Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wiki Ideas
For the library system overall, I think it would be fantastic to let the patrons contribute to our catalog by writing book reviews or comments. It would really help people select books and foster a sense of community. If patrons could follow the posts of individual reviewers, they could even find people who share their reading tastes and get suggestions from them.
I will let you know how our Wiki experiment goes. First we have to convince our manager that this is a good idea. He just made a face and says he hates Wikis because they contain incorrect information. I reminded him that we will be posting the information, not strangers. I think he thinks random strangers will be contributing to our plan. . . .
More to follow on this exciting experiment!
Zoho
Last night I posted a document that I created using Zoho Writer. Of everything I have learned so far, I think Zoho has the most immediate relevance to library patrons. While we have Word on our computers, we don't have Excel or Powerpoint. Patrons will find Zoho very handy. I think even the skeptical librarians will agree it is a useful thing to know about. However, the patrons who don't bring a diskette or a flash drive are probably the ones that will have trouble using Zoho. So we will be doing lots of teaching.
I was reading an article in PC Magazine that referred to the internet as "the cloud." The article suggests that in the future we may get both our content and our software from the cloud. It is called "cloud computing." I guess Zoho is an example of this. I made my Zoho Writer document without ever uploading or downloading. Visualizing the internet as a cloud is a neat metaphor.
My husband routinely saves his work to Google Docs when he is going on a trip. That way, if there is a problem with his laptop, he can get his presentation again from the web. He is always ahead of me in Web 2.0!
Thank you for sharing Cookie Monster, Orangerful
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Zoho Practice
HCR
June 24, 2008
I'm now learning how to use Zoho as part of my Web 2.0 Exploration. The Writer looks alot like Word. I think it would be easy for anyone familar with MS Word to figure out.
Now I'm going to add a cool picture of an iguana:
Why I chose and iguana picture:
- My sister had an Iguana when we were kids
- His name was Allison
- He liked to nap on the curtain rod
- The dogs were terrified of him
- The cat liked to sleep under his heat lamp
- One day I found the cat sharing the windowsill with Allison, both sound asleep
- Allison grew to be about 5 feet long, mostly tail.
iguana | cat | dogs | |
Hours sleeping in the sun in the morning | All Morning | Most of the Morning | Part of the Morning |
Hours sleeping in the sun in the afternoon | All Afternoon | Most of the Afternoon | Part of the Afternoon |
Now lets see if I can publish this to my blog!
More Animoto and Our Branch Manager
I've posted the Kickoff Animoto video to the library Programming Blog, if anyone would care to view it.
By the way, our reluctant branch manager started his anti-blog. Take a look at http://asimovstruths.blogspot.com
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Animoto for Library Use
However, you need lots of patience with Animoto since it is still a beta site. Things often don't work on the first try but inexplicably work on the 2nd or 3rd try or after you sign out and sign back in. Also some things are a bit slow. It took 2 days to publish Cat Faces to Youtube, for instance. But the Kickoff video worked overnight (it is marked private). For a while Animoto wouldn't let me download my video to my laptop, and then later it did.
However, Animoto updates you on the status of your projects with either on-screen messages or email. For instance, this morning I got an email saying the Cat Faces was now on Youtube. I'd actually forgotten about sending it. It is very easy to email links of you videos to friends. That part always seems to work consistently.
Overall, Animoto is very cool and worth the time and effort.
Cat Fight!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
It Worked, Sort Of
I brought home some photos from our Kickoff to try in animoto. Filled my library issued flash drive and a colleague's flash drive. Obviously I'm going to have to get my own, large capacity flash drive if I'm going to do this stuff. 512 MB didn't cut it and 64 MB was just pitiful! And don't even try to use these drives for video!
I'm deleting the failed sidebar widget I added yesterday.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Animoto Test
But. . . .
I've been trying to post the finished video to my blog with no success. When I give Animoto my blogger email and password, it says I need my blog! And while it lets me make a widget, the widget, unfortunately, is pretty useless. As you can see, it only shows a quarter of the video image. I'm wondering if this will work better from home. There is an option to post it to Youtube, and from there I know I can post it to Blogger. Still, the system is pretty glitchy. If you stick with it the results are fun and might even be worth 3 dollars for a long video. I'll have to experiment a bit more.
RSS Revised, More Twitter, and a Podcast
Last night my husband introduced me to a podcast called The Sword and the Laser. It is a Fantasy/SciFi podcast. They announce the book they are going to discuss, then after awhile have a podcast where they discuss the book. I recognized lots of my favorite books. It is hard to find people (besides my sister) who have read and enjoyed fantasy and science fiction. It is definitely the underdog genre in the library world--just look at the minuscule science fiction section in my branch! Only the westerns have smaller shelf space! I'm always happy to find a patron I can help with recommendations. Unfortunately, sci/fi fans also tend not to return their library books and there go my favorites, out the door, never to return. Anyway, the point is, I added the RSS feed for the podcast to Google Reader and I got the upcoming book today: Unshapely Things by Mark Del Franco. This book is elfpunk. I've read some of the Dresden Files and Emma Bull; is supposed to be similar.
So last night my husband was sitting on the couch listening to the Sword and Laser podcast with me and then he says "They just found ice on Mars! There could be life on Mars!" He'd just gotten a tweet from the scientists on the Phoenix Mars project. Well, I think that is just the coolest thing. So now I'm following the Tweets from Phoenix Mars as well. In his blog this morning, my husband says he thinks that was how the news got out first: through Twitter. Because of that, the twitter page containing the tweet might be considered an historical record! See his blog at http://friendstoldme.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Youtube Brings Back Memories of the Good Old Days
I've been exploring youtube a bit more. This clip reminds me of stories told by my branch manager about the "old days" in our system's main library. He and several other librarians used to make spoof videos of all kinds of funny library things. The videos were very irreverent. When one of the videographers retired last summer, we checked to see if he still had the videos, but alas, he did not.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Manager Gets Involved
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Tweet, Tweet, Tweet
What if we could Twitter all those disorganized parents the morning of a program: Storytime at 10 AM! Make a rabbit puppet! Babies in Bloom this afternoon! I wonder if we could get more spur of moment attendance that way. The people who mean to attend, but keep forgetting, would have their quick reminders. Many times caregivers walk into the building as the program is ending and say "Oh, I totally forgot!"
RSS Feeds
I wasn't really sure what to subscribe to, since in my personal life I mainly use the internet for shopping. I've got my credit card memorized along with that little 3 digit security code! My husband keeps up with technology as part of his work and he uses RSS to let him know when things have changed on the sites he follows. He links to all his podcasts from there which is very convenient. Then I overhear what Callie and Leo think about new technology, or listen to the crazy wine man, Gary Vaynerchuk, who coined the phrase "sniffy sniff." I thought "sniffy sniff" was something my cats do, but apparently wine lovers do it too!
Personally, I feel like I'm in a constant state of data overload, so I don't know if I'll actually use the RSS feed much. I will have to link to my fellow bloggers, however. I don't think it will substitute for going to someone's actual page, since the RSS misses all the cool sidebar stuff.
The library really ought to have a RSS feed going for its events, and it might be good way to pass along memos and information. Maybe it would be easier than faxing or emailing staff. Definitely something to experiment with.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Library Bloggers
And I think I'm going to have to get me a great avatar like Happier Blue has (but with a cat, of course).
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
At first, I didn't realize that it is normal to be followed by complete strangers. I freaked out and blocked the first unknown person who was following me. My husband informed my that I'm not supposed to do that. Poor etiquette. I'm sorry, whoever you are! Now several other strangers are following me, but I've decided not to follow them. I think it is more fun when you know people. You can see that I figured out how to embed my tweets in my blog.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Sneaks Live!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Annabelle on the deck
Okay, I've set up YouTube so that I can post videos directly to my blog. Let's see if this works. . . It seems to work, but if I try to edit it once inside blogger, it gets all messed up. So don't touch!
My First Youtube Video
Disappointment
When I got home, (minus the video clips) it occurred to me that I own a fancy pants digital SLR that I've only used 1% of the features of. Surely it must have video too, like Book Pusher's camera. But it does not do video. . . .so I dug out my old Nikon Coolpix and it was a miracle: video! But the battery needs to be charged since I haven't used it in about a year.
So today I'm going to make a video of my cats and upload it to youtube and then link it to this blog. This blog is supposed to be anonymous, and what could be more anonymous than adding another cat video to the billions already out there? Except that this video is of my precious sweeties. So now I'm waiting for the battery to charge. Then my cats have to do something faintly interesting. My husband says youtube is full of videos of sleeping cats. My cats can to that--piece of cake!