jim@esrl

thing 23: summarize your thoughts about this program and learn more about where to go from here

2007-05-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

Hrm. My participation in 23 things was driven my my participation in LATI training.

Most of the things in this training I already knew about. The librarything was one that I had not heard of before and I think might actually be useful and fun for me.

Being an IT (or Systems in library parlance) person, I found most of this to be remedial.

thing 22: learn about audiobooks

2007-05-17T13:30:00.000-04:00

well, my thing 21 covered this in many ways. Oh well.

I have used overdrive before. The selection is poor, and the files are DRM encumbered, which keeps me from listening to them in my car. I haven't used netlibrary.

I currently use the free (but please donate) site podiobooks to get free audiobook content. The selection is medium sized, and the content is not DRM encumbered.

thing 21: discover some useful tools for locating podcasts

2007-05-17T13:22:00.000-04:00

The podcast search engine I use all the time is podiobooks. This site has a lot of audiobooks released as serialized novels via podcast. I listen to them during my commute every day.

I added a link to one book I recently listened to: The Worldwrights to my bloglines account. Note: the link is to the feed.

thing 20: discover youtube and a few sites that allow you to upload video

2007-05-17T13:16:00.000-04:00

This is a video shown to us during our staff day.

thing #19: discover any site from the web 2.0 awards list

2007-05-17T13:10:00.000-04:00

I chose linked in as my site to try. The intent is to build business networking. This is a useful thing for professionals. However, I found that I never remembered to look at it, and the emails often annoyed me rather than providing me with a useful service.

I think library staff, being professionals, would find it useful in building connections to other professional library staff.

thing #18: take a look at some online productivity tools

2007-05-17T13:05:00.000-04:00

tried out zoho writer. Seems to behave like a local word processor, except the keystroke responsiveness was slower. It is a simple user interface. It also auto-saves your documents for you, which is a great feature.

The use of tools like these could help reduce costs for libraries as well as reducing support overhead. However, there are ramifications to having all your official documents living one someone else's server that would need to be addressed before switching to something like this.

Thing 17: add an entry into the sandbox wiki created with pb wiki

2007-05-17T12:55:00.000-04:00

I added a link to my blog in the favorite blogs area. Looks like I'm the first. I decided to make it a bulleted list under ESRL to have it not get lost with the name of the organization.

thing 16: learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them

2007-05-17T12:44:00.000-04:00

The thing about wikis is that they empower everyone that uses them to keep the information accurate. The downside is that someone could maliciously create disinformation in a wiki.

The Bull Run Library wiki looked like a good wiki to me. The information was pleasantly presented. They seem to have linked in several good external resources as well.

thing 15: read a few perspectives on web 2.0, library 2.0, and the future of libraries

2007-05-17T12:32:00.000-04:00

The focus here seems to be on the role of libraries and librarians in the future. Libraries have always served a diverse set of needs, and those needs are constantly changing. The rate of change has increased dramatically in the past few decades, and now libraries and staff are having to adjust to the faster rate of change.

The first two perspectives were interesting and insightful. I'm not sure I agree with all the assumptions in the articles. The third perspective read as an advertisement for why OCLC is the best and you should choose OCLC for your future needs.

thing #14: discover technorati and learn how tags work with blogs

2007-05-17T12:24:00.000-04:00

Well, I consider tags to be meta-data about a set of data, whether it be a blog or a photo or a podcast or whatever. Of course search results will be different when you choose to search the blogs (the actual data), the tags (the meta-data), and the blog directory (the directory or index of data)

thing 13: tagging and discover del.icio.us

2007-05-17T12:18:00.000-04:00

I looked at the del.icio.us site, including the plcmcl2 account link. Many of the links wanted me to log into del.icio.us, which I didn't wish to do.

I have a friend that has a del.icio.us page, and he frequently sends me links into it to check out.

It's an interesting project. Not something I would enjoy using though.

thing 12: roll your own search tool with rollyo

2007-05-17T12:06:00.000-04:00

My custom seach roll is here. It allows you to search slashdot.org and digg.com.

I can see this tool being useful for creating custom search links for special projects. For example, a digital library collection site might use it to search their own collection as well as other collections.

thing 11: take a look at library thing and catalog some of your favorite books

2007-05-17T11:57:00.000-04:00

I have to admit this is the first "thing" I found interesting and might continue to use.

Here's my catalog.

This is easy to use. I found a few books by the author I searched for that I haven't read yet, so that's good.

thing 10: play around with an online image generator

2007-05-17T11:49:00.000-04:00

Gotta admit this is easier than using The Gimp

thing 9: explore merlin and then locate a few other useful library-related blogs and/or news feeds

2007-05-17T11:38:00.000-04:00

Personally, I find that choosing the rss link on a sites page fits me more than searching, although both methods have their place. Usually finding an rss feed isn't my goal, but finding a page with useful information is. If it has an rss feed, then I can simply click it and subscribe.

thing 8: make life really simple with rss and a news reader

2007-05-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

Created my bloglines account. Seems they don't work correctly with Linux (just like blogger), so I won't use them regularly.

Signed up for these:

A List Apart
Blogline | News
Cool Tools
digg
Dilbert
Engadget
Fool.com: The Motley Fool
Gizmodo
Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week
Official Google Blog
PVRblog
The Register
The Shifted Librarian
Slashdot
Wired Top Stories

Which you can see here.

thing 7: create a blog post about anything technology related

2007-05-17T10:58:00.000-04:00

I choose the LinuxMCE package. This might just be the tivo killer. Basically this is a program along the lines of the Windows Media Center Edition. Only, it is much much more. LinuxMCE systems can find each other on the network and share devices between them. They can integrate VoIP technologies. They can integrate Home Automation. And they can integrate home security systems and camera monitoring system. You can control them via a cell phone. You can get rid of all your old remote controls (or at least not use them anymore). I can't wait to play with it myself.

thing 6: flickr mash-ups and 3rd party sites

2007-05-17T10:54:00.000-04:00

I found the Flickr/TiVo Viewer to be interesting. What better interface for browsing pictures than a large screen TV? For anyone that doesn't know, TiVo is the original set top box for time shifting your tv, and still has one of the best user interfaces ever created for that purpose.

thing 5: explore flickr

2007-05-17T10:44:00.000-04:00

I've viewed content on flickr for years, and even recommended it to people for hosting images. I've never really just browsed or followed the tags because frankly there's just too much content and the organization is quite poor. Regardless, I had to find a picture I wanted to blog about. Considering that I never want to blog, this seemed especially difficult. So I decided I would just find a picture that I got a chuckle out of when it was linked on digg.

http://flickr.com/photos/21364381@N00/493687762/

I find this bustop photo amusing. I wouldn't want to be the one in the picture though. lol

thing 4: register your blog and track your progress

2007-05-17T10:30:00.000-04:00

Sent an email to Jennifer Ranck listing the url for this blog. Also downloaded the tracking log, and filled out the current parts.

thing 3: set up your own blog

2007-05-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

well, obviously I've done this already. Although I personally detest maintaining a blog, I find myself constrained to do so. 'nuff said.

thing 1: about this program

2007-05-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

The 23 things program has laudable goals. It wishes to encourage people to learn about the "new" "web 2.0" things as part of a lifelong learning plan.

Let's see. Web 2.0 is just a fancy name for stuff that has been around for ages. Just another buzzword to get lots of people excited about a whole lot of nothing. There's nothing really new in any of this technology.

As for a lifelong learning plan, some of us choose to go without a plan. Having everything structured for us, or worse, by us seems to me to be a limiting factor. The goal is to "break out of the box" but the plan is to build a different box. Sure, it's not a traditional box, but it is still a box. A modification of a line from "The Matrix" ("There is no spoon.") seems apropriate here: There is no box.

Thing 2: 7.5 lifelong learning habits

2007-05-17T10:08:00.000-04:00

The 7.5 habits:

1. begin with the end in 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
7.5 play

Easiest habit: 5. Create your own toolbox or 6. use technology to your advantage
why: These are habits that have been with me as long as I can remember

Most difficult habit: 1. begin with the end in mind.
why: I tend to be less goal oriented with regard to learning. As I am interested in something I dig deeper into it until I'm satisfied. Often along the way I find something new and interesting to learn about. I generally find learning to achieve a goal to be stifling and to increase the boring factor.