Thing 12: Web 2.0 & L2

I've been reading Technorati tag results for Library 2.0: http://technorati.com/tag/library+2.0
Our small branch library is filled with tweens & teens on MySpace, playing games, occasionally looking for help with assignments, sometimes just wanting the newest movies. They are geared not towards reading books, but the web. I get the feeling that their attitude is the librarian at the reference desk is the disciplinarian, computer time management boss, and movie finder. If we could engage them online, I think our perceptions of one another would change for the better. Putting up a sign of instructions may not work, but IM-ing how to find the latest urban fiction or movies and place a reserve might work. Librarians should be "buddies" with their patrons.
Because we are drowning in bureaucracy, we've been denied the ability to use meebo, to put branch news online, interact in L2 fashion.

Thing 8: Flickr Fun & Mashups

It's a bit tricky trying to get some of the images I created to save and post. The Spell with Flickr letters save only individually. Lets give it a try:

Thing 6: More Blogs & Newsfeeds

I tried out a few more searches for Blog Feeds. I didn't care for Technorati. Perhaps I'm not nerd enough. I scrolled through the Bloglines top 100 and found some of interest which was fairly easy.
Since I have an interest in alternative medicine, I used that as a search term in Syndic8 and came up with a few authoritative sites from the bunch. The categories search did not work as well as the keyword search for me. Just keeping up with the plethora of information one subscribes to is daunting, but every once in awhile, its worthy.

Thing 14: LibraryThing

I had heard of LibraryThing earlier but didn't spend any time figuring it out. I set up a few titles off the top of my head as you can see from my widget. Although at work I am meticulous with the catalog and shelving accuracy, at home my books are barely in broad subject order. I did explore the social aspect of Library Thing and wrote a message to someone with a similar library. That was sweet. Its really quite similar to another group I belong to, BookMooch. Here you send books you no longer want to keep, to people who would like that particular title. Then you can look through others' inventory and request their book for free. You make 'friends' just like any other online social networks. I currently have 12 books in my inventory, I've given away 11 books, I've received 8. Sometimes I have books sent to my step-grandson as my gift to him to encourage his reading. I think I'd like to catalog my Honey's library as much as possible. He's a doctor of Alternative Medicine and has been collecting books on nutrition and health all his life. It would be a good way to get his collection organized.

Thing 11: Tagging My Blog

A few nights ago my Honey really wanted some Tom Kha Gai soup. So he started procuring some of the ingredients. Thai cooking is rather complicated it turns out. So we ended up in a Thai restaurant for the soup, which was delicious. The mixture of spicy flavors with sour flavors was quite intriguing to me. I was shelving some books in the junior section and one was on Thai cuisine which I checked out. I later found 5 or 6 more books in the adult section, but they are more complicated although the explanations of the sauces was more complete. I've decided we will go back to the Asian market and procure more of the necessary basic ingredients and try some recipes out at home.
A website directory for recipes I've found most helpful is www.foodieview.com
Actually its a recipe search engine. Instead of going to all your favorite recipe sites and searching them one by one, you can just use this search service by dish name, ingredient, cuisine, or chef. The recipe search results are sorted both by relevance and user rating, which makes it really easy to see the promising recipes.
So I will let you know how our foray in Thai cookery turns out.

Thing 13: Online Image Generator

There's a lot you can do with your pictures! I couldn't think of anything really amusing, so here is a beautifully framed picture taken by Michael McGuire at the North Lauderdale International Festival last January 2007. The framing was done at http://bighugelabs.com /flickr/frame.php and they did a very nice job for the price (free).
I'm still working with online photo developers to get prints for holiday presents. Knowing about Image Generators will be interesting for the future.

Thing 10: Del.icio.us tagging

I do like Del.icio.us! It is so convenient to have the bookmarks web based since I am on various terminals throughout the day. I have started putting del.icio.us tag buttons on all of them. I did import some bookmarks from another computer, but had to delete most of them upon inspection since they lacked my interest.
I have not collected anyone's user names to network with at this time. It would be a lot easier than emailing links to one another. This is by far the most helpful 2.0 add-on. I'm spending way too much time reading my blog feeds, but "Unshelved" is so funny and its good to keep up on current publications, just in case I get some readers inquiries.
I added a picture to my profile. Come say hello.

Thing 9: Technology & Managing Photos

I'm finding the photo sites quite time consuming to use. I've got a Picassa account with several roles of film pictures. However, when I uploaded the discs I put them in separate albums. Now I haven't figured out how to move the pictures to different albums unless I go back to the original discs and pick and choose. When I worked with the yahoo pictures, before their gallery site ended, they had a tray area where you could drag the uploaded pictures to organize them. At first I thought it odd, but now I see the editing advantages. I don't have a digital camera, but have the 45mm film processed for both prints and CDs, so maybe there's more latitude when uploading from the digital camera itself. Above is a photo taken on my phone, transferred to my T-Mobile album, saved to my work computer, and uploaded here. Its a picture of taken in New Mexico where I was vacationing last September.

Thing 7: Flickr

Here is a postcard made using Trading Card Maker. I noticed I already had a Flickr account from awhile back. I've been using Picasa lately though. The Flickr Color Pikr was nice. Some of the others I just didn't 'get.' I ended up in a video game. I've sort of figured out how to wrap the text around the inserted images and have re-edited to get rid of the html that caused underlining.

Thing 5: RSS Feeds

I understand that using Bloglines or other RSS feed aggregator can save time surfing. However, when I actually start viewing the news and articles, this takes up an enormous amount of my professional time. I discovered that I already had a Bloglines account which I set up a couple years ago when Steve Wilson, my then co-worker, suggested it. I guess I was too busy I edited my selections. I couldn't get into the feedster website. I found the other blog directories confusing. I made successful searches of blog articles, but didn't get the hang of subscribing to certain subject areas.
I have in the past created iGoogle accounts using FireFox browser. Here you can "add a tab" to your home page. It created a home page using the search term "Broward County Library." This page contains links to articles from: Unshelved, Librarian's e-library, Librarian.net, LIS News, Library Stuff, LII, Shifted Librarian, etc. just like an aggregator. I like the look of it.

Life Long Learning and the 7 Habits

Hmm, Habit #7 1/2: play, be curious, and read all about it. How easy could that be? That's me. Now, #3: view problems as challenges, that's a sticky wicket. That's a life long learning experience just in itself, but I'm working on it!