Thing #46 - Evaluation

Just realized that I never wrote anything about the evaluation. I really enjoyed the second set of 23 Things, but not quite as much as the first. Some Things had too much material to cover and since I tend to be very thorough, I spent days on some of them. It was fun to amaze my children with some of the things that I learned.

Thing #45 Webjunction Minnesota

I set up a WJMN account. Years ago I used it to find some information, but haven't looked at it since.

I had never taken the time to really look into the courses before, there are some really good ones that I hope to register for in the future. May ask that staff members take one or two a year also.

Thing #45 Cloud Computing

I have been using cloud computing for both myself and the library for awhile now. I did look into G.ho.st (http://g.ho.st/)and set up an account, but it seems to be a lot like iGoogle and I found it rather hard to use. I really don't like to provide info for some of my accounts like Facebook. The wrong person may get hold of it. So for now I'll just stick to what I have. Another site: http://www.glidedigital.com/

Thing #44 The Economy

In Banking 2.0 I first signed up to Mint.com, but stopped when it asked for bank number. I will not put my bank info on any site. So then I tried ClearCheckbook (https://www.clearcheckbook.com/) which didn't ask for any info. This is alot like a program that I was using on a computer that crashed and I lost everything! I may just use this one.

Feed the Pig (http://www.feedthepig.org/) was fun to try out. Driving and Cell phones sections could be useful when needed.

Years ago I had signed up for Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/), but lost interest. Just signed up again since they now have one in my county.

Not much interested in Shopping, coupon or self sustainability sections.

Best tip for saving money? Don't go to stores to 'browse'.

Thing #43 Online TV & Video

Looked at both Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/) and Joost (http://www.joost.com/). Hulu seems to have more available so I signed up for this one. I watch very little and don't have internet at home so probably won't really use this. I really didn't find much that interests me.

Right now I don't see that it will have much inpact on tv as there is just not that much available at this time.

This is a very bad movie, but one that just has to be watched!

Thing #42 Music 2.0

Since I don't have internet at home I don't get much chance to listen to music. I have a few favorite internet bluegrass stations I listen to when I'm on the internet.

I opened a Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/#/account/sign-in/) account quite a few months ago, but wasn't really impressed. Today I am trying out Grooveshark, which I like better. It will take awhile to set it up and I don't know if I'll ever finish.

I opened an account with Reciva (https://www.reciva.com/index.php) today and added a few bluegrass stations along with German Bible Broadcasting Network.

As long as not everyone has internet it will not replace radio. I really do like the internet radio.

Thing #41 Mash Up Your Life

I signed up for both Lifestream (http://lifestream.fm/) and friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com/) a few days ago to compare them. I don't feel they are very useful as they duplicate what I see on Facebook and Twitter. To test them out I wrote a Tweet and checked both, but it hasn't shown up on Lifestream yet. Also, can't figure out how to search for people on Lifestream. Like Friendfeed much better. I don't know if I'll continue using this (but things change).

I really can't see that they will make my life easier - only would add. They duplicate what I already have, but maybe if I had started with these it would be different.

Thing #40 Mashup the Web

Picture of my daughters Morris Minor.

Some thoughts on this thing:

• Already had a Pandora account, but I rarely use it.


• Wasn't interested in anything under 'Books'.


• Signed up for ping.fm and tried it out, but probably will never use is again. Lunchbox would be better if there were more restraurants listed. Wheel of Food was fun, but doesn't list everything.


• Flickr memari was fun once I figured it out. Entered SELCO and Preston Public Library. If I remember about this I will probably do again.


• Time Tube seemed to be stuck - never did get anything.
  

Nothing here really caught my interest at this time for either home or Library, but might use something in the future.

Thing #39 Digital Storytelling

This was a lot of fun, but it took quite awhile. I choose Smilebox.

It could be useful in the library, using it for special programs and with a paid subscribtion it could be printed off or made into a DVD. Great way to capture special moments.

Great for at home!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thing #38 Screencasting

I can really see the usefulness of screencasting for new employees or substitutes. I don't have a microphone so that is not an option. I don't like to download to the library computer so I tried ScreenToaster (http://www.screentoaster.com/). ScreenToaster was not really easy to use and I wasn't able to edit afterwards other then putting in captions (at least I couldn't find it). Also I was not able to save it to the computer.

I then tried Screencast-o-matic (http://www.screencast-o-matic.com./) instead. First I had to download Java. This worked much better and I was able to save it to the computer. Below is the screencast I made. I would get a mic if I used it seriously.

Thing #37 Photo Tales

With the orginal 23 things I started a Flickr account for the library and myself and then right after that I got a Picasa account. I found Picasa much easier to use so I stuck with Picasa. It doesn't offer all that Flickr does, but for what I was doing it did not matter. I tried Photobucket, making a slideshow, but I wasn't too thrilled. I've also tried Picnik, but found it very hard to use. I just now tried One True Media (http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/public_home) doing both a slide show and a video. This was easy and has many options that are free. Below is a video I took at a Bluegrass Festival.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It would be nice to make a DVD each year of all pictures and videos that were taken. It costs $24.95 to have a DVD made at One True Media. I tried burning a cd of all library pictures from last year, but it would not play on all computers.

Thing #36 Comic relief - generate some fun

Lots of interesting things, but I didn't find much of use.

• Citations could be very helpful for students since we have an older version of word that does not do citations.
• I probably could find a use of graphs. I have always loved statistics and graphs.
• I wish I would have known about the timeline last year when planning the Library's 100th aniversary.
• Tag Cloud could also be useful. LibraryThing does that with the 'tags' (subjects) that are put in for your books.

I see some use for some of the generators at the library.

I tried out the comic strip maker, but ToonDoo got stuck. I found the comics about library's pretty stupid and if I tried to make my own it would be just as stupid since I'm not very creative.

Thing #35 Books 2.0 continued

Over the last ten years I have seen a big decline in reading for the chapter book age group. Though just in the last year there have been a few high schoolers that have found that reading is fun. The only thing is, they do not come into the Library and browse the shelves but order everything on the online catalog, getting their ideas from lists on the internet. There are quite a few adults who do this also. My big question is, "how do you get people to come in?" I guess we have become kind of a fast food service. Some of them actually go to book stores, browse the shelves, write down titles and then go home, get on the computer and order them (many we have). Seems like it would be just as easy (or easier) to come into the library. This is a little ranting...it is my pet peeve.

Many of the books 2.0 could enhance a persons reading, but be quite time consuming.

I did look into many of the sites or tools, but not too interested in many for myself.

Thing #35 Books 2.0

I don't use any of the personal book organizers since I don't have the internet at home, but I have been using LibraryThing for the Preston Library for about a year now ( http://www.librarything.com/home/prestonlibrary ). I don't think that it is used much and it is rather time consuming, but we plan to keep it up. I did look at quite a few of these, but I like the look of LibraryThing best. I may set up an account with lib.rario.us (http://lib.rario.us/) to list the Library's DVDs.

Don't have a cell phone that does anything special so I couldn't look into that part.

I looked at a few of the Reader's Advisory sites, Online Book Communities and Book Group Resources. Some really neat things! I liked the BookGlutton (http://www.bookglutton.com/) and wish I had internet at home to read some of the books. It is nice to know about these things to let partons and book groups know what is available.

Checked out a few in Book Swaps. Could be useful in finding books. Not sure about BookCrossing...

Not all the links worked. International Children's Digital Library might be nice for someone learning a new language or for someone unable to find books in their language, but I just can't see reading a book to a child from a computer screen.

Why rent a book when you can go to the Library! The college textbooks may be nice though.

I have been doing the visual bookshelf on Facebook for quite awhile, but it isn't real easy to use and I forget to keep it up to date.

I'm not much into Audio Books, but it might be fun to find one in German...

Thing #34 Is this our Competition?

Being a small library, we have never had a reference desk. Online answer sites are nice because of the anonymity especially when you live in a small town. It is also convenient. But unfortunately too many people trust everything they find on the internet. I think that the Slam the Board events is great, but I didn't join and try to answer anything.

Thing #33 Travel 2.0

Though I would love to travel I'm unable to do much. Most of my travel revolves around Bluegrass Festivals.

• I did not find the blogs listed interesting.
• The review sites were interesting and may use at some time. I, of course, searched Preston, MN, not much listed though, but when I searched on Virtual Tourist up popped a picture of the Preston Public Library! I think that the Preston Chamber of Commerce should look into this.
• Travel Journal sites may be fun and would work best if you were able to get internet service.
• Travel mashups didn't interest me either.

I don't find any of this useful for the library, but it could be suggested to patrons. I enjoyed the review sites the most.

Thing #32 Google maps and mash ups

I have used google maps, map quest and yahoo maps quite a bit for directions. Amazingly they are all different. I made a map of of my town with places that I frequent the most. Not sure if I would use map mashups for the Library.

Thing #31 More: Twitter

This took hours and I didn't even look into everything! I do find twitter fun. Am I a Twithead?!? What is Twitter? Good question...don't think I can really button hole it. Twitter means something different for each of my accounts.


I have both a personal (Beth A) and a Library (PrestonLibrary) accounts. Both have been added to the Tweeter Directory and LocalTweeps. I played around with a bunch of the "fun" things and they are just that fun, but they are time consuming and easily forgotten. I don't use any mobile device so didn't try any.


Personal Twitter: I'm probably at the conversing level here. I follow people I know and people who have the same interests. I don't like to put too much information about me on line so my Twitter doesn't say much, one can see my interest more by who I follow. I sometimes wonder what the purpose really is for Twitter...just another duplication?


Library Twitter: The level for this would be Microblogging as I use it to let others know about what's happening at the Library. So far I don't really have any library users following. Not sure if any are even on Twitter. I put Twitter on our LibraryThing account.

Thing #30 RSS and Delicious

I had already set up account for both. I set up Bloglines shortly before doing the things then I tried out Google Reader with the 23 Things. But now that I have set up an iGoogle I will use Reader.

I went back into Delicious, but could not remember what my user name was (found that out after bookmarking sites I had bookmarked before). I was able to add it to iGoogle so I will be less likely to forget. AND will be able to use it on any computer.

http://delicious.com/

By the way, I just added that last post from my iGoogle.

Thing #29 Google Tools

I really don't have much use for the Search Tools, but did try out Google News and then added a subject to the library iGoogle.

In productivity I set up a Sites for the library. It was not real intuitive and took quite awhile to figure out. But I have a Site!

I already had a Google calendar so I embedded that in my Sites.

My son put goog-411 in my phone, but have not needed to use it yet.

Thing #28 customize home page

I have tried both my MyYahoo and iGoogle. My email is yahoo, but I have Picasa (Google) for my photos. I added Facebook to iGoogle. I also added reader and a few other things. I originally set it up with the first 23 things, but hadn't used it since. I find it easier to open a tab for each thing I am using. MyYahoo does not let me add Twitter or Blogger.

It was actually quite easy to set up both, but could spend a lot of time tweeking.

I also have iGoogle for the library since we use Google for many things. I can do twitter, our blog and googledocs all in one place plus keep track of the temperature! I have found this really handy.

Thing #27 Twitter

I signed up for a Twitter account for the Library and have been twittering almost daily. I don't know if it is worth the time. How do you get patrons to follow you? How many actually have a Twitter account? Now I have three things to post events to; Blog, Facebook page and Twitter. I also have a personal twitter account. Not sure if it is really worth the extra time.

I like the short messages. No need to come up with almost a press release. Short and to the point! Don't have to read through lots just to get the main idea.

Twitter could be useful for libraries, if you had a large following, for letting people know about things happening at the library.

How do you get the word out? I mentioned it on our Library blog and Facebook page.

https://twitter.com/PrestonLibrary

Thing #26 Ning

I had joined Ning on round one, but did not continue to use. I added a few pictures. There doesn't seem to be any security and anyone can look at your page, something that I don't like.

I looked at the google group and found that I was already a member. I do not remember joining!

At this time I cannot see how Ning could be used at the library, but am open to ideas. I do have a FaceBook page and group for the Library. So far not many have become 'fans'.

Thing #25 Toolkit

Wow, that was overwhelming!

Posting from email was really neat, but will probably forget that it is possible.

I had already added sitemeter shortly after setting up my blog. I also have this on our library blog and it is fun to watch all the hits from all over the world.

I looked at widgetbox and finally decided on adding Live TV/Radio. With this you can chose a country and then there are many stations that can be watched. Right now I am listening to a station from Bahn, Germany.

I did not find very much that I felt was useful. I spent a couple of hours looking through Thing #25, but barely scratched the surface.

Thing #25 Email

I am now trying the "post by email" feature. This post is being sent by my email.

Stick #24 - Refresh

1. I have only blogged once on this, my personal blog, but do it quite frequently on the library blog (we don't have a web site).
2. I don't have a use for it personally, I use Facebook. For our library it is a way to let people know what is going on, past and present.
3. I rarely read other's blogs.
4. I made a few comments during the past 23 Things, but since I don't tend to read blogs, I don't comment.

I like my avatar so am not changing it. I added a German and Latin word gadget. And changed the template.