Wiki Ideas

Before I read the Exploration on Wikis, I didn't really think they a had any application to my job. Then Bookpusher, CoreyandGriffie, and I were talking, and we think it would be fun to do our Annual Programming Plan as a Wiki. Currently, we keep the programming plan on the common drive and the 3 programmers edit it and save the changes as needed. It might be much easier to do as a Wiki. And if someone makes a mistake, we can go back and see the original document.

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

Well, back to business. It is really easy to get diverted in this Web 2.0 stuff.

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

Just got a tweet from Orangerful about this Cookie Monster clip. I love Cookie Monster. I do a cookie storytime that the kids always ask me to repeat. Two of the stories star Cookie Monster. We also sing "C is For Cookie" during Babies in Bloom. It is so good to see Cookie defending cookie eating. And thanks to Orangerful, I'm now a Hulu member!

C is for Cookie. That's Good Enough For Me

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:

1. My sister had an Iguana when we were kids
2. His name was Allison
3. He liked to nap on the curtain rod
4. The dogs were terrified of him
5. The cat liked to sleep under his heat lamp
6. One day I found the cat sharing the windowsill with Allison, both sound asleep
7. 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

Turns out that Animoto just really doesn't work with the library. You can't upload from the library computers, and you can't share a link by emailing it to library email accounts. Animoto will email links just fine to outside email accounts such as yahoo, gmail and comcast. Oh well. . . .

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

Animoto for Library Use

Well, it took most of a Saturday afternoon, but I made an Animoto video of our Kickoff pictures. I ended up paying to make a longer video. I am already imagining groups of my personal photos I'd like to animate.

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!

It has taken me several days of lurking about to catch my cats having their daily wrestle. Annabelle always attacks from the landing and Henrietta always defends from the hallway. Here they are:

It Worked, Sort Of

This morning I again tried to post my animoto video to my blog. First I tried to send it to Youtube, figuring that from there I could easily post it. But I got a Whoops! message from animoto. Next I tried their feature that lets you post directly to Blogger. This feature did not work yesterday in the library, but as you can see, it worked today from home. I also thought to download the video to my computer first, but you can't download unless you pay the 3 dollars.

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.

Animoto Trial

Take a look.

Animoto Test

This afternoon I made a video using Animoto.com. I wanted to use our Kickoff pictures, but Animoto can't access the library's servers. So I used cat pictures from my Flikr account (yes, more cats). A 30 second video is free, and anything longer costs 3 dollars, so I chose a 30 second video. Animoto animates your photos and lets you select music. Once the video is done, it emails a link and posts the video to your account. I am impressed with the video and very excited to show it to you.

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

I went back to Google Reader and deleted all the BBC feeds I subscribed to a few days ago. I realized I just wasn't going to have time to read them every day. I replaced them with the URLs of my co-workers blogs so they would be easier to check. I found a couple of new posts, but then discovered I couldn't comment from within Google Reader. I understand from a fellow blogger that you can post comments directly from the RSS feed using LiveJournal. That would be much more convenient.

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.

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.

Manager Gets Involved

TodayI impressed our computerphobic branch manager with our movie of Sneaks visiting the elementary school. He thinks it could be used for outreach or publicity. Then I teased him that he is waaaay behind in his Web 2.0 explorations, like, not even started yet. He then explained to me why blogs are dumb and are ruining society. I told him he should put his opinions in his blog. So tonight he wants me to help him start his blog. I'll keep you posted on this exciting adventure. (Bookpusher, you said you were going to help him too . . . . help!)

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

In my branch we are discovering that it is possible to waste a lot of time on Twitter and that it is very easy to convert other staff into Twitterers. So far not our Branch Manager. Is that good or bad? Do we want him to see our tweets? I think he would get a kick out of it. He just returned from the Alaskan wilderness where he saw bald eagles and some bear poop. Maybe he is rested and ready to 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

This afternoon I logged on to Google Reader and subscribed to some RSS feeds: the Web 2.0 Exploration blog, Unshelved, BBC, and my husband's blog. At first I got confused by all the XML coding and couldn't figure out what to copy, then I realized you just copy what is in the address box. Pretty simple actually.

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.

Library Bloggers

I spent the afternoon reading the blogs of other librarians engaged in Web 2.o exploration. I saw some great blog pages and found some interesting ideas. I hope the library will use some of our discoveries-- Twitter, RSS feeds, LibraryThing--to better our service to the patrons. Librarians are already using some web 2.0 featues on their own, such as sharing LibraryThing accounts with patrons (I know Book Pusher does this). But none of it has been used system wide. Hmmm. . . . Maybe we should keep all this quiet or there will be some new entries to the Policies and Procedures Manual and more rules to follow! Shhhh. . . .

And I think I'm going to have to get me a great avatar like Happier Blue has (but with a cat, of course).

Twitter

I haven't posted to this blog since I started playing around with Twitter. I'm now following and being followed by several library staff and friends and it is fun to get little tweets or microblogs during the day. The branches are so isolated from each other but with Titter you can find out that one branch is really busy with school kids and that another branch is having a pizza party. If there were a way to have a branch or system twitter, it would be an efficient way to broadcast brief information system wide. For example, announcing a branch's phones are down or their electricity is out. But since Twitter is designed to be person to person, I'm not sure how well that would work.

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.

Sneaks Live!

Today at work I turned the Sneaks video clips into a movie using Windows Movie Maker. It was really easy and only took about 40 minutes. Then I posted it to our Area Programming Blog. That blog is restricted to library staff, so I figured it would be okay. Now I need to get a CD so I can burn a copy to give to the school. I will surprise Book Pusher with the video tomorrow. Movie Maker has a special effects feature that allowed me to rotate the movie back to vertical. Viewers will no longer get a crick in the neck!

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

Well, I uploaded this video to Youtube but can't get it to connect to my blog from there. However, it seems to upload okay from my computer. Hmmmm. . . Here is Annabelle enjoying a good roll on the warm steps:

In the Meantime. . .

Here are still photos of Sneaks.

Disappointment

I went to work yesterday morning with the intention of saving the video clips to my flash drive and bringing them home to play with today. Then I was dismayed to discover that my library issued flash drive is 8 MB and the smallest clip is 40 MB. hmmmmm. And we didn't have any blank CDs in the branch either. I thought about making a short shopping trip on my lunch hour, but it was about to rain cats and dogs out there so I stayed put.

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!