Happy 16th Jessie!

Thing 16: YouTube

Isn't Stackers terrific! I heard about this program from "another" library. The kiddos seem to love it and the events are well attended. The library posts the top ten times each week/month. Pretty exciting and the cost is minimal.
YouTube is easy to work with...didn't encounter any problems with posting the video. A powerful way to reach a young audience in particular.

Thing 15: Rollyo

Rollyo is a helpful tool. I set up an account and then a searchroll for Native American sites. This is a popular research topic for the school kids and Lisa D. has made a list of these, but now it will be online for all to use. This is a great reference time saver. Grouping websites is awesome. I tried the challenge which was to create a search box tool on my blog. Hmmm, wonder if it works. Nope, it did not, so I am settling for a link instead.

http://rollyo.com/felixwalker/my_native_americans/

Thing 14: Online Productivity

I have decided to stick with iGoogle for most of my exploration so that everything is easily in one place; plus I am becoming more familiar with their format etc. Therefore my new start page is from igoogle. It is easy to use. I added it as a new tab on my "home page"; second only to The St. Johns Public Library site. I customized it with a header/footer of cartoon images of children playing on the beach...aahhh. There is a new countdown gadget on my blog as a constant reminder of the kickoff of our summer reading program and a visit from the Jacksonville Zoo.
Anxiously, I checked out and created an igoogle calendar. There would appear to be countless uses for this...children's programing, meeting room reservations, storytime themes per week etc. I can see using it for my husband's real estate business...we don't have a network so the calendar file sharing is ideal for scheduling his appointments when he switches from home computer to office computer to laptop. Very useful. As for to do lists..couldn't live without them and the online advantages are similar to that of the calendar. I plan on looking into the Backpack as a nice packaging option.

Thing 13: Library Thing

I can think of so many things to do with Library Thing that it is starting to stress me out! This is a very user friendly site with countless possibilities. I very easily set up an account and began to add books to my library. It was as simple as typing the ISBN # and, wallah (however you spell that), the remaining identifying information pops up. We catalog our storytime books in excel, but Library Thing is better spot. It was interesting to see the reviews from other readers and the Library Thing recommendations of other "similar" books is useful too. The tags will come in handy for themed storytime units. Adding Library Thing to my blog took two tries...this was the first time I've added a gadget. Right now I only have 5 books in my library that we use for the Just For Babies program. As time allows, I think this would be a terrific place to inventory our program books and tag them by age and theme.

Thing 12: Wiki's

Love them! Thanks to SJCPLS I was introduced to the wiki concept about a year ago when Nicole created the Youth Services Wiki. It gives us an opportunity to share information and resources without depending on a long string of emails that often get lost in the inbox. Whenever there is a "hot" topic we can add input via the wiki and spin ideas off of the posts of others. It is an awesome communication tool. I am set up to receive an email each time the wiki is updated so no time is wasted checking to see if someone has made an entry.


Per the 23 Things @ NEFLIN I explored the SJCPL wiki thinking that St. Johns county public library had a wiki I didn't know about, but alas, it was St. Joseph's county.


I give 5 stars to the many many uses of wikis!

Thing 11: Social Media

I checked out Mixx, Newsvine, Digg, and Reddit...I don't know, maybe I'm just not interested in the same topics as "people like me" (whoever they are!) Why wouldn't I just go straight to a worthy news source and cut out all the extras. Appears to be a productivity distractor, as I wandered off to see what Michael Jackson is up to now. Won't use it personally, but maybe the library could have a section on their site that incorporated the most searched book titles, subjects, and movies.

Thing 10: Tagging and Delicious

Well gee...I had never heard of Delicious until today. Sometimes I get alittle "click happy", so let's see if I can retrace my steps, because this is a very useful tool. I think that the applications are probably beyond what my first exploration has found, but nonetheless tagging and tag searching is quite a resouce.



First I went to the Delicious website and then I explored tags. I chose Storytime themes and got a gazillion options, some that I have used from a google search and others that were new to me. At one point I stumbled upon the Whatcom County library and their awesome Storytime theme handbook. Try this link: http://www.wcls.org/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=133&Itemid=214



I'll have to check with Amy at BT because I think she used some list of reference tagging to help me find some information for a patron, once upon a time. Assuming you have the time to research and tag your favorites this is yet another wonderful way to better serve our patrons.



I'm gonna choose my favorite 23 Things of NEFLIN links and tag them.

Thing 9: Sharing

Well, this was an easy one. I recommend Big Huge Labs...very user friendly with loads of creativity. Would be fun for a storytime blog.

Carla and I did a Warhol Art Project last month so that is my inspiration for this picture.

Next I turned a photo of my dear mother into a trading card. I think the kids will love this one. Could they scan their anime drawings and turn them into trading cards? Sort of the step-up from Pokemon cards. It would be a good campaign tool for class officers or something like that. I imagine that the movie poster feature would work much the same.

Thing 8: Communication Web 2.0 Style

Thought I would add this photo of my gang. We went to a family reunion in New Mexico and rode this train through the beautiful mountains. I'll have to add all of my cousins as "buddies" so we can IM.

If information is what the patrons want and if they want it fast IM, texting, and conferencing is the way to go. Immediate! I have used several website chat opportunities in the past. The NE FL Board of Realtors has a wonderful technical chat site to help realtors thru problems with their database. Properly monitored this type of tool could be a useful resource for libraries. It is the way of the world.

I set up a Meebo account and had my husband and daughter (she already had one) do the same. We IM'ed from three different rooms in the house and then had a three way chat as well. I think my sister, who lives up north, and I will have alot of fun with this. Certainly when Jess goes off to college we can drive her crazy with contact!

Thing 7: Online Image Generators

This was a fun exercise, though I got hung up in Toon Doo trying to add 23 images of Thing 1 and 2, so I gave up and went to The Generator Blog which is awesome. So many choices. I think we could really reach the kids with some of these gizmos. There seems to be many potential applications for eye-catching blog items.

Thing 6: More Mashups

These are fun and could be quite useful because they are so eye catching.

This photo is from Children's Book Week, we posted the reviews for everyone to read at the pizza party.

Thing 6: Mashup

Picture Post

Jessie helped with the Halloween festivities at BT.

Thing 5: Flickr

Been waiting several minutes now for the video"Online Photo Sharing in Plain English" to start playing. Looks like it's not happening so hopefully I can move on without it. The Clemens an Alcuin libraries had a good application of flickr on their website.



Think I will move on with Option B (always looking for more fun!).



Step 1: Set up Flickr account. That was easy, but I decided to upload my own buddy and that took a long time.

Step 2: Take pictures...just used ones we already had

Step 3: Upload. That was easy too. I tagged them all with 23 Things @ NEFLIN....wonder if that matter.

Step 4. Upload picture to my blog. That worked too, but next on my list is to figure out how to add the flickr pix to the blog.

I think flickr is a great way to get people to view our website. We never seem to tire of looking at our kids pictures. It can surely help to get the word out about all the wonderful events we offer at the library.

Thing 4: RSS

RSS is a great time saver, but it is making me feel computer illiterate. I added my first RSS to Google reader with no problems. News4Jax local breaking news...pretty cool. Then I decided to add the library's RSS feed..could only add it to google by the old "cut and paste" method. Both feeds are subscribed, but I really thought they would mysteriously land on my blog too. Hmmm. So much to learn. Any of my wonderful followers have a helpful hint?

Quite a useful personal tool, though I will have to think about how to put it to use for the library system. For now I am off to set-up a movie for the BT Wednesday matinee...

PS Who knew that google was so much more that just a search engine...(probably everyone but yours truly)

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

Searching blogs is much like searching the web. I used Technorati to search blogs for "valentine's day kids crafts". The result was 69 blogs. I did not understand the source for ratings on authority level. Who does that?

When I used the newly debuted Google blog search for the same search I got 93,263. I particularly liked the feature that allows you to sort by date of post.

Yet another wonderful internet tool to access the infinite world of information.

Thing 2: What is Web 2.0

Hmmm. I believe we must change with the times to keep the library relevant, however we must also keep our patron base in mind. Who are our patrons? What do they require? Are we a popular reading library or research library? One St Johns county library is vastly different from the next.

Let's not forget to give books to our children. As the mother of a 15 year old, I can see all too readily that countless hours are spent online. Our children must first develop a love of reading. Let's create an inviting environment for reading first. (That covers the very young and the older patrons). It is hard to remove the library "nerd" stigma to get the teens in, but it is hard to get them involved in anything.

What do you like better? Cuddling up in a big easy chair with a book or sitting at your desk?

Thing 1 Creating a Blog

Okay, here we go again. Must not have published my first post. Don't like this font. Better, good old Arial. Had a couple of growing pains. Forgot my username, but thankfully blogspot was forgiving and emailed me the info. Yippee.