Wednesday 31 January 2007

#20 YouTube

Started off watching one of the top 10 videos they had listed on the opening page...it was of a crazy bride (they call them bridezillas) cutting off all her hair an hour before her wedding because she didn't like the curls the hairdresser had out in. She went crazy, screaming and crying. It went for 9 minutes and wasn't really worth putting on here.
I then looked up the library dominos - pretty funny, and from there found this video which is Cookie Monster hassling a librarian.
Now I'm having trouble finding this Edit HTML thing to link this YouTubve video onto my blog. I can find the one in the template area but that went all wierd on me? I don't want to edit the template?
I'm sure just pasting the link here is not the right thing to do, but I will do it for now and come back to this ater I seek some help.


** UPDATE...OH WIERD!!! Just went to look at the posts (in new window) that I'd done tonight and it worked! The YouTube Cookie Monster in the Library video is there and ready to play???? Cool.

#19 Discovering Web2.0 Tools

For some reason when I tried looking at the whole list the page went blank - so then I clicked on the 'shortlist' and picked
HIPCAL - a personal organisation one. This looked good, I was especially interested in the text message reminders that could be sent to your one. I was only in demo mode so couldn't find out if there was a charge for this? Then as I got into I read the company had been taken over by 'Plaxco' and they would have a new look etc soon. I liked the hippo.
I then went to the 3rd place site in this category 'voo2do', which was nice and colourful, however did not have the text reminders. It also said it works 'imperfectly on safari' which is what i ahve on my mac at home.
These reminder services are good I suppose on your own personal computer but you'd need to be checking it all the time (not always possible with staff sharing terminals) and pretty hard for borrowers...

#18 Zoho

Great idea, had a try at typing a document but could not find how to publish to my blog. I clicked on the 'publish' button and picked that option but then there was nowhere to type in my blogs link? What am I doing wrong?
I do like the idea of using an on-line document writing tool rather than all the different versions of things. Would be great for our borrowers!

Tuesday 30 January 2007

#17 PBWIKI

Had some trouble with the whole square bracket thing - the PLCMC site said one way and the PBWIKI said another. The instructions on the PLCMC site were correct and linked back to my blog!
Also joined up the PBWIKI with yet another login - I have so many logins and passwords written down...

#16 Wikis

Fantastic idea!
Had used Wikipedia before but did not realise how we could use it oir staff use before reading that article about creating online communities. I liked the idea of using a wiki when working on a project rather then the masses of individual emils going around as being very part time I get lost with all the changes and trying to keep up. I think the children's team shoudl re-think how we discuss some things inbetween our meetings. The meetings used to be every 2nd month and now they are monthly so maybe it won't be so bad this year?
I also really enjoyed the booklovers wiki. Did not notice many children's book reviewed? I wrote down a few interesting titles to check against our catalogue - esp. 'The dewey decimal system of love' which sounded very chick lit and fun. The one title 'The Girls-a novel' about conjoined twins sounded interesting. I always find it hard to recommend adult authors as I focus so much of my time reading all the kid stuff. Sites such as these might keep me 'refreshed'.
I was impressed to see the Bull Run Library mention us on their Wiki!
LibSuccess also did not have very much information on children's programs. Maybe time to add some of our success stories?

#15 Library2.0

I probably enjoyed reading and understood the most of the Iceberg article. I think the 'just in case' mode is exactly what we do with our collections! We have so much more to offer now. At least this program finally gives us the time to try out all the new things out there as when you're on desk, or even off desk there just isn't the time! The other article 'Into a new world of librarianship' gave some good points on what we do do well and can do better.

Monday 29 January 2007

#14 Technorati

Having a look around, the podcast kept stopping and restarting so gave up watching that after first few minutes.
Did the search for blogposts and got 938 hits - lots of other librarians talking lots about technology!
1,662 blog posts and 776 photos!
70 hits for 'in blog diretory'.

I enjoyed looking a the popular links - even though the music was mainly artists I'd never heard of, however the movies had a link to Little Miss Sunshine, which having seen recently - I was interested in other people's opinions. I did click on a Youtube link also. I will go back to Technorati just to see what others are looking at!!

#13 Del.icio.us

Watched the podcast, all sounds good but seeing I'm not really 'researching' anything at the moment I think it will just be a good bookmarking tool for all the stuff I look up at home - mainly ideas for storytime craft, new songs to do with baby storytimes and future activities for the school-aged kids. I used to cut-and-paste a whole lot of stuff, email it to work, print and then file it...so having it linked on del.icio.us might be much easier! So signed up and will do some looking around to add to, and add tages, etc another time when not so late.

Sunday 28 January 2007

#12 Rollyo

Did a Tintin search on the books rollyo mentioned on the 23 things page - found some great collectables!
Made my own Rollyo of the storytime resources/activity ideas websites I frequently use. This is a good idea as I'm always misplacing those website addresses and tring to remember them or having to redo a google search.
Can't figure out how to put the 'Rollbar' on my blog though? Managed to drag it to my own bookmarks bar on this computer at home, and I do do a lot of this type of searching at home but having it on my blog would be good for work...

Friday 26 January 2007

#11 Librarything

this was pretty cool - only put in 5 books so far but I spent quite a bit of time on their 'book suggester' which I loved! I have a friend who enjoys the chick-lit style and is always asking me for recommendations - I have exhausted all the authors I know of (and keep in mind I focus my reading on YA FIC and picture books!) but I just wrote down a whole lot of new authors I'm sure we'll have to order in for her.
Had trouble trying to put the 'widget' on my blog page. Might ask someone at work that did that to help me...

Thursday 25 January 2007

#10 Image generators

pretty daggy but fun. Tried a few I wouldn't waste time on - but always love a Simpsons Quote (my husband's iunfluence) - Homer is the funniest!
try the Homer Quite Generator at
http://smacie.com/randomizer/simpsons/homer.html

also the Rock Star Name Generator at
http://rockstarname.com/index.php
gave me the rock star name of CHINA SKYE!

Also used the FD Toys search to create my own Magazine Cover. Here it is -
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/output/magazine3593185.jpg

#8 and #9 RSS Feeds & Bloglines

Boy, that took some time! Have managed to set up bloglines and pick 10 feeds. Didn't think much of any of the search tools for blogs - the bloglines one was o.k, but the Syndic8 and Feedster were clumsy to search.
I don't normally check any other blogs or even news things every day so was stretching to come up with topics. I searched a few obvios library realted ones, but was surprised that some common sites such as the Children's Book Council of Australia and JK Rowling/Harry Potter pages did not have RSS feeds.
The good news if that my mac has 'Safari' so was able to drag the 'Sub with bloglines' button into my bookmarks toolbar and after the first few didn't have to do the cut and pasting of URLs.
Time to go to bed...

#7 New Technology

This week at home we have a new Mac which has a web camera built into it. I have set up a Skype account and have been talking on the webcam to my other family members. I also use Skype to call my parents at a cheaper rate when they are in Bali.

Sunday 7 January 2007

just finishing week 3

Trying to do this at home when kids have gone to bed - yes, it's all exciting and it's mind-boggling what is out there. I'm glad we are doing these 23 things but it's going to be a steep learning curve and very hard to find the time!
The 'sitepal' thing I'm supposed to listen to is inactive for some reason?
Enjoyed learning about flickr and did a few photo searches on labradors, librarians and Tintin.
I also looked at the mash-ups and started out with the UK libraries map, but was tempted to check out the hollywood homes of celebrities too!
Going off now to leave a comment on a work collegues blog...
Why also is the time always wrong on your blog post. I did not do the post the other night at 4.04am!

looking around 'flickr'


this is a good 'ask me' sign for any library!

my beautiful kids!


Friday 5 January 2007

let's try some more

doing this from home now...
server down at work.

all's well. kids have gone to bed and have some 'me' time...