Thing 23: Not the end

I'm not done. T-minus 3 hours to finish up the 23 Things though. So here goes the last Thing blog.

In the beginning I had no idea what Library 2.0 was. Perhaps I still don't (not exactly anyway,) but I do know a lot more than I did when I started out. Flickr, social networks, blogs, podcasts and gaming I had all heard of before, but never really played around with. RSS feeds, collaboration tools, online productivity tools, and assignment calculators were things I had never heard of before. I may have only scratched the surface of what is out there on the web, but I scratched it instead of just running my fingers over the smooth surface. I'm hoping there will be another 23 (or 10, 17, 21, 36 ) Things in the future.

I've come away with this with so many ideas, they've really congealed into a strange mushy mash in my brain. Good thing there's this blog here where I can see what my thoughts on each Thing were, and the ideas they inspired. I may have to take a week off before delving into this fount of possibilities though.

One word or sentence to sum up my 23 Things On a Stick experience? Hmmm, tough one. After perusing the finishers blogs and my dictionary I came up with one word. Relative. These 23 Things are what our patrons are using, or what they are going to be using. This is an ever-changing line of work, and it is important for us to know what our patrons need before they know they need it. These 23 Things are what we need to know to stay one step ahead of the people we're serving.

Thing 22: My resolve to continue

Control Room, originally uploaded by Chris Hoare.

It's resolution time again! Huh, just when I was easing into forgetting all the ones I made for the New Year. This should be an easy one though. I resolve to continue learning and keeping abreast of the new technologies available. Okay, that sounds worse and more complicated than I mean. I resolve to try new stuff out on the web and explore some of the sites I was introduced to with 23 Things On A Stick. That's better. I may not be able to learn one thing per day, but one thing per week is not out of the realm of possibilities. I can do it, I can do it. No; really, I need to do this. I'd hate for our library patrons (okay, the YAs) to be so far ahead of me in web knowledge again. I'm caught up to them, I won't let them leave me in the dust without a fight!

I've put The Shifted Librarian and LibrarianInBlack into my Google Reader. They join the ranks of other sites that have been added over the course of these 23 Things . My del.icio.us account has a few more sites that I found interesting. Looks like I have a few places to go to keep up to date on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 tools.

I guess I'm not finished with this blog, this may just be the beginning.

Thing 20: Will you be my friend? aka feeling like a stalker

I am quite new to the world of online social networking. So, I joined both MySpace and Facebook. Jump in with both feet, right?

MySpace lets you set up your page with different themes and colors. Great! Now to look for people I know. Hmmm, type in their name, choose which one is the person you really know (as opposed to people you don't know with the same name as the person you're looking for,) go to their page, request that they add you to their friend list. (Anyone else feel like a stalker doing this?) Now wait for them to add you (hmmm, anyone else feel like a loser with no "friend"s here?) Now, at this point (waiting to be friended) it was time to search for some groups (hey, they'll let me join never having met me! Guess I'm not such a loser after all!) After all this, I don't really know what I will personally use MySpace for. I'm just too far removed from this modern form of networking, I guess.

I had an easier time with Facebook. Maybe my Facebook friends are just faster than my MySpace friends though. All comments seem to be on the one page, you don't have to click a bunch of times to find out what all your friends are doing. Nice. I also didn't feel ancient on facebook (I'm younger in attitude than in years!) This site is obviously geared to teens and up. MySpace is certainly geared more toward teens.

I looked at library sites on both and it gave me inspiration to set our teen patrons to work. Once our teen advisory board gets up and running, this is a job for them (okay, maybe it's a job for me--but I need some help from them!) We'll have to find out first which if any of these social networking sites they use. I know MySpace was quite popular with our teens back in the days when it was considered almost too seedy for teens to use. We've come a long way with these, I think our teens know more about what they can and cannot post than they did 5 years ago. Granted they're invincible teens, so what they know and what they do may be two separate things.

For anyone who has never gotten on these social networking sites (and is a little snoopy, like myself) be warned, these sites can be total time suckers! I can see where future employers will use these sites to check up on applicants. Another warning; watch what you post, it's out there for anyone and everyone to see (less so on facebook than myspace).

Being vacuumed up yet again..., originally uploaded by Mr. Flibble.

Thing 19: Like peas in a Podcast

I love peas!, originally uploaded by magnusmagnus.

Podcasts are new to me. I hadn't searched for or listened to any prior to this thing. Wow, there sure are a lot of them out there. Want to learn about gardening, knitting, parenting, or just about any other thing you can think of and there's probably a podcast out there for you.

I had the easiest time finding miscellaneous stuff on Yahoo Podcasts. Podcasts.com was easier to navigate than podcasts.net. I didn't find anything that really pertained to my (very) small town library on the Minitex podcasts. Minnesota Public Radio's podcasts were pretty limited in the topics they had.

Tall Tales Audio was interesting. It gave some ideas for those of us with storytelling as a main part of their job description, or those people interested in developing their storytelling techniques. I only listened to one of the many storytelling tips, but I'll probably be back to listen to more in the future.

Will I ever make and post my own podcast? Highly unlikely. Will I become a regular podcast listener? Only time will tell; but it is another way to get information, and should I ever get my own MP3 player I think I could get hooked.

Thing 18: I love this, do YouTube?

Ahhh, the skills needed to be a great librarian are highlighted so well in this video!
I do love Monty Python. There is something to be said for having some wild animal characteristics when dealing with patrons (haha).

I looked at Yahoo Video as well, and you could tell it hasn't been around as long as YouTube. Less videos per search, and no comments on any of the videos I looked at. YouTube had quite a few comments per video I looked at and pages of videos versus the one page found using the same search word on Yahoo Video.

I don't know that I would use any videos on our non-existent library website. I suppose if we made a video we would just add it straight to our website versus going through one of these video sites, but then again I suppose it would get viewed more on one of these forums than on our non-existent library website. A different/new way to advertise our library.

Thing 17: ELM: Easily Loses Mind

The frustration of Thing 17! I was looking forward to learning more about these databases. I quickly lost interest.

I must admit, I've been to a workshop where a person from Gale showed us how it worked. It was helpful in the fact that I had not used the databases before so I got a quick look at how to work them. However, it is daunting to try to figure out which database you should be using for any general topic. Helping a student look for tree information for their reports takes a bit longer than it would if I had better knowledge of it. This is not the thing for research novices! As for setting up an RSS feed, I couldn't find the link. From what I've read, I wasn't the only one. I did watch the video about setting up an RSS feed (TWICE!) but I concluded that they weren't using the same InfoTrac Student Edition that I was. What they were using was the Gale Powersearch. I found the RSS feed there; but like others, my GoogleReader had problems adding that feed to my list. I got the red Oops message at the top of GoogleReader, and another proclaiming a problem setting up that feed, but somewhere along the way I attached it, just don't ask me how! On the plus side, I now know to use the Powersearch when I don't know which specific database to use.

EBSCO was easier to navigate for me, but perhaps the directions for that were a little clearer. Or so it seemed at first. I set up my website only to find that when I clicked on the links it didn't go to a nice HTML page but an abbreviated version of the story, more like the card pulled from the card catalog than the book itself. Some of these cart-catalog pages actually have the article at the bottom, but not the ones I saved. Now I know to save only the HTML pages or PDF full text pages (which are mostly photocopies of printed articles, from what I found.) Lots of time tinkering and I still haven't gotten this EBSCO thing figured out. So far though, I'm less than impressed.

Proquest gave me the least amount of trouble. I followed the directions, and things worked out just the way they were supposed to. Given the choice of all three of these things to use for research, Proquest is the one I will use.

NetLibrary confused me. I didn't understand how I was supposed to do what I was supposed to do. I haven't yet been able to access the video, but perhaps when I do, I will have a better idea of what this part of this Horrible Thing is about.

I haven't had anything negative to say about any of these things, but now I have. This one was confusing, time-consuming, and frustrating!