Friday, June 27, 2008

14. The LibraryThing

I joined LibraryThing and added books that I have recently read. This site is very interesting to people like me who love to read. I have been checking through it to see the reviews and who has read the same books. It is very simple to find books when searching, using titles, authors, characters, etc. I have added my list onto my blog. This widget might work for our popular book collection at our library by adding the list onto our library web site.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

13. Online Productivitiy Tools

1. I added my own web page with iGoogle since I already have an account, then customized the site by adding tabs and a new background. Very easy to work with. I liked the other choices, especially the sites that included television schedules. Wow!
2. I also added the Google calendar. I do have a calendar that I have started to use that goes with our Groupwise email account. I was sent an appointment that was an attachment in an email, which posted into the calendar when I accepted it. I think this will be useful in the future for setting up appointments.
3. I have been seaching through many of the gadgets for my iGoogle home page and discovered a To Do List that I added that is very easy to use. I don't have to sign in like some of the others and go to a different page.
4. I checked out Backpack but thought it was more than I need with all of the options. I have all of the stuff I need on my iGoogle Web page. I check it all the time when I'm at work for weather, news, lists, appointments, and other information

Friday, June 20, 2008

12. Social Media Sites

The sites like Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit, etc. could be used for a variety of reasons such as research, keeping up on world events or politics, and just personal interests. They are very easy to work with. I found the area for saving to sites on the news/information pages, and did save a few articles. It would be easy to get sidetracked when searching, so I think they could enhance productivity and/or detract at times. I have read articles that I have scanned through on the sites. I thought Newsvine was great.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

11. Tags and Del.icio.us

I am not sure yet how adding tags will help or what to call my tags, but I think I will understand this better as I use them. I opened an account in Del.icio.us, and will spend some more time checking things out. I have an RSS Feed to the Minn23 site in Del.icio.us with resources for 23 Things. This is all very new, yet I can see how this would be helpful for research and in social networking. It should be very helpful in libraries.

Friday, June 13, 2008

10. Wikis

I decided to make an entry into the 23 Things on a Stick Wiki. Once again I will say that I found it very easy to enter and take part in. At our college, many also are skeptical about Wikipedia for research, but I just read an announcement that Britannica is setting up an online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia. Maybe attitudes are slowly changing. The concept of going in and editing or adding to site is very new to me. I think it is a good idea for comments or adding book titles and reviews at libraries. I like the wiki at SJCPL that you have as an example. I am going to show it my coworkers. I wish we could set one up at our library.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

9. Collaboration

I was able to edit the Google Docs document after I received my invitation to join, and thought it was easy to navigate through the various toolbar buttons. So far, I have not been able to enter into Zoho to do any editing. I did not realize that people could work together on projects online like this, and hope that in the future our library can make use of this new tool.
After several attempts to edit the Zoho document, I decided to continue on to Thing 10. I emailed to make sure that I had the correct edit document, and I was told that I was not registered into Zoho. I tried to register, and was told that I had an account, but I still could not locate the 23 Things document. Does anyone know what my problem is?
After reading your comment, I went back and created a new account in ZoHo, and I was able to do the editing. I made some changes to the text and added new words. I have learned so much more since I tried the first time to do this and am amazed that it was so easy to solve my problem. ( 8/12/08)

Monday, June 9, 2008

8. Share Your Creation

I decided to bring in my digital camera and use my own photo after many failed attempts trying to upload photos from Flickr. My coworker had to help me with the process because the photo would not work at the first try. Now that I see the picture, I really like it and would use Big Huge Lab again.
Using these photo ideas are very attractive to pages on the computer and web sites, but I do not do web design in my position at the library in Tech Services. Yet, I can use it for personal information on my own computer at work.