23 Summary

I learned something new during every step of this process. I particularly liked the idea of the wiki and will try to implement one at the Swenson Center. Perhaps this will be a great opportunity for members across the country to become more active and informed about what we do. I also found the RSS feed and finding interesting library blogs useful. Overall, I'm pleased to have learned about the 2.0 concept, but still fell like a novice with a lot of the new interactive web technology available. So, I need to get to work and implement at least a few these new ideas in my current work setting! And I forgot to mention that during this process I have found that many academic libraries are adding their historical photographs to Flickr!

22 NetLibrary

Another new interesting resource. After wathing the tutorial of how easy it is to use the ebooks, I hope that I can find a local QC library which subscribe to this service. It was interesting to read the so called succes stories and note the wide range of subscribers -- local public library to private medical companies such as AstraZeneca. I imagine that we will see more of this type of service during the next decade. I hope this will not mean the end of the printing press, but heard at a recent meeting at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul that book sales are defintely in decline.

21 Podcasts

I did not have much luck with the three links provided in the guidelines for 23 things, but found this http://www.libraryspot.com/podcast/othercasts.htm when searching for library related podcasts. I think the site would be useful to bookmark regardless the type of library one might be employed in. Check it out

20 Mr. Bean at the Library

In the mood for some British humor? Check this YouTube video out on Mr. Bean visiting a very traditional library setting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyDY0hiMZy8

19 Pandora Radio

For this exploration, I decided to find out more about Pandora Radio. This venture began in 2000 and the company was founded by Tim Westergren and a group of musicians. Pandora is free and you can created your own "virtual" radio stations. The interface lets you add an artist of your choice and the music begins! This website is really easy to manouver and it is great fun to create various radio stations. I hope that individual artists also benefit from the exposure. How does make money? Advertisements and occassional downloads by users appears to be the answer.

check the site out http://www.pandora.com/

18 Soho

Anther great discovery. I would definitly considering using this tool, if I didn't already have Word on this computer. Maybe its time for a switch. I need to try to and see how the software behaves when I am not online. And that will happen when I reboot the computer tomorrow morning!
Open source software will most likely be more common in the near future and I'm really interested in following this movement.

17 adding my blog to the sandbox wiki

I tried to add this blog to the pbwiki, but didn't have the right password, which must be something else but what is listed at the bottom. I will try again...

16 wikis

I found the wiki created by St. Joseoph's public library particularly interesting. I really liked the idea of creating subject guides and path finders to collections and/or a particular subject/s. This concept would work really well in the library I work, in fact I might just suggest that we create one. I know that many of our users have specific knowledge that they would be interested in sharing and it would also be a way to engage users who do not live nearby. The idea of a wiki seems a lot more solid than creating smiley faces with webfetti (which nearly crashed my new computer).

15 What does 2.0 mean?

I found the article by John Reimer (Head of cataloging and metadata services at UCLA) especially interesting http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/5.htm.
He suggest that streamlining of metadata creation only makes sense and that libraries should strive to create a single metadata that everybody can use and reuse. He gives also gives a great example of how to extend metadata creation ... "if geographic names embedded in the middle of subject headings are mapped to latitude and longitude coordinates, it becomes possible to present users with graphical means of searching by place, new ways of easily asking for materials about nearby places, and hierarchical browsing by place." Reimers also suggests that libraries should consider adopting more web features for their catalogs and points to the Endeca based cataloged at NC as an example. Another interesting idea he has is how libraries can push their ideas and news via RSS feeds.

What does 2.0 mean to me after reading these brief articles? I feel that the 2.0 is all about staying current and adopting a healthy attitude towards new technology advancements. All librarians need to be proactive and constantly eager to change the way they provide reference, think about cataloging and creation of metadata and providing instructions to library users.

14 Exploring Technocrati

While browsing this site and trying to find blogs and other interesting site relating to libraries and 2.0, I found a Swedish site I bookmarked and hope I can utilize if I decide to move back there. http://www.axiell.se/om_axiell
This company sells and plans digital library solutions in the Nordic countries. Very usuful discovery for me. Overall, I found that Technocrati was farily easy to use, but since I am novice, I found less information about libraries than I had expected.

12 Del.icio.us

I will begin this entry by my admitting to the fact the I got lost in Del.icio.us for hours. If this tool is going to be useful to me I need to stay focus on a given topic otherwise the site could become overwhelming and just time consuming. I found interesting sites on Swedish Genealogy topics I had not seen before and a few new dictionaries for genealogists when browsing the site. I also created an account and I hope that I will find myself going back to del.icio.us and try to utilize all of its bells and whistles, but not until I have a definite plan for how I will use it.

12 Discover Rollyo

I just created an account on the Rollyo site and set up a search rool entitled Library technology. I scrolled through a host of interesting search rolls and my son was particularly happy to find a Heavy Metal roll!

11 Library Thing

Here are a few books from my personal library that I have read recently. I added a few manually and the rest were imported using the tool in Library Thing. The link to my Library Thing library is on left side below the photographs.

10 Online generators

I am not having any luck with the photo album, will try again...http://gallery.webfetti.com/webfetti/photo/category/19/main.jhtml
A WORD OF WARNING: Webfetti is a terrible resource it will bog your computer down with a huge amount of spyware. I thought my brand new computer was fried. Needless to say, no more webfetti adventures for me. The fun ended on a sour note.

8 and 9 RSS and News feeders

I found my way to bloglines and registered for a few RSS feeds. The library related feeds I discovered were librarian.net, Library stuff and Shifted Librarian. I will make a commitment to follow some of these blogs on my spare time.... (non-existent right now.) After searching and scouting around on google, I also found these sites
http://www.dmoz.org/Reference/Libraries/ , a great portal to reference related sites for librarians and this directory of library related blogs http://librariansindex.blogspot.com/.

#6 and #7

I could easily spend most of the day exploring the various software one can download to enhance photographs and create cool applications with, but other duties are calling. However, as I tried to geotag my recent upload I was informed that the software no longer tag flickr photos. Instead, I decided to create a postcard but received an oops answer along the lines of "our system is not working properly today." This leads me to point 7 on the 23 things for libraries in which we should discuss a technology issue of our choice.

In yesterday's The New York Times (Sept. 12) I stumbled upon an interesting article entitled "In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion." It discusses the fact that the federal government is loosing lots of data on a daily basis because nobody knows exactly how to save and manage electronic files, emails and documents produced on laptops and pcs. Unless we want to look back on this era as the "dark ages" of electronic information the federal government and everybody else must try to establish electronic records management plans. This will no doubt be a challenge, but necessary if we want preserve information for future generations. I'm looking forward to learning more about digital preservation as I go through this program.

#5 discovering flickr

Reading the instructions about flickr actually prompted me to try it out for real! I created a flickr account and added a few pictures I had on my computer. If you are interested in viewing a few photos from my home in Sweden please check this link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30465584@N05/

#4 Registering the blog on 43 things

When registering for 43 things, I stated that it is one of my future goals in life to learn how to grow all our vegetables and have a garden which could supply us with most of our vegetables throughout the winter. This will obviously have to wait until I have this degree. Professionally, my goals include becoming more familiar with digital libraries and long term preservation of digital collections. I am also interested in learning more about technology in general. I have never listen to a podcast or used flickr!

#3 Set up your own blog and add a post

Mission accomplished!

#2 life long learning habits, to be precise 7.5 new habits

The online presentation discusses the following good habits (which I hope I could followed more often...)

1. Begin (a project) with the end in sight and mind
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning
3. View problems as challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
5. Create your own learning toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
7. Teach/mentor others
7 ½. Play ( Have some fun! It's necessary)

#1 Learn about 23 things

Blogging and learning more about how to post and discuss in this format is entirely new to me.