like RSS readers, I don't have much use for a tool that only searches for sites that offer RSS feeds. At any rate, I find that the best way to discover new blogs and other websites is to follow links to them from sites that I already follow. It works for me.

Exercise #8: Bloglines

I already have a Bloglines account. I set it up after taking one of Michael Sauers' classes about a year or so ago. I only use it to follow a dozen or so library-related blogs: the NLA, the NLC, the Federal Depository Library Program and a couple other government document-related websites, Planet Cataloging, Unshelved, and, now, a handful of blogs by my OPL co-workers. After I initially set up the account I used it to follow pretty much every website I visit regularly that has a RSS feed, but after a couple weeks I realized that I really didn't like following blogs that way. Bloglines makes everything look the same, and I found it very dreary to read every blog post in the same visual format. I much prefer visiting the various sites themselves, and never found it to be too much work to do so, especially after I set up my delicious account. Perhaps there are other RSS readers that are less monotonous, but I haven't looked at any of them. I left a few subscriptions in my Bloglines account mainly so that I can remain somewhat fluent in the use of RSS readers. And now it has come in real handy with this assignment!

Exercise #7: Technology

I may be jumping ahead of the O! What a Geek schedule by discussing this, but my favorite Web 2.0 tool is the delicious bookmarking tool. Prior to discovering delicious I had to use a really primitive, jerry-rigged system wherein I had to bookmark websites on all of the browsers I use, organize my links using a bunch of unwieldy folders, and save the bookmarks as a webpage on my flash drive. It was a real pain. Now I just log into my delicious account whenever I settle in at a terminal and add any new links I like to my accessible-from-anywhere delicious account. And tags are an infinitely better way of organizing links than folders, since you can "file" a link in more than one place without ending up with a really long and awkward folder tree.

The ironic thing is that I do not really use delicious as a Web 2.0 tool, at least in terms of sharing information. I tag all of my bookmarks but I don't pay any attention to other people's tags or bookmarks, and I don't share most of my bookmarks with anyone else - the only current exceptions being my O! What a Geek-related links.

I have, however, trained a couple of my co-workers in the use of delicious, despite such training being my 7-and-a-half habits tutorial Achilles' heel.

Exercise #6: More Flickr

Jellyfish face, originally uploaded by zqb.

The above photo was found using the Flickr Colr Pickr mashup. I can see how that tool would be useful in designing images, mosaics, flyers, and so on, when the designer is aiming for a particular color scheme.

Likewise, I can see how the Flickr map tool could be of use, although so far I have found simple tag searches to be a more thorough way of finding images - a regular search for images of the Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge near Fort Calhoun found 107 images, whereas I only found 58 using the map tool.

Exercise #5: Flickr

Garden - After the Storm, originally uploaded by jlib2008.

I have created a Flickr account!

I often talk about gardening with some of my co-workers, so I uploaded some pictures of my garden into my new Flickr account. Above is a picture of my backyard garden taken after the big thunderstorm of June 27, 2008. Even zucchini has a hard time standing up to such a storm. You can see a couple pictures of my garden after its recovery from the storm by going to my Flickr photostream.

Creating a Flickr account wasn't too hard, but it sure is a lot more fun to look at other people's photos than it is to go through all the little steps required to upload my own. It's a lot more fun taking photos, too. But this is a nice way to share photos with a lot of people.

Exercise #4: Register Your Blog

Done!

Exercise #3

I have, as you can see, set up my blog.

Exercise #2

I have listened to the 7 and 1/2 Habits tutorial.

The only one of the 7-and-a-half habits that is really difficult for me is teaching and mentoring others. (Well, sometimes it is hard to view problems as challenges, too.) I often find it difficult to explain things I know to others, because I feel like I "just know" them, and I don't remember the steps it took to acquire that knowledge. It's something I need to work on. On the other hand, one of the advantages of trying to explain something to someone else is that I sometimes discover that I don't really know what I think I know, or I am inspired to learn about aspects of a tool that I had not explored before. I tend not to master an online tool completely, but only learn about the aspects of it that seem useful to me. That too is something I need to work on. But setting goals, accepting responsibility for my own learning, creating my own toolbox, etc. - no problem.

Exercise #1

I have read the Wikipedia article on Library 2.0 and the Library Instruction Wiki article on Library 2.0. Off to a good start.