joyce-frm-jrzy

Truths

2012-02-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

“Livingis Easy with Eyes Closed.”
― John Lennon

“Ifslaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
― Paul/Linda McCartney

“It'sbeing here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time isa very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experiencefrom the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but wedon't know if there is one.”
― George Harrison

“(Mediaquestion to Beatles during first U.S. tour 1964)
"How do you find America?"
"Turn left at Greenland.”
― Ringo Starr

Bits and Pieces

2012-02-01T11:29:00.001-08:00

“The Caique Group adheres to the beliefthat ‘The Library Agency’and ‘The Radio Station Model’ areessential elements to the political, economic, and social vitality of theAmerican nation.

--Richard Thau & Joyce Wemer

https://sites.google.com/site/linktothecaiquegroup/

“The irony of the Information Age is thatit has given new respectability to uninformed opinion.”

--John Lawton, in an address to theAmerican Association of Broadcast Journalists.

“You see, I don't believe that librariesshould be drab places where people sit in silence, and that's been the mainreason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians…..”

"Gorilla Librarian." MontyPython's Flying Circus, http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/gorilla.htm

“The closest you will ever come in thislife to an orderly universe is a good library.”

--Ashleigh Brilliant

”So that's what books really are. They'reagents of change. Their tactile, corporeal presence lays its hold on us. Theylet be us children again -- beings of infinite potential once more.”

--John Lienhard

Information professionals must learn tochange and change now. And whatever changes you make, whatever new skills youacquire or old ones you adapt, the process of change will not end or even slowdown in the foreseeable future. Whatever you learn today, you will have tore-learn tomorrow. Whatever skills you adapt today, you may have to discardtomorrow and acquire completely new ones. No rest for the wicked and no restfor the service-oriented in the New Information World Order.

--Barbara Quint

The Library World: An Overall Positive Trend Given Real-World Realities: A Shift to Community over Collection

2012-01-27T08:41:00.001-08:00

The trend to reform the structure,form and function of the library is a reality for many progressive changeagents and agencies in this day and age in “library-land.” The movementtowards a physical library collection tocontinue to evolve to a digital combined state is real; the trend to expandingthe overall digital library collection is apparent; and the real and /orperceived desire and need to demonstrate greater value to the communities soserved will take libraries being planned, constructed now, and those beingrenovated to eliminate shelf space in favor of other space use. Digitalcreation labs, community use rooms, {theatres, auditoriums, learning galleries,production/business corridors and the like, etc} and expansions of seating andreading areas are just a few ways that libraries will be finding new uses fortheir current spaces. The importance of the physical collection will bemaintained by most for the foreseeable future. The increase use of new E-readertools and affiliated resources, along with budgetary challenges set to continuefor the foreseeable future, as well as standard constraints of limited library physical space limitations; always afactor for most library operations; will ultimately see the trend of puttingfewer physical objects on library shelves. In so doing, it will mean that itwill be easier for library administrators/planning personnel to present creative-useagendas that will showcase new library space venue flex-use elements thuscreating a positive outcome involving the likely trend of having more vital spacesbeing made available for the implementation of newer library services, activitiesand purposes for our changing communities and public.

The Caique Group

2012-01-24T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Caique Group:
A Library,Information & Media Services Consultancy

Some CurrentInformation Links:

The Caique Group:

https://sites.google.com/site/linktothecaiquegroup/

Richard Thau: Director/Partner--
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/richard-thau/14/3b3/469

Joyce Wemer: Partner--

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joyce-wemer/1b/9b0/69a

"Like Us" On FaceBook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Caique-Group/207535719335268

Transitions

2012-01-17T13:18:00.001-08:00

Libraries are transitioning asdynamic forces are in play in our society and around the world. Though the schism continues to widen somewhatfrom the perspective of “library-have” and “library have-nots” location to location, the library sector as awhole continues to show powerful pockets of dynamic progress and growth;creative, innovative, and charismatic are some characteristic descriptors ofthese libraries located throughout the nation. In my opinion, the successfullibrary of the future will be a hybrid manifestation of two linked types – akey physical location within the heart of the “community” so served and the “electronic-cyberplatform” where one will interactively use the library agency and its resourceseffectively from any remote location. The professional career “librarian” will continueat the core of the library enterprise and the “librarian” will be among the communitycornerstone partners within the framework of the general community. Please notethe following insightful presentation on the evolving library entity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohKEWTXk0F8&feature=share

Library Evolution

2012-01-12T12:01:00.001-08:00

The missionof librariansis to improve societythrough facilitatingknowledge creationin their communities.

http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/?page_id=1211

Week 9, Thing 23

2007-09-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Whew - I guess it's time for my pat on the back! I did it! Yippee!!! Woo Hoo!!!

A few of my favorite discoveries on this journey: I loved creating my own blog and still am in awe of how easy it was. I had fun learning about Flickr, the Chia pet game in its "Fun and Games" section, and about the 3rd party site called Montagr. I had a great time creating the Meez avatar and my Speech Agent. I liked learning about LibraryThing and I also had a good time exploring YouTube.

I would have to say that the majority, if not all, of what I experienced through these exercises was new to me, so it added tremendously to my lifelong goal of learning some new technologies, because I have now learned quite a few!

The surprise for me was how easily some of these accounts could be setup and how quickly some of these technologies could be put into place. I originally thought it would take great effort to do this, and found it that was not the case.

As far as improving the program, I know that some of the children's librarians among us did not appreciate that it happened during the summer months when they are most busy.

I would love to participate in another discovery program like this in the future.

For 23 things, I enjoyed the fact that the program could be done at your own pace, and you could feel free to work independently, as a team with your colleagues, or to call upon your coworkers or your system liaisons whenever necessary. I learned so much more than I had originally expected, and was excited to see how easy certain tasks such as setting up a blog really were. I never would have believed it without doing it for myself. I also enjoyed the satisfaction of being able to assist some of my colleagues along the way to completing their 23 things as well. I'm hoping to take pieces of what I learned and incorporate the information to be beneficial (or just plain fun!) in both my personal and professional life. I thank Harford County Public Library for offering this opportunity to us.

Week 9, Thing 22: Downloadables

2007-09-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

For this exercise, I went through the Tutorials for how to use Overdrive and Netlibrary. We had Overdrive downloadable audio at my previous library, but I wasn't as familiar with the specifics of Netlibrary. Since my understanding is that we are not able to download the console software for Netlibrary or Overdrive to library computers (and I'm working on 23 things from the library), I decided to explore the Project Gutenberg ebooks. I discovered some great children's classics (The Real Mother Goose, Grimm's Fairy Tales), and some classic adult titles as well (Ulysses, The Raven, Jane Austen). It seems to give you the ability to download the titles as plain text, HTML, or as pdf files.

At first, I was only finding ebooks, but I realized I was supposed to be finding audiobooks. So I explored a little further down and found AudioBooksForFree.com and discovered how easy it is to do download these, without having to worry about downloading specific software consoles from each vendor. There are a variety of books for download available, including Uncle Remus stories, Shakespeare plays retold for children, mysteries, westerns, scifi, fantasy, etc. I would definitely find something of interest to download from this site, particularly due to its ease of use.

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

2007-09-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

My first reaction to this podcast exercise was a feeling of being overwhelmed by how much seems to be out there - talk about information overload. As I searched through Podcast and Podcastalley, I was really not too impressed with the way information was organized, and had a hard time sifting through to find items of interest. So, I went with my tried and true search - Beatles, and found an interesting site called Beatles Chronicles on Podcast.net, which I put on my Bloglines account. I listened to a music mashup on the podcast, and quickly recognized the song Dr. Robert and then was slightly horrified to find that they were mashing it with a Monkees song - Pleasant Valley Sunday - and it sounded great!!!

My feeling of confusion with the searching and organizing were not present during my experience with Yahoo, however. I thought it was much easier to search, the information was organized logically, and I actually found some useful pieces of information. For example, when I searched book reviews, I clearly found a podcast with Nancy Pearl being interviewed, some reviews of teen books and children's literature, and an NPR site reviewing books. I also found some additional interesting reviews for other types of media, such as films (Reel Reviews) and DVD concert reviews.

I guess the most useful thing about this exercise for me was learning some of the podcast directories and finding tools and discovering just how much is out there. I discovered that there was much more available in audio rather than video, which I learned are sometimes called vodcasts. I also found out that some podcasts do not seem to have readily available RSS feeds, and instead you can subscribe to them through the directory such as Yahoo podcasts.

Week 9, Thing 20: YouTube

2007-09-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

Here is my YouTube selection: The Trunk Monkey compilation

The reason I chose it is because I have a rather unusual sense of humor, shared by a good friend who had emailed this to me several months ago. I didn't know if the source had been YouTube, but I was delighted to have found it so I can share it with other Trunk Monkey fans.

Now, as for the "more serious side" of YouTube, we have already seen possible library applications, since there have been several "23 Things" tutorials presented on YouTube. It is a great way to teach concepts, since you have both audio and video, but it probably would not be effective if much longer than 5 minutes. Also, it would obviously be a great way to reach children, especially those that are homebound, by putting some stories being read by library staff up on YouTube.

Week 8, Thing 19: Web 2.0 Awards List

2007-09-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

I chose craigslist, which won First Place in the Classified and Directories section. I had heard much about it, but had never really had the opportunity to explore it until now. I actually found it very amusing. I liked the fact that you could limit by geographic area, which is important when someone is directing you to their curb because they are about to toss something, and you need to run over before the trash pickup. In fact, one person posted rather elaborate instructions for curbside pickup etiquette at their residence. Or at the last minute, they discover they can't make it to a popular sporting or concert event and want to quickly sell their tickets. The barter section was great -- someone needed to dispose of a large number of books, and decided he was going to trade them for beer. And, a young man was trying to barter some time in his Ocean City beach house for a computer or a camera. Someone else was attempting to sell his extensive set of porn magazines (he proudly mentioned he had almost a full run of some titles) Seems to be something for everyone on craigslist - community information, discussion forums, information on housing, for sale items, jobs, and services.

I could not recommend this source for use in a library setting, mostly because of its personal ads section. While exploring it, I saw a little bit more than I bargained for (basically a guy flaunting his stuff in a fairly graphic photo). I was a bit surprised the photo had not filtered out, because another site I had attempted to open during the Technorati exercise did not open due to nudity.

Oh well, live and learn, but these would not be the kind of photos you would want people openly searching on the library's public computers. So, unless we were sure that a filter would work effectively on this section of the site, it probably would not be a great site to encourage for use in the public library setting.

Week 8, Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

2007-09-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

I decided to sign up for the Google Docs and was really pleasantly surprised at how easy this task was, mostly because the word processing and spreadsheet tools seemed extremely similar to Word and Excel. I did a few sample word processing documents and an Excel spreadsheet.

This is another online tool that I really did not know existed, so I have again learned something new. It will be interesting to see if these free tools eventually take the place of the Microsoft Office products. It seems like a real plus in the fact that you do not have to travel with your documents when you use Google Docs or Zoho Writer, instead you can just access them from whatever computer you happen to be logged onto.

Week 7, Thing 17: Add to Sandbox Wiki

2007-09-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

This task wasn't too terribly hard, although I do have to admit that I tried and failed to download a photo of my precious pets to someone's Pets Wiki. But, I did find a couple of wikis to add to in the Sandbox. Then, I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page, although I don't think I did it as explained in the discovery exercise. I did a simple cut and paste which seemed to work, because I was not able to find the world/chain link icon referred to. I didn't sweat it though, because when I looked back, my blog was there, and I guess that's what really matters!

Hey, I'm running out of steam for today, so I hope that I can re-energize and crawl to the finish line and make it through the 23!

Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

2007-09-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

What I find most interesting about wikis is that it pretty much throws the whole idea of "authoritative sources" out the window. Since anyone can add to most wikis, it seems to me that many in the library profession might have a problem with the giving up of that control of the source, since it really could be anyone out there contributing the information to the wiki source.

I looked at most or all of the examples of library wikis and found them interesting, because each had their own specific purpose. One was a subject guide to a community resource tool, one was a slightly different version of our 23 things, one was a great resource for people to add their own reviews of books, one was a wonderful place for librarians to find out about success stories among their peers, and one was a fantastic way to help find your way around a conference city that you may not be familiar with. I think that in general, very successful uses of wikis in libraries would be any of these examples, but what particularly stands out in my mind would be giving the public an opportunity to post reviews of books they've read right into a wiki (many people love to know what other people have read and what they thought about it). The Intranet idea is one of interest with the creation of wikis for special projects (such as SRP) that committees could be working on within an online environment without the frustrating of emails being tossed around among everyone - it would be one specific place designated for the generation of ideas on a particular project, or within a branch, it could be a useful place to gather information or ask input from the staff about various topics. I also really liked the idea of the library as your community resource, where anyone could ask a question on the best place to get your car fixed or the best Italian restaurant, and members of the community could add their collective knowledge in response to the question.

So, I have definitely learned that wikis can be extremely useful within a library environment.

Week 6, Thing 15: Web 2.0

2007-09-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

I just loved the article Away from the Icebergs by Rick Anderson, because it is just so right on.
Library staffs must ponder the question "What business are we in now?" and adjust accordingly.
We are competing with too many other sources of information (Google, Barnes & Noble, Amazon) to not do this. Point #1 The "just in case" collection is something we all need to think long and hard about. Isn't it a little like - I can't throw this (whatever) away, I might need it someday!!! If it's not needed, then why are we so painstakingly collecting it?

Point #2 basically is about eliminating barriers to service. We no longer have the luxury of making everything so complicated that users are forced to come to us so we can explain how to use it. We may have been able to get away with that way of thinking in the past, but not anymore! Generations of people are now learning a new way to acquire their information, and we must adjust or be left behind in the dust! They just don't have the time and will quickly go elsewhere!!!

Point #3 is that we have got to throw away the idea that success in libraries can only be determined through attendance and circulation statistics. We have got to incorporate and take into account all the wonderful electronic resources (downloadable audio and video as well as searches on the quality databases we provide). If people can use us without coming to the library, then we are successfully reaching them and need to realize that's OK. Yes, our other statistics may shift in an undesirable direction, but we are shifting our focus and our services in order to give the people what they want, and that is a good thing that we should continue to concentrate our efforts on. Libraries without Walls is the ultimate desirable outcome, because if people can get the information without getting in their car and driving to a location, they will most likely do so, and whether the library is involved in this interaction or not depends on how well we market our new electronic resources to the public.

We all have to wake up to the fact that this is a new age, with a new type of patron with totally different expectations. And as Rick Anderson said, if the way we are providing our information and services doesn't make sense to the patron, we need to fix ourselves and not them.

Week 6, Thing 14: Technorati

2007-09-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

I did not find this Thing very fulfullling. I can understand the importance of Technorati as a way to search for interesting blogs, but the power of tags did not effectively come across to me.
I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the recent restructuring of Technorati that was discussed in one of the discovery resources. I also stumbled across someone's post, and the gist was "Searching Tags in now useless, I searched for something and got 3 hits and then hit View all and got thousands." That was also my experience.

First, it was very hard to find the area needed to do the various types of searches (advanced search). I also think this area was recently restructured, because the screens did not look very similar to those I saw on one of the tutorial resources. Interestingly, the restructure was apparently done to make it easier for beginners! Looks like it might have been a little easier before, but it's hard to tell not really having seen the old version at work.

Anyway, when I did a Learning 2.0 search on blog posts, I got anywhere from 19,000 to almost 28,000 with an "all of the words" search, which narrowed down to 3,732 with an exact search. The directory search pulled up 580 sites. Again, my tag search pulled up 3 posts, 4 videos, and
6 photos, but view all brought it up to the amount that I got with an "all of the words" search.
What I found interesting was that when I did my exact search on Learning 2.0, a blog posting of my co-worker sitting a few desks away was the 2nd one listed. Talk about a small world! She had apparently published a recent post with the phrase Learning 2.0 and up it came! Wow!

I then tried the next exercise and found some surprising things. After searching the Top Favorited, I was blocked from the most popular boingboing due to nudity. The number 2 favorite was on China Travel, which was also a little surprising as well. Making $ online and the technology-related sites were not so surprising. Then I went to top searches and was again surprised to find that 3 of the top 6 were non-English blogs (2 Spanish, and one on an Indonesian actress!). Another was having to do with pole-dancing women (they were clothed, which I guess is why I was able to bring up that site). Not so surprising that YouTube and Ipod were among the Top Searches. Then on to Top blogs - some were repeats of the Top Favorites - there were 3 technology/gadget-related sites, the boingboing, and one political site, which just didn't seem to fit in the scheme of things.

So, to recap, I did not really find this Thing very useful. Technorati might be a good way to search for blogs on a particular subject, but I do suspect something has happened during the restructuring of the site to make tags not as effective as they used to be. But this is just a hunch on my part, since I had not visited the older version of the site.

Week 6, Thing 13: Del.icio.us

2007-09-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

I had to think about this one for a bit, but I finally "got it." One of the impressive things about del.icio.us (which is maddening to type out correctly) is that your bookmarks can travel with you and you can access them no matter what computer you are using by logging onto your del.icio.us account. Another fantastic aspect of del.icio.us is the social networking ability. You can find others that share similar interests to you, find out about websites of interest that you weren't aware of, and quickly find out about the websites by reading their notes.

I did create my own del.icio.us account (didn't seem too terribly hard to do) and I added to it some of the websites that I visit frequently. I then took the opportunity to "look around" at other popular sites that had similar tags. In one case, I found that one of my tags had not been used too frequently by others (which is my specific species of bird, the caique) and in another case I found out about some absolutely fascinating websites on the Beatles that I did not know about.

As for the research possibilities, I believe Kathleen Gilroy gave a great example in her podcast (the other one had already been disabled) about expanding on her research on innovation through her del.icio.us explorations. And, as I explored how libraries are using del.icio.us, I found a nifty site, BookPALS Storyline Online, where members of the Screen Actors Guild read children's stories (sometimes their own book, such as in the case of Jason Alexander and his tooth fairy book).

So, all in all, I would have to say that my experience with del.icio.us (besides having to learn to spell it correctly!) was an enjoyable and successful one.

Week 5, Thing 12: Rollyo

2007-08-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting exercise. I had never heard of Rollyo before. I could definitely see that it could be useful. In a way, it's similar to creating a newsreader account to gather RSS feeds, but in this case, you are gathering websites on a subject that you might frequently visit.

In my case, I created a Rollyo gathering together websites on the particular type of parrot I own -- they are called caiques, small parrots from South America. Since there really are very few books about caiques, I often check websites to make sure I am not feeding them a type of food that might be dangerous to them (for example, chocolate), to check out cute pictures of other caiques, or to get ideas on toys that other caiques enjoy playing with.

I've linked the Rollyo to my blog and made it public, so hopefully, other caique lovers out there will benefit from it. Also, I'm hoping Zeke and Monique (my little darlings pictured above) appreciate my efforts as well.

Week 5, Thing 11: LibraryThing

2007-08-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

I found LibraryThing fun and easy to use. I have a little bit of a cataloging background, and was impressed by and could really appreciate how quickly through this tool a person could catalog their collection of books, a certain portion of their collection, or list those books that they would like to read.

It was also very simple to customize it to your preferred display style.

It was very easily added to my blog as well. After I posted it onto my blog, I was sure to add to my library just to make sure it would update in my blog (and it did).

I'm not sure if I would have occasion to use this in the future, but I really enjoyed learning about it.

Week 5, Thing 10: Online Image Generator

2007-08-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

Again, I feel as if I am a little ahead, because I had already created a Meez character and a Speech Agent in Thing 9. So I explored around a little further. Went to Generator Blog (and found out the reason for the caveat to keep it tasteful!). I created and posted a Chalkboard Message for my blog. I also created a Yahoo avatar and used the Simpsons Character Generator to create my own character. I tried but did not figure out how to add these to my blog. I didn't fret about it though, because I actually liked the Meez avatar much better and had easily posted that to my blog.

If I get time, I want to go back and play with FD toys, creating a poster with some digital photos that I want to bring from home.

Week 4, Thing 9: Explore MERLIN, other library related blogs & newsfeeds

2007-08-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

This task was to me very similar to the previous one. In fact, in some cases, I believe I had jumped ahead and already done some of the things for this task within Thing 8, because I had found information on the feed directories in some of the tutorials in that section.

For example, I had already added MERLIN as an RSS feed in my account. For Thing 9, though, I took some time to explore MERLIN, and had lots of fun in the games area. I created a Meez avatar and a Speech Agent for my blog. All I can say is I had an incredible amount of fun with that, and once again was amazed at how I could create some really nifty images in a relatively short span of time. Are we really allowed to be having this much fun? Yes, I do believe that was
Habit 7 1/2 in Thing 2 was Play!

I also explored the Social Networking link of MERLIN, and subscribed to a RSS feed of interest to me that I had heard about located on MySpace -- Breakfast with the Beatles -- a Sunday morning radio show from Philly.

I found that finding feeds right from Bloglines was the easiest method, but also found Syndic8 and Completerss helpful. I personally didn't care too much for Feedster, Topix, or Technorati -- I found them a little more confusing that the others used.

Back to Thing 8, where the question was posed about how feeds could be useful in a library environment, I started to think about how we get emails about updates to Passport. If each one has an individual RSS feed, I guess we could subscribe to those of interest to us (Classifieds, Bits & Pieces) and have another way of finding out when new information is listed.

I think it's time to get to Thing 10!

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS

2007-08-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

I found it interesting that this was listed as the most difficult of the tasks. It really didn't seem that difficult to me, and I knew virtually nothing about RSS feeds prior to this exercise. Now I'm worried, I'll probably get hung up on a really simple thing that everyone else breezes through.

Adding feeds seemed relatively easy, especially if you started out just clicking on those of interest from the Bloglines site. I then explored some feeds out on some of the feed directories that I learned about in the Palinet tutorial. Finally, I made sure I added at least three of the library feeds to my account.

I like the idea of having the information come to me rather than having to go seek it out on my own. Sometimes, I would never find out about some areas of interest to me because I often don't have the time to go out to each individual website looking for new news. However, if it's coming to me in a convenient package, there is more of a chance that I might take a little time to peek at the feed to see what's new on it.

At work, if you find it difficult to find the time to seek out new information pertinent to our field, it might be easier if it comes directly to you. And, if you have certain areas of interest in your personal life where you like to stay current, I believe it would definitely be a timesaver to have all of your information coming to you in one convenient location that you can easily find when you got the time.

I have to think a little bit on how libraries can best utilize RSS, and maybe I'll come up with a great answer after finishing Thing 9. Since it seems to be something that works best when it is customized to your own interests, maybe one answer would be to add to your account the feeds that you and your supervisor feel would be helpful for you to stay up-to-date with on an ongoing basis.

Week 3, Thing 7: Create a blog post of anything of interest technology-related

2007-08-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone - Because this week was devoted to exploring Flickr, that is my choice of topic.

Since I am new to the area, I first started to search Maryland, Harford County, and Fallston to see what images came up. I discovered that this is an interesting way to find out about areas of interest from view different points of view.

I then decided to explore a little with the subject of library and was excited to see almost half a million photos devoted to the subject. No, I didn't look at them all.

Deciding that I needed to narrow my search, I chose Harford County Library as my topic, and was pleased to find 99 photos! I enjoyed travelling through the decades with the photos (I believe they were mostly from Staff Day - looks like you all know how to have a good time!).
I was also pleased to see that I recognized some familiar faces within this group of photos.

Through this week's exercise, I have learned that Flickr is a fascinating tool with a variety of useful purposes. I now know that I can go to its Fun & Games area if I need to destress and I can quickly find a number of images on a whole array of topics through a quick search.

Week 3, Thing 6: Mash-ups & Third Party sites

2007-08-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Wow - I've been having some fun with this Thing! I guess this is what you would call my Inspirational Poster that I made through the Trading Card Maker.

I couldn't get into Mappr.com for some reason.

But I really took some time to explore around in Flickr Color Pickr - Fun & Games - loved the Chia Pet game (I especially loved giving chia hair to a young woman with a mohawk!). As one who had a spyrograph set as a child, I also enjoyed the spyrographer. The Karl Marx Paddleball was just downright strange, sort of Monty Pythonesque. The Whitney Music box was interesting -- it reminded me of Media Player when it creates images to go along with the music. I had a good time with the color fields and watching the images change as I clicked on various colors. Springy Thingies was also entertaining, watching how things changed as you changed the settings.

Motagr was absolutely fascinating. I actually used the above Lennon Imagine Mosaic as one of my examples, and enjoyed clicking on the various images within the mosaic.

Week 3, Thing 5: Explore Flickr

2007-08-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite places in the world is Liverpool, England. This has a lot to do with the fact that I am an obsessed Beatles fan, but I have also grown to appreciate the city on an entirely different level. I have been to Liverpool 4 times, and look forward to my next trip, which I hope will be in the not too distant future. I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I believe that the Liverpool skyline is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Liverpudlians are great people, with a very fun sense of humor. Most adore Americans and will love to sit down and talk to you. Sometimes you will even find a person with some sort of Beatles story (either a relative, someone who used to frequent the Cavern Club, or someone who had some sort of association, doesn't really matter to me). I could just listen to people from Liverpool talk for hours. One of my favorite stories was when I was at breakfast at my hotel and the waiter said to me, "I love your accent" and I told him "And I love yours!" I never really thought about the fact that they might be admiring my accent as much as I was loving theirs!

The Eleanor Rigby statue is tucked away on one of the side streets of Liverpool. There are often a bunch of fresh flowers sitting on the bench next to Eleanor, which I understand are provided by a local resident. Of course, this statue is a "must see" for Beatles fans and provides a wonderful photo op!

It was near the end of the day yesterday when I started to find some interesting images on Flickr that I wanted to bring over to my blog. To my amazement, I was actually disappointed that it was time to go home, so I just stayed a little while longer to finish up my post with the photos.

Week 2, Thing 4: Register your blog and Track your progress

2007-08-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

Registering my blog seemed really easy. We shall see if I really did do it successfully. I look forward to seeing my blog listed among the other Harford County Participants.

Next step of this thing 4 was to find the tracking log, which I downloaded and saved to My Documents. I have now cut and paste the required URLs into my tracking log. That didn't seem too terribly hard either. So now, I guess it's onward to Step #5. It feels like I've got a long way to go to Step #23, but I know that my colleagues are all going to be working on 23 things this week, so together, I know that we can work as a team, help each other out, and get through a good number of them by the end of this week.

Week 2, Thing 3: Set up own blog & add your first post

2007-08-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

OK - I created my blog, and the instructor was right, it was incredibly simple. I did have a challenge with figuring out how to get my posts from draft to published status, but again, assistance from the wonderful HCPL support team (specifically Annette) paved my way to successfully published posts!

Now on to the next challenge of registering the blog!!!

Week 1, Thing 2: Pointers from Lifelong Learners

2007-08-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Most of what was presented here was common sense, but a good refresher. I love the fact that we are encouraged to Play - that keeps a real sense of fun in this project.

I was not able to open the attachments within the presentation, and I know that others around me had that problem, so I am awaiting to hear word from our "helpers" as to whether there was a trick to opening them up.

I love the idea of a learning contract which you sign, representing a commitment to yourself to accomplish this task.

Week 1, Thing 1: About this program

2007-08-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

I am excited to be participating in this program. I know that I'm starting late, because I just started my job here, and will need to play catchup, but I also know I can rely on the wonderful Fallston staff as well as the resource team set up to help us at Harford County. So I'm raring to go!

I find it amazing that this program, the idea of one staff member as one library system is now being utilized by libraries all over the country to help them learn about new technologies available to us.

Okay, I seem to be on a roll!

2007-08-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

This is my entry about the 7 1/2 lifelong learning habits. One that will be easy for me is #3 - view problems as challenges, because in life, I figure that everything happens for a reason, and difficult situations will almost always give an opportunity to learn and grow from the experience.

Right now, the most difficult seems to be #5 Creating a learning toolbox. Because since we haven't been given a lot of upfront instruction on what to expect coming up and what we'll need to have access, the only tool that I am really aware of that I'll need is access to the Internet.

Let's see if this really works!

2007-08-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hi, this is my first test post on my very first attempt at creating a blog.