Task Twenty Three -- To Sum Up

So, I had fun doing the 23 things. I think the Web 2.0 awards are the funnest, because you can scroll through and see all of the new cool gadgets on-line.

Since we should always be learning new things as librarians, Twenty-Three Things fits right in with that. The only thing I would change is the length of the tasks. They could easily take an hour which is quite difficult to do during the work day if at all. Otherwise, I thought it was good and fun and since librarians need to keep up on current technology, it might be a good thing to do it again. I would definitely participate in another one. Really staff computers and our Internet connection should be better to do some of these tasks, so maybe we should have an upgrade before we try it again. Still, this was great and I would do it again.

Task Twenty Two -- Podcasting

So, I signed up for ESPN Radio: ESPN Soccernet Xtra on my Bloglines account, which is a groovy soccer podcast out of England. I normally use ITunes for podcasts, but I think this might actually be a cooler way, because I don't like it that they automatically update my IPod every time I sync it. Anyway, the podcast directories are almost too dense and kind of hard to look through, but you can find some great things in there.

Task Twenty One (b) -- Online Videos

Youtube is an amazing site, though not that easy to search. I think it is more of a site where you look for something extremely specific or you just cruise around looking for something interesting. There is so much that comes up with any search it can be a pain to find things. Still, it is great. Also, libraries who want to post video on their site would do well to use YouTube or a similar site to link original videos. I like turtles.

Task Twenty One -- Online Videos

Task Twenty -- Special Treat

This was a very cool video. I think that we live in a neat time, but I'm not that blown away by Web2.0 stuff, because a lot of it is slightly differnt ways to do things that our generations have always done. If there are philosophical issues about what we are becoming in this new age, they are just always-present issues in a new context and not the other way around. The video is a great way, however, to highlight some of the new "issues" in the computer age.

I don't think this video would work for general audiences because more casual computer users may not know the context for many of the things shown in the video. The focus of the video is for everyone, but it may have to be translated for non-computer users.

Task Nineteen -- Digital Music

These days it seems like listening to online radio stations is easier than it used to be. I rarely have trouble finding a station and bringing up their audio on the computer. There are still some out there that need things downloaded or they have optional players that are better than the online version but need downloads. My favorite online radio include some sports-talk stations, ESPN Radio, slacker.com, HitKast and Pandora.


I have downloaded some music from ITunes, since I use that with my I-Pod. I haven't actually tried any others. Otherwise, I get free downloads from artists I like and independent artists who want their stuff listened to and talked about.

I have never used a file sharing site and don't really at this point feel the need to. Actually, I did use Napster briefly back in the days, but I had dial-up and it took forever to download anything. I usually am able to find what I need without using file sharing, but if an easy to use, legal site with music I want was available, I suppose I would be interested.

Task Eighteen -- Social Networking

Social Networking seems to have a couple of positive factors and a couple of negative factors.

The positives include more interactions with friends, family, co-workers, etc., even if these are "virtual" exchanges. These sites allow lots of sharing of media and ideas, which are always good things.

The negative aspects of social networking is when people surround themselves with only one point of view. For instance, a soccer fan could surround himself with only soccer "friends" on websites, only read pro-soccer news sites, be on soccer message boards, etc. The great wealth of information on the web could be counter-productive because their is so much. The fault obviously lies with the user not the software or the Internet itself, but it is still a point to make.

Having said that :) I've been on Facebook just a couple of months, but it is fun to interact with friends I don't get to see a bunch.

My Facebook page -- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=608781934

Task Seventeen -- Wikis

Wikis are fun and I think possibly the most useful Web 2.0 application for libraries. Libraries can create things that are much like the pathfinders of old but can add so much more and control the content more that in custom search engines and things like that. Wikis can combine tons of info with video, sound clips, links, etc. Libraries could do subject wikis, general using the library wikis, program wikis or I suppose one huge wiki with all of these things included. Some of the examples given in the asignment were well organized.

Task Sixteen -- Technorati

So, first of all, searching different ways led to completely different results. This was not completely unexcpeted, but I was surprised at how different it all was.

In looking at popular tags, I was not surprised by a lot of the tech sites like slashdot, but there was definately some odd things in there. I did not expect any "make money by..." type sites or more casual "what happened to me today" blogs.

Technorati is a neat site and the searching features make it better than others including Google's blog search feature.

Task Fifteen -- del.icio.us

My opinion on del.icio.us is similar to that of rollyo. It is a good site for doing some searches where it helps to see what other people have done. Librarians may be able to do this sort of thing where they prepare subject searches that are either searching appropriate web sites or using appropriate tags or a mashup of each way to search. At the moment, I would say that things need to be improved and taken to another level before it will be of use in libraries, though maybe that is something that libraries should be preparing now.

Task Fourteen -- Web 2.0

There were a ton of neat sites on the Web 2.0 awards that were fun to browse and play around with. Some of my favorites include Arcaplay, Yelp and Blinklist. My favorite discovery is meebo.com The awsome thing about Meebo is that you can access instant messaging from the web without having that software downloaded on the computer. You can also access several things like AIM and Google's IM at the same time. It is a fairly simple website, but that is something that I will begin using now.

Task Thirteen -- Zoho

Publishing to a blog from Zoho (see below) is very very cool. I like that feature a lot. Since it works so much like MS Word, it is easy and intuitive to use. Being able to share documents easily seems to be the biggest selling point of both Google Docs and Zoho, since anyone can get to them from anywhere.

Zoho Publish

Time to publish something from Zoho.

Task Twelve -- Rollyo

Learning how to use Rollyo was fun. I think that this could be a good library tool at some point. Librarians could edit a search feature by subject or grade level or something like that and allow patrons to have a better searching experience. Really though, Rollyo and Google co-op need to be more user friendly so that search rolls are easier found and used. I think that Google has a slight edge becuase people are used to their style and design, but both are good options for searching. View my Major League Soccer searchroll

Task Eleven -- LibraryThing

So, I think LibraryThing is really neat, though I use GoodReads, because I like the updating feature. There are quite a few blogs that have incorporated LT into their blog which is really cool. I put the last five books that I have read on my new LT account. Here is the link.

Task Ten -- Library Two Point Oh

As much as the terms Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 bother me, the concept is completely true. Libraries need to use the new modes of communicating and sharing information that are here to stay.

Library 2.0 is just using new technologies to do what libraries have been doing forever which is giving people the power to find the information that they need or want. A 2.0 library is more accessible to more people and is often remote and not tied to a library building.

Task Nine -- Library Blogs

So Technorati is my favorite of these types of sites. Really though, I think finding cool blogs/news sites on your own and then setting up the feed on a news readers is much easier. I have never found (though that doesn't mean it doesn't exist) a good site for searching blogs by topic and not by stories or posts. I did find some interesting stories on Technorati that I would not have seen elsewhere, so that rocks.

Task Eight -- Bloglines/RSS

I have used Bloglines for a while now. I had tried a couple of others like NewsGator. I can't remember why I did not like the others, but Bloglines is easy to use and I can keep track of a bunch of soccer blogs really easily this way. And there is nothing more important than keeping up with breaking Major League Soccer news. You can see my feeds at http://www.bloglines.com/public/Kingire

Task Seven (again)

Oh, here was another one I liked. This is from DoppelMe, which gives the user a lot of options for creating their character.

Task Seven -- Image Generators

I looked through a ton of these before I found some I really liked. Most are kind of interesting, but I thought that EasyStreet, which is where my sign came from, is amusing. I also love Pocket Emo . You can make your own emo guy and make him listen to music and become really sad and affected. As I said, I'm not really in to most of these, but any generator that lets you build a character is fun.

Task Six -- Mashups

So Montagr is obviously my favorite Flickr/3rd party site. It is so cool to check out all of the letter pictures and is quite easy to use. Some of the color seclector sites, of which there are a bunch, are really cool as well. You could spend hours looking at all of these different sites and some of them are even useful :)

Task Five -- Flickr

I put a couple of photos on Flickr. This is something my brother took for me, but I never ended up using for anything. I also put a picture from July's Harry Potter Party and tagged it KDL2.0. I like Flickr, though I usually use Photobucket if I need to store images somewhere. That, however, is only because I knew of Photobucket before discovering Flickr. The tag feature is my favorite part about Flickr.

Thing Three and Four: Seven and a Half Lifelong Learning Habits

Easiest thing from the habits: Using technology to my adavantage because that is fun anyway.

Hardest: Probably problems as challenges just because problems are problems.

The First Post

This is my opening post because I am a firm believer in opening posts. Thus begins 23 things...