Thing #23: 23 Things Wrap-Up

Wow! It's hard to believe that I've now completed all 23 Things! Knowing that the current list of 23 Things was created almost 3 years ago (if not earlier), I wonder whether there are 23 newer things to explore and not what they will be. (They'll certainly arrive if they haven't already.) Over the course of explorations, it was pretty easy to tell which of the original 23 Things are here to stay (in one form or another) and which might have been flash-in-the-pan fads (the concepts with the most broken or outdated links?).

As I noted in an earlier post, podcasts seem to be the most faddish of the bunch since none of the feed directories or search engines had many recently updated podcast listings. The news outlets seem to be the only groups using it this technology regularly. Libraries had started to make use of them and then it looks like they just stopped for one reason or another. Lack of use? More effective use of other technologies?

The Thing that most surprised me was the general exploration of Web 2.0 technologies in libraries. It was interesting to see how even library catalogs have taken on aspects of social networking via reviews, comments, tagging, recommendation lists, etc. (a lot like Amazon.com!). Maybe someday we'll get to that point in my county..... How far we've come from author cards, subject cards, and title cards! (I probably just dated myself a bit too much by admitting that I remember those, haven't I?)

Until the next 23 Things.....

Thing #22: (Downloadable) Audiobooks

The first thing that occurred to me when I started this unit was why was just about audiobooks? Did e-boosk really not exist just a few years ago when 23 Things was first created? This unit should really incorporate both since many of the resources (i.e. Overdrive) we're investigating here do.

To me, it seems like downloadable audiobooks are one of our most underused resources. Maybe it just seems that way because this is one resource that people don't have to come to the library to access so we never see it being used like books. Audiobooks on CD get some of our best circulation numbers so it seems only natural that there should be a big audience for their downloadable counterparts. Part of the problem, at least in my library system, is that we don't do a very good job of advertising them to those who would be most comfortable using them (children & teens). When we first starting getting them, we mainly had adult titles but now we have more and more children's and teen titles available. (More than most of our staff probably realizes.) We've tried to ease access to them by adding them to our regular catalog and linking to the download page, but the link is a bit hidden within each record (and it literally is a link - a small icon of a chain link -- not instantly intuitive if you ask me). Of course, the fact that Overdrive and NetLibrary were unable to offer iPod compatible titles early on didn't help either.

I haven't made much use of these resources myself, sad to say. I think I am more of a visual learner so it's easier for me to focus my attention on printed text. One of these days I may try a downloadable audiobook though. Now, if only we could find a way to offer music in the same way.....

Thing #21: Podcasts

Well, it's clear in my explorations on the topic of podcasts, that they may have just been a passing fad. Judging by the write-up on the 23 Things page, they were quite the rage 5 years ago, when "podcast" became the word of the year in the New Oxford English Dictionary. Now, in 2010, of the three links to podcast directories that 23 Things gave us to look at, only one (http://www.podcastalley.com/) still works. 23 Things included a link to podcast.net, which is now non-functional, but I did find that there's usable directory at http://www.podcast.com/. Of the two, podcast.com is easier to browse through via the category listings and podcastalley.com seems easier to search using the search box. Searching in podcast.com didn't seem to bring me very reliable results when I tried looking for library-related podcasts. Podcastalley.com brought me much better results with the same search. Unfortunately, one has to wonder how long these podcast directories will last. In doing my searches and in browsing, I found that other major news organizations (ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX, NY Times, etc.) there were few recent podcasts to be found. Even SirsiDynix and ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) don't seem to have created updated podcasts since at least 2008. (Maybe the directories just aren't finding them?) I could see that a few libraries (college and public) tried them early on, ca. 2006-2007, but most didn't last long. Perhaps it was easier for people to read their websites for information about upcoming events and the like rather than listening to a podcast.

Thing #20: YouTube

Probably no site on the Web has gained more popularity and widespread recognition since the 23 Things project was created than YouTube.com. Unfortunately, searching the thousands of videos here is not easy unless you are looking for something extremely specific (i.e. a song title, artist, TV show title, etc.). YouTube offers the option of browsing channels, but the channels don't have subchannels. So, browsing the entertainment channel just brings you to a wall of videos that subscribers linked to that channel. It seems that finding anything by subject is very serendipitous. After seeing the Library Dominoes video that 23 Things linked to, I decided to search for other library humor videos. However, I found that my search results were very hit or miss. Some were close to the target but others were only barely related to the topic at hand. (Maybe I just didn't use specific enough search terms though.) It's interesting to note that it is this difficult to search through these digital materials considering that YouTube is now owned by Google.

Thing #19: Web 2.0 Awards

For this particular Thing, I decided to take a look at Last.fm, the Web 2.0 Awards winner for best music tool. (Winners were named in May 2008.) I have some familiarity with its nearest competitor, Pandora. One of things I liked about Last.fm is that unlike Pandora, when you search for an artist or group, you are taken to a page full of information about the artist as well as album and song listings. There are links from the albums and song titles to digital music sites like iTunes and Amazon.com where you can download these works. You can listen to snippets of each song right at Last.fm too. Pandora is much simpified and merely plays a "radio station" of music tailored to groups/artists similar to the group you are searching for. That group's music is played occasionally as well. Back to Last.fm..... it will create a similar kind of radio station for you as well. There are also links to music videos from Youtube. (Seems odd that that were careful about copyright by only sampling audio tracks of individual songs but yet they offer access to videos with full length versions of the same songs. I noticed in a second look that full versions are included for some songs. I don't what determines the availability of full tracks though.) I also noticed that Last.fm functions somewhat as a wiki in that after you create your Last.fm account, you can edit the entry for each artist or group. You can also create your own playlists, (Scrobble to include the songs you're listening to on your computer, iPod, or mp3 player), join groups of like-minded music lovers and see what artists and songs are the most popular on Last.fm each week. (This week the Beatles were the most popular artists and the most popular song was "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, in case you're curious.) Two of my favorites were in the top 10! ("Fireflies" by Owl City and "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon)

Thing #18: Online Productivity Tools

Today I checked out Zoho Writer and Google Docs. I had forgotten that Google Docs started out as a different product until I read the Thing #18 page and listened to the audio feed. I have more familiarity with Google Docs as my ALSC Committee used it for past year or two to share and edit files. I know there are lots of bells and whistles in Google Docs that I haven't learned about yet. I still don't understand why it has to open up a new window everytime I open a document. It's confusing because I never know if I'm logged out or not since my "Signed In" info. appears in both windows. I just saw that GD has lots of cool templates to use in document creation from planners to calendars to resumes to budgets. ALA unveiled its new networking software early last year and it allows us to share documents but we can't them like we can in Google Docs. At MCPL, we occasionally offer GD as an option to customers who need to save their files. Our public PCs have moved beyond the floppy disk age and many customers still don't have flash drives so they are left with few options for file saving. Of course, you have to create your file in Google Docs to save it, rather than using Word, Excel, etc. but you'll still be able to open it from another computer or with Word, etc. later on if you want. How cool! My new laptop only has a sample version of Office 7 on, so maybe I will consider Google Docs and the like as cheap options to buy the full Office package. (If I can only find a table at the local coffee hotspot to logon..... lol)

Thing #17: Blinkx Exploration (Replacement for Sandbox Wiki)

Well, I finally hit a pothole on the information superhighway. (Does anyone still call it that anymore?) Thing #17 called for us to join the Maryland Libraries 2.0 Sandbox Wiki, but I couldn't figure out how to join. I saw nothing on the sign-in page telling me how to join if I wasn't a member. Maybe they automatically signed up the original participants? Anyway....

In its place, I visit a list of 43 Things by Stephen Abrams of SirsiDynix and chose to do a little exploration of blinkx.com which allows users to search a conglomeration of online video sites like Youtube (more on that in my posting for Thing #20). You can search by keyword or by clicking on one of a list of 20 categories, including TV shows, music, fashion, kids, for teens, home and living, etc. You can also browse by channel. (I haven't yet discovered what the difference is between a channel and a category though. There seems to be some overlap between them. One neat feature is the ability to see your search results in a video wall. The downside is that there's isn't much detail that way telling what each video is about. You can also see a video wall of selected categories right on the main page. The music and tv show sections are curious in that I have a feeling many aren't legimately online. I know AOL Television, YouTube, and imdb.com do offer some titles with permission of music labels, artists, and TV production cos. but I'm not sure if Blinkx links to any of these. Many of its links certainly fall outside of these realms. I know this has been a long term problem for the Web that is still being worked out.

Thing #16: Wikis

Other than Wikipedia, I'm not very big on wikis. My old ALSC committee tried creating one as a means of sharing information about how children's librarians were using technology to serve their customers and in their programming efforts. Unfortunately, it stuggled to really catch on. We even tried advertising it with little photo cards when we went to ALA conferences and meetings. Part of the problem may have to do with the platform used. We used a very basic platform and that made things like comment pages hard to find. I'm not sure our audience really knew what to make of wikis or how to use them either. They may have thought it was just a webpage and didn't recognize that they could participate in creating it and thus make it dynamic. SJCPL's wiki of subject guides was impressive, but I'm not sure it makes the best use of the wiki format. Since only library staff are involved in creating it, it might as well be a static webpage. There was a page for customer comments, but only one person has so far found the discussion tab where one can post such comments. There were also only sporadic comments on the discussion tabs of the various subject guides. Other 2.0 technologies may already be eclipsing the wiki. The Book Lovers Wiki that the 23 Things page linked to was not updated after 2006 because the library system who created it upgraded its public catalog to allow review to be attached to its records. This was something that was touched on in my previous posting on Library 2.0.

Thing #15: Library 2.0

Today's "Thing" dealt with reading about Library 2.0 and various perspectives of it. See http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm. It's been almost 4 years now since this article and its follow-up perspectives were written. That said, it's uncertain whether the statements within still hold true or not. I am of the thought that most do, though not all of our 2.0 technologies have taken off as originally thought. (Does anyone still visit Second Life frequently?) However, I'm not sure taking the opportunities to make the best of use of these technologies and build on them for the future. Unfortunately, the economy has had a lot to do with that. Many library systems, including mine, can't afford to be too cutting edge at the moment.

One idea that caught my eye in the discussions I read was the seemingly simple idea of linking one library (system)'s catalog to others to create worldwide catalog access. Santa Monica (CA) Public Library did this with their catalog (which is iBistro based like ours) via OCLC WorldCat. Montgomery County could make such use of this with so many other library systems in the area. We do have a page that contains links other systems' catalogs, but one much search in each individually. However, we are soon losing our subscription to OCLC WorldCat so such an advance with have to wait. (It's an imperfect technology right now anyway, because the results from other libraries are listed by distance from your ZIP code. MCPL is listed with a Gaithersburg ZIP code since that's where are collection management office is. Hence PGMLS actually shows up first in my search list even though MCPL's Silver Spring branch might have a copy of what I'm looking for.)

Other libraries have taken other steps toward making their catalogs more user centric and Amazon.com-like. There are places on their catalog page for the public to tag and cloud and leave user comments about a given title. It seems like many of us still have a ways to go before we are taking advantage of all Library 2.0 has to offer. Will we get their before Library 3.0 beckons?

Thing #14: Technorati and Tagging

Today, I explored Technorati a little. It was difficult because the site had been changed quite a bit since the 23 Things page first linked to it. Several of links no longer worked and redirected me to the main page. I could only figure out how to search blogs and posts, not tags. However, the was a listing of the most common tags. The list of the Top 100 blogs was not very surprising. Among the top 10 were a few the frequently mentioned by the mainstream media, including the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com) and tmz.com.

Thing #13 - Del.icio.us

Spent some time this afteroon exploring the del.icio.us world of website tagging. I searched the most recently and most popularly tagged websites about all sorts of things. The tricky part is knowing just how vast the database of search terms or tags must be since everyone tags their chosen websites independent of everyone else. Two word possibilities could be two separate tags or they could be one tag (i.e. montgomery+county vs. montgomerycounty). Incidentally, the most popular site tagged with montgomerycounty is our very own Montgomery County Public Libraries. We were beaten out in montgomery tags by a youtube video about a Flea Market Montgomery but we win again if you count the 34 people (as of today) who also tagged our webcat (ibistro) page. One could probably search for hours here. I also checked out the tag libraries and I have a connection to the most popular hit there too - the IPL (Internet Public Library), formerly housed at my alma mater, the University of Michigan. I answered virtual reference questions there while in grad school. Ah, the good old days!

Thing #12 - Rollyo

Today I tried to explore the search engine creation site rollyo.com. Unfortunately, rollyo.com seems to be too popular for its own good. Several times I got a "Too many connections" message while trying to explore the site. I did look at just a few of the searches created by rollyo users but not enough to comment on yet. I tried creating my own but again got that dreaded "Too many users" message. If rollyo.com really wants to be a player in Web 2.0, it will have to find a way to fix its bandwith issues. I will continue to explore the site and update this blog as necessary.

Thing 11 - Library Thing

Today, I explored the world of Library Thing. I thought I had initally started a Library Thing library many moons ago, but I was able to find it. Although, someone was using the username I wanted (LibrarianChris). I wonder if it's me? Anyway, you can visit my Library Thing library at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/LibrarianChristopher. I've just started to get my feet wet, so there are only a view books listed and no tagging as of yet. Searching for these books was harder than I thought. You would think finding a American copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix would be easy using Amazon as the search database, but alas it took me several pages of results to find something close. I searched LC and Maryland Interlibrary Consortium too with no luck. Very odd!

Thing 10: Online Image Generators

I was ahead of the game on this one, having created an avatar for our Staff Development Day back in October. Visit http://www.meez.com/ to create your own. :) Yes, some of the physical attributes, clothing, and accessories require coins, but many, including everything about my meez, are free.

Thing #9: Explore MERLIN and Library-Related Newsfeeds

It looks I've my first thing that needs updating. Part of this thing's exercise was to check out several blog/rss feed search engines. Well, Feedster, what 23 Things bills as one of the largest rss feed collections out there, is apparently no longer in existence. (Google strikes again!) It sounds like Google's blog search and Bloglines did it in about 2 years ago.

I checked out Topix and it freaked me out just a tad. As soon as I got to the Topix homepage and was greeted with a list of the latest postings related to Silver Spring, MD (where I live). I could understand that if I was at home in Silver Spring since it could figure out my location through the computer's IP address, however, I am at my work computer in Bethesda. Shouldn't it have listed Bethesda-related postings instead? Ooh-wee-ooh! Searching in Topix is a bit different from other sites since it searches individual postings instead of feed titles. If I searched with Bloglines, I am searching by feed title. Topix even maps out (via who else? Google Maps) where the postings were from. Eerie indeed!

Thing 8: RSS Feeds and Bloglines

Hmmm..........

I think it's still going to take a little convincing for me to believe that RSS Feeds are worthwhile. Maybe it was just the bad first experience I'm having with Bloglines. When first joined and added feeds to my list, they worked fine. I logged back in to my Bloglines account this afternoon and one by one, my feeds are crashing. Instead of seeing postings for each feedm all I see is the hyperlinked title of the feed. (So at least I can still get to the webpages they originated from. That kinda defeats the purpose of RSS feeds though.) I'm wondering if there's a problem with Bloglines. I sent an e-mail to the powers that be at Bloglines and am awaiting a response.

Thing #7 - Techno Blog - Early, Early Literacy?

In library circles, we have, of course, been pushing the value of building early literacy skills right from birth. However, I read an article in today's Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092802893.html) Style section in which describes several devices which are now being touted as ways to give babies a head start in learning -- in utero. Those who swear by them say they've help their babies avoid now common conditions like ADHD and autism as well as put them ahead at some pediatric developmental milestones. Those on the other side say the results of using devices like BabyPlus and Ritmo, which send rhythmic patterns, music, and/or speech into the womb, are unproven and that in using them could even be harmful. Nothing has been proven either way at this point. Will this be the next big thing in learning? Will we someday be leading mommy-to-be storytimes and piping in our music and voices through these or similar devices? Stay tuned!

Thing #6: Fun with Flickr Mashups

Just what I've always wanted.... my own action figure trading card. lol Nancy Pearl, eat your heart out. Want your own? Visit http://bighugelabs.com/deck.php to make one. Check out the other mashup options at bighugelabs as well. It's amazing that there are so many uses for a single photo... change it to a painting, make a jigsaw puzzle out of, and more.

Paradise: Great Lakes Style

A beautiful snapshot by Flickr user cncphotos of one my favorite places in the world, Saugatuck, MI. This beautiful destination on Lake Michigan is home to many artists, shops, great food, boating, great sunsets, and lots of sun and fun.

Week 1, Thing 2

Ah, lifelong learning. Of the 7 1/2 habits, I think habits 3 & 7 might be hardest for me. It seems like whenever problems come up, they need to be handled right away so it's too easy to go right into crisis mode with thinking about what you can learn from it. As for mentoring, it's part of what I do in my job but since people skills were never my strong suit, it doesn't come easily to me. As for what habit is the easiest for me? Well, number 6: use technology to your advantage. (I'm here, aren't I? :) ) It's so great to be able to instantly chat or send pictures ot a loved one or find a digital copy of that owner's manual I lost long ago and now need.