The End-Exercise 23

1) My favorite exercise was definitely LibraryThing although some of the image generators were interesting too. I use Yahoo as my main e-mail account and I like the ease of creating Yahoo avatars which can be used for e-mail and Yahoo IM. 2) I am happy to have been exposed to the newer technologies that younger generations are growing up with and perhaps taking for granted. As I said in an earlier exercise's post I think it is about time that libraries are proactive rather than reactive about current technologies available. 3) I am surprised at how easy blogging is once you get used to it. Although I used to keep a printed journal/diary that I used as a means to vent my emotions and to record thoughts and ideas so as to be able to compare, contrast, and weigh different options, I found that about the time I got engaged, I have my now husband to use as a sounding board and to share my many joys and very rare low points and like my photo album coming to an abrupt end (also mentioned in a previous exercise's blog,) so too has my journal writing. 4) I have already mentioned that I think it would have helped some of us to have regular progress reports and although comments on each blog would have been nice, I know that each of the Virtual Services team members had many participants to keep track of and it would have taken alot of tim to post comments on each and every blog entry for every participant. Finally, if another discovery project like this was offered in the future, I would participate in it. Although if this program were any indication, I might not have a choice in the matter, as my boss made me do it!

Week 9, Exercise 22

So I explored the SJlibray's ebooks site and the Project Gutenberg site. Although, I personally prefer to read actual print books and indeed most of the books I read are too contemporary to be on that site due to the present onerous copyright law. I read all 3000+ pages of the unabridged print version of "War and Peace" years ago and when I looked it up on the Gutenberg site, they only had the abridged version of approximately 1230 pages. Not that I would want to read even that many pages on a computer, but if I wanted to read a poem or a really short classic, I could see using this site. Maybe some day people will evolve eyes that are better adapted to read print on-line or even develop cyborg eyes that have perfect vision, can filter out the glare and harmful effects of staring at a computer screen, don't get eye strain, etc. But until that time I don't really see the extensive use of e-books as being practical. So concludes exercise 22 and I am on to the final exercise.

Week 9, Exercise 21

So, I added the Laughing Librarian podcast to my bloglines. I picked this because I had heard of Laughing Librarian through my "Library Underground" listserve and the songs are actually really funny there is one about OPAC and one titled "Library 2.0 is evil". There didn't seem to be very many general library podcasts and I also didn't see one for SJPL and/or SJSU, but I didn't look all that closely. Anyway I believe that is it for this exercise. Almost done only two more exercises to go..

Week 9, Exercise 20

I am having some trouble with the You Tube exercise, but I think this should work:



I chose this video because it is a rant from a regular "problem" customer about the library I work at. Although I don't care for YouTube because it is just a multimedia kind of blog. Lots of people with too much time on their hands making videos. I also don't care for the amatuer and poor quality of most of the videos. I don't really see much value for libraries, as the videos would be lost amidst all the movies, unless someone was really looking for a video about libraries.

Week 8, Exercise 19

Well, I was finally able to get LibraryThing on the sidebar of my blog, but then my blog was not responding. I had to exit so I'm not sure that it is there still. I think I will actually use some of the features of LibraryThing in my personal life. Right now the books listed are books I am reading concurrently. I rarely read only one book at a time. I have two books at work that I am reading, and four at home: two non-fiction and two fiction, although one I haven't actually started reading because I own it, so I am trying to get through the library ones. Working at the library is a mixed blessing. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, it's just a never-ending struggle of trying to catch up on my reading when there are always authors getting my attention and when I find an author I really like, I try to read all their books or at least all the books that are similar to the one I found I liked.

Week 8, Exercise 18

Well, as it said in the last post- I made it in Zoho Writer. But it doesn't look any different from a word document. So I don't really see any benefit, because, I never need to import documents from one place to another. At home I only play games, check e-mail, IM, and occassionally buy things on-line. At work I have all the MS applications that come in the Office package. So I don't think I will ever use Zoho Writer especially since when I tried using a spreadsheet template, all I got was an error message from Internet Explorer. Maybe I will try again later? But I believe I have satisfied the requirements for Exercise 18.

Untitled

This is a sample document created on Zoho Writer. So this is very similar to a Word document.   I would like to know more about the spreadsheet options.  So I will attempt to send this to my blog, then experiment with the spreadsheet-like template.

Week 7, Exercise 17

Well, in spite of my general dislike for wiki's as explained in the previous exercise, they are okay when used as a way to get input from many people about their opinions. Rather than presenting facts subjectively or acting as an authority on a given subject based only on partial information, I liked this exercise. I liked the favorite books site, I added a few selections to my "To be Read List". I was satisfied to see others that I have already read. It was nice to have validation for the quality of my reading choices. As for libraries, I can see where there is more application for things like book or movie reviews. PB Wiki seems really easy to make and use, so maybe someday if I feel the need for making a wiki I will use it.

Week 7, Exercise 16

I never knew before that Wikipedia was so open to anyone adding their two cents. Not that I've had much desire to use Wikipedia, but I've seen other people use it and it seems useful for looking up "new" slang. I think the wiki concept is used more than realized. For example if you read an article on YahooNews, people put their opinions and add other comments and sometimes the original writer will respond to a comment. So, it seems to me that Wiki's are kind of like an on-line conversation or a blog and some people are going to say alot and some people will just listen. I can see the value of wiki's for libraries in terms of book reviews. People might be more likely to read a book if they get more than one perspective.

Week 6, Exercise 15

For exercise 15, I read Away from Icebergs and To a temporary place in time as well as Wikipedia – Library 2.0 I got the most out of the Wikipedia explanation of Libraries 2.0, especially the diagram. However, I also liked the analogies in "Away from Icebergs" and the clear, concise examples of what libraries should avoid. I didn't like "To a temporary place in time" because it makes too many assumptions about what will come in the future. I'm quite sure that nobody could have predicted twenty-five years ago that all card catalogs would become computerized, that most people would have access to the internet, and that people would be so plugged in to i-pods, laptop computers, and other mobile devices. It seems rather futile to try to imagine how much more things will change in the next ten years, much less a longer time period. To me, Learning 2.0 is just another example of the evolution of libraries that I have witnessed since I began volunteering at my local library 20 years ago. However, it seems that libraries have finally decided to be proactive about adapting to new technologies rather than reactive, as they have (been perceived) in the past.

Week 6, Exercise 14

In Technorati the keyword search for Learning 2.0 turned up vastly different results for Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Blog Posts turned up 30, 466; tags had 271 results; and Blog directory turned up 72 results. I explored popular blog, searches and tags. As I believe I've said before, I am not interested in what random people have to say. Although Boing Boing was somewhat interesting just because of it's randomness. Although tagging isn't something I see myself using much, I can see where it might be helpful to some people. However it is, in my opinion, much too unwieldy, when one post can have any number of tags and one tag can apply to any number of posts.

Week 6, Exercise 13

I wasn't too impressed with Del.icio.us, probably because it is too easy to go off on tangents and end up on a totally different subject than what you were looking for. In the tutorial, it was made to seem as if this were a good thing, but I don't care for a big network of things written by people I have never heard of. It is all too big- I am only interested in what the people that I know personally have to say. Not what some tech programmer in the middle of Pennsylvania (hypothetically) has to say about whether librarians are obsolete or not. However, I can see the potential of this for research assistance and in libraries, so that one could see what others have found out on the same or related topics. But, I don't have any bookmarks on any computer I use. So this system of tagging isn't useful to me. Thus, for this exercise I am electing not to create my own account.

Week 5, Exercise 12

I don't care for Rollyo, because I pretty much don't do casual internet searches. I don't really have much use for looking things up on-line for myself. I created a Rollyo about leopard geckos, although my husband is the one who takes care of all our animals. So I would never have any use for this. If I want to know about a specific topic I prefer to look in a printed book (i.e. a dictionary) or speak in person to someone who knows what they are talking about: health issues-doctor, car issues-mechanic, etc. But for the sake of the exercise here it is: http://rollyo.com/tamaradeath/leopard_gecko_sites/

Week 5, exercise 11

I didn't like that so many subjects did not have clear cut entries. For example under books and games there was still a list but it wasn't laid out neatly like social networking. I have been on #3 ranked for social networking MySpace for a few years now. I think that consumating looked like more of a dating tool than a social network and Facebook I had always understood to be for college students. You can see me at: http://www.myspace.com/tamaradeath I have also used #1 ranked classified craigslist in the past to obtain my current apartment and a few geckos. I doubt I would ever use the Web 2.0 awards list because I prefer to find out about new sites from friends who have similar interests to me or finding things on my own such as an e-mail book club which I found through the San Jose library's catalog, but is hosted from my previous employer Berkeley Public Library. Rolling right along now that I have assigned time every day to complete Learning 2.0

Week 5, Exercise 10

Here is my online image generator creation. You can make your own at:

http://www.warningsigngenerator.com/

Exercises 8 & 9 continued

To show my completion of Exercise 8, here is the URL to my public bloglines account. Thank you Jean for your assistance on this: http://www.bloglines.com/public/Tamaradeath
As for Exercise 9 I tried the Search engines suggested and I tried Feedster as it seemed the most likely to be the easiest to find news links, instead I got very few news feeds and many blog feeds. I tried different topics and always ended up with blogs or links to things I wasn't interested in such as TechBlog which I left there as an example of my futile efforts with Exercise 9. Instead I just used a URL that I knew offhand to add Sinfest (an online comic strip I am reading). So I guess Unshelved is the only Library-related feed I have, other than my fellow Learning 2.0 participants blogs.

Week 3, Exercise 6/Week 4, Exercise 8 and 9

Okay, so I am a bit out of order. At the beginning of exercise 7, I incorrectly identified the previous post as exercise 6, it was actually exercise 5. I have a comment/request. Since the Virtual Services team is monitoring/tracking our progress, how about if you let us know if/when we have successfully completed our exercises. That way we can make up the assignments we accidentally skip/miss before it is too late. Now for exercise 6:
I thought the Gothmom librarian trading card was the best, because I actually know Sandra and used to work for/with her. It also confirms the identity of one of the people in the Hotbooks game that I learned about from her. That's all I have to say about Exercise 6.
I have done Week 4 exercises 8 & 9. Actually I did Exercise 8, but I don't really want to add any more feeds as required in Exercise 9, although I guess I can do it long enough to get credit for it, then take it off. I am going to attempt to do the optional challenge of providing my URL address to my public access account. Nevermind, I tried but it doesn't seem to work. I tried to just add it, but it wasn't a real link/the HTML code didn't look right. Will write more about Exercises 8 and 9 later.

Week 3-4, Exercises 7

Well, it has been "strongly suggested" to me that I finish all 23 things. So I will do them, but don't expect any bells and whistles. I realized that my last blog was incorrectly labeled. It was actually Exercise 6, not 7.
Exercise 7: I am probably one of the few people that don't really like digital cameras. The main reason is because my photo album ends right when I got a digital camera. Previously, I used the disposable kind, which you point and click, turn it in and then pick up your pictures. Sure some didn't turn out very well or were just plain bad, but at least it was very simple to pick out a few for adding to my photo album. Now they either get put on a disk or get downloaded directly to your computer. Then you completely lose these downloaded pictures if you don't put them in a service like Flickr, Photobucket, etc. I've had my harddrive crash at least once and been changed another time. So some pictures are lost forever.
Another thing I don't like about digital cameras is all the extra features that never get used. The instruction manual was lost while I was vacationing in Europe, so I never figured out all the features, although I dobt I would have used them even if I figured out how to use them. I know how to use the basic features like zoom (but only thought to use it one time), turn the flash on/off, view pictures, erase pictures, etc. Last time I wanted to use it, the batteries weren't working, so I had to carry it around for nothing. Also, 99% of pictures I take or have taken with my camera are of me and my friends. If I were to get them printed out (yet another hassle) I would only get them 3" x 5" or 4" x 6", for which I don't need 4, 5, or 6 mega-pixel quality.
The final thing is that like computers and cell phones the technology changes too fast. The camera that was cutting-edge technology 3-4 years ago is now an rather obsolete and unwieldy. I could have a much more compact camera for much cheaper than what I paid for my brick-like camera.
For all of these reasons I would be happy with a return to disposable cameras or a 1 or 2 megapixel camera (if such things even exist any more.)