Showing posts with label weekly assignment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weekly assignment. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Week 11: Online Productivity
Emily Format toured me through her iGoogle page a couple of weeks back and it struck me as a useful tool for the family. There's a shared calendar, a "to do" list, news feeds, weather and more. We can post documents on GoogleDocs, too. A drawback is that since Google has become a bit of an empire, I have three or so passwords Blogger -iGoogle -Gmail know me by. When I paused in this writing to check the iGoogle page, I needed to sign out of Blogger. Not convenient.
Like any web tool, it will only be useful for keeping the family on the same page if everyone opens it daily and looks at it. When I told her about my experiment, an experienced parent said to me, "Let me know that works out for ya. . . "
GoogleDocs would be useful in a setting where something like the z: drive did not exist; it, too would be a way to have my work available at any desk.
Like any web tool, it will only be useful for keeping the family on the same page if everyone opens it daily and looks at it. When I told her about my experiment, an experienced parent said to me, "Let me know that works out for ya. . . "
GoogleDocs would be useful in a setting where something like the z: drive did not exist; it, too would be a way to have my work available at any desk.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Week 10: Tagging
Tagging can play a useful role in finding stuff.
Controlled vocabularies save the day in nuanced cases (to differentiate a synonym of "floodgate" from "Watergate Affair 1972-1974"), but what speaker of American English will think of the search term "cookery" to get herself to the 641s? If members added tags to our OPAC they could find things using terms meaningful to them. Subject tracing would remain, of course, for authority on the item's "aboutness."
If HCPL YA staff shared a common Flickr account for posting images on our YA webpages, we would tag pictures. That way, we could create a slide show of, say, Free Comic Book Day activities across the County.
A while ago, Platinumb showed me how she used delcious to keep sites handy for use at the reference desk (DU's bookmarks). Eventually, I started one for North Park. I add sites at least once a week using the buttons I added to my browsers, but I consult it only once every ten days or so. I don't think the rest of the staff find it a useful tool, so it fails to bring together the little gems each of us know.
As we did this exercise, Platinum cued me in on some advanced techniques like bundling ("broad terms" for you fans of cataloging) and networking. I networked Norton Park (in my mind that's what nortpark means, but that's a whole 'nother story) to DU and TW. Norton hasn't tagged anything "demographics" but those libraries did. After a search of our bookmarks got no hits, I clicked "network" just under our name and got suggestions from colleagues! Way cool.
North Park's reference staff tags posts in our blog so we can get back to them quickly. A common FAQ: how do I fix it when the image on a public PC's monitor gets rotated 90 or 180 degrees?
In the last 5 - 6 years, tagging has gone from a "controversial" topic in library school classes to something I do daily.
Controlled vocabularies save the day in nuanced cases (to differentiate a synonym of "floodgate" from "Watergate Affair 1972-1974"), but what speaker of American English will think of the search term "cookery" to get herself to the 641s? If members added tags to our OPAC they could find things using terms meaningful to them. Subject tracing would remain, of course, for authority on the item's "aboutness."
If HCPL YA staff shared a common Flickr account for posting images on our YA webpages, we would tag pictures. That way, we could create a slide show of, say, Free Comic Book Day activities across the County.
A while ago, Platinumb showed me how she used delcious to keep sites handy for use at the reference desk (DU's bookmarks). Eventually, I started one for North Park. I add sites at least once a week using the buttons I added to my browsers, but I consult it only once every ten days or so. I don't think the rest of the staff find it a useful tool, so it fails to bring together the little gems each of us know.
As we did this exercise, Platinum cued me in on some advanced techniques like bundling ("broad terms" for you fans of cataloging) and networking. I networked Norton Park (in my mind that's what nortpark means, but that's a whole 'nother story) to DU and TW. Norton hasn't tagged anything "demographics" but those libraries did. After a search of our bookmarks got no hits, I clicked "network" just under our name and got suggestions from colleagues! Way cool.
North Park's reference staff tags posts in our blog so we can get back to them quickly. A common FAQ: how do I fix it when the image on a public PC's monitor gets rotated 90 or 180 degrees?
In the last 5 - 6 years, tagging has gone from a "controversial" topic in library school classes to something I do daily.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Week 9: Social Networks
What I did this week:
By promoting her involvement with the event, my FB friend helps create buzz about it: not only have I seen an ad, someone I know is involved and suddenly I am thinking about going. How great would it be if library events had that buzz and cache? If people friend (it's different for places / businesses than people, but I'll use that word) the library, then we would promote events to them. If someone indicates they are attending an event, then everyone they know would see our logo and a message like "attending book club tonight" or "going to environmental film program at Tuckahoe" and a whole new image of who we are and what we do emerges.
PR always means getting your name out via different media: an article in the paper and TV coverage; a listing in Connections and a flyer posted in YA. Social websites are just one more format. (More on branding with FB, here.)
- Used LinkedIn as a test case for a feature I don't often use -- the one that checks my email address book for people I know. I wasn't surprised that it turned up only one person: I was surprised by who it was.
- Read the tips for using Facebook professionally -- I am test driving the To Do List app.
- Noted for the umpteenth time that "personal" and "professional" use of Facebook (FB) intertwine. College classmate / YA author Leigh hipped me to a virtual YA event. In any 2 week time span, nearly every librarian friend posts a link or an article of professional interest.
- The Top Ten FB Apps for Librarians mostly look like tools I would use if HCPL had a FB presence.
- Signed up for Shelfari app for FB without reading all the comments first: oops. If the only thing folks have said for 3 days straight is, "hey it won't show up on my profile!" then there's no point to getting it.
By promoting her involvement with the event, my FB friend helps create buzz about it: not only have I seen an ad, someone I know is involved and suddenly I am thinking about going. How great would it be if library events had that buzz and cache? If people friend (it's different for places / businesses than people, but I'll use that word) the library, then we would promote events to them. If someone indicates they are attending an event, then everyone they know would see our logo and a message like "attending book club tonight" or "going to environmental film program at Tuckahoe" and a whole new image of who we are and what we do emerges.
PR always means getting your name out via different media: an article in the paper and TV coverage; a listing in Connections and a flyer posted in YA. Social websites are just one more format. (More on branding with FB, here.)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Week 8: Gaming
An unexpected benefit of this week's exploration: experiencing the confusion and apprehension of a first-time user.
Treating a frustrated computer-user with patience becomes rote. I remember only vaguely a time when I didn't know how to double-click or where to type the website address. When I say sweetly, "it just takes practice" or "you'll get the hang of it," it's because I know I should, not because of an outpouring of empathy (ain't I a stinker?).
I signed up for RuneScape, created a character with pink hair, went to the orientation place, and immediately thought, Well durn, now what? I completely failed to follow Louise's always-appropriate "RATS" advice and so clicked randomly around and felt frustrated. Then I remembered "Read All The Screen"! and scrolled down a little to see the text directions. "Yuck, I have to talk to people?" Well, it seemed that I only had to "listen," and I exited before I found myself having to talk to someone.
I play word games on Facebook and on Merriam-Webster's website. I can (usually) hook up CHPL's Playstation 2 and play a slightly-awful session of Dance Dance Revolution. I get that gaming involves text, critical thinking, following a story, esteem-building, etc. I uphold the right of 11-year-olds to "waste time" on our PCs and prevent Conspiracy Theory Guy from doing his "important research." I don't see myself closing NP's lab to do an event that's just online gaming, though.
And don't look for me in any MMORPGs -- I'm a little too timid for those, I think. Or, who knows, maybe I will "get the hang of it."
Treating a frustrated computer-user with patience becomes rote. I remember only vaguely a time when I didn't know how to double-click or where to type the website address. When I say sweetly, "it just takes practice" or "you'll get the hang of it," it's because I know I should, not because of an outpouring of empathy (ain't I a stinker?).
I signed up for RuneScape, created a character with pink hair, went to the orientation place, and immediately thought, Well durn, now what? I completely failed to follow Louise's always-appropriate "RATS" advice and so clicked randomly around and felt frustrated. Then I remembered "Read All The Screen"! and scrolled down a little to see the text directions. "Yuck, I have to talk to people?" Well, it seemed that I only had to "listen," and I exited before I found myself having to talk to someone.
I play word games on Facebook and on Merriam-Webster's website. I can (usually) hook up CHPL's Playstation 2 and play a slightly-awful session of Dance Dance Revolution. I get that gaming involves text, critical thinking, following a story, esteem-building, etc. I uphold the right of 11-year-olds to "waste time" on our PCs and prevent Conspiracy Theory Guy from doing his "important research." I don't see myself closing NP's lab to do an event that's just online gaming, though.
And don't look for me in any MMORPGs -- I'm a little too timid for those, I think. Or, who knows, maybe I will "get the hang of it."
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Week 6: Wide World of Wikis
What is it about the word "wiki" that makes you want to play with it? WikiWikiWIKI. See also comments on this post.
Anyway. I've been reading wikis since the dawn of Wikipedia. I didn't contribute to one until CHPL launched its YA programing one. Mostly, we put common documents there such as volunteer forms and the list of which branch has which "permanent set" of graphic novels. The YA librarians did use it as a collaborative work space to brainstorm and vote for which paperback series we wanted cataloging to approve as ones to catalog with the series title.
YALSA uses wikis -- I'm guessing when a group produces the page/product, so everyone can contribute easily. Sample: Teen Read Week. As the consumer of this info, I don't care about the format. Similarly, what's cool about St. Joseph County's subject guide wiki is the content more than the form. We already post subject guides on our homepage; if we like the way that works now, there's no need to change. If, however, many reference staff folks said they would update guides on the fly, then we might want to change to a wiki and keep our guides up-to-the-minute.
For this lesson, I enjoyed contributing to the CHPLearning wiki -- I like pbwiki's interface and tools much better than the one we use for YA Programming! I easily created new pages and edited my work. I had been working away for several minutes before I realized I was still in Firefox, my preferred browser, something our current wiki can't tolerate.
I like to work collaboratively, and whether we use a wiki or some other cool tool, I'll be on board.
Anyway. I've been reading wikis since the dawn of Wikipedia. I didn't contribute to one until CHPL launched its YA programing one. Mostly, we put common documents there such as volunteer forms and the list of which branch has which "permanent set" of graphic novels. The YA librarians did use it as a collaborative work space to brainstorm and vote for which paperback series we wanted cataloging to approve as ones to catalog with the series title.
YALSA uses wikis -- I'm guessing when a group produces the page/product, so everyone can contribute easily. Sample: Teen Read Week. As the consumer of this info, I don't care about the format. Similarly, what's cool about St. Joseph County's subject guide wiki is the content more than the form. We already post subject guides on our homepage; if we like the way that works now, there's no need to change. If, however, many reference staff folks said they would update guides on the fly, then we might want to change to a wiki and keep our guides up-to-the-minute.
For this lesson, I enjoyed contributing to the CHPLearning wiki -- I like pbwiki's interface and tools much better than the one we use for YA Programming! I easily created new pages and edited my work. I had been working away for several minutes before I realized I was still in Firefox, my preferred browser, something our current wiki can't tolerate.
I like to work collaboratively, and whether we use a wiki or some other cool tool, I'll be on board.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Week 6: Photo Sharing
Just for fun, here's a slide show called "Signs at NP That Must Be Too Hard to See." If you'd like to leave a comment on a particular picture, go to Flickr and search for the tag "chplearning."
I use Flickr for work in a behind-the-scenes way, like when I share pictures from staff functions with coworkers. I also store images for future use on Flickr because unlike my z drive or desktop, Flickr is always there for me.
The slide show above demonstrates another use. Flickr allows any staff member to share images from last night's pizza and pages or game night or computer class, quickly and easily. Rappahannock Regional and Prince George's County use Flickr this way. Sharing pictures is part of the social networking experience that most young people enjoy: they like to see themseleves online. As you can see from the samples, there is no need to caption pictures with names.
I use Flickr for work in a behind-the-scenes way, like when I share pictures from staff functions with coworkers. I also store images for future use on Flickr because unlike my z drive or desktop, Flickr is always there for me.
The slide show above demonstrates another use. Flickr allows any staff member to share images from last night's pizza and pages or game night or computer class, quickly and easily. Rappahannock Regional and Prince George's County use Flickr this way. Sharing pictures is part of the social networking experience that most young people enjoy: they like to see themseleves online. As you can see from the samples, there is no need to caption pictures with names.
Podcast
Not many folks seem to have clicked over to my podcast page. I ran out of time trying to embed it last week, but it worked this time. Do give last week's a listen (below) or click here to hear about Eragon.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Week 5: Podcasting
Application
A fun way for teens to contribute to the library community is through sharing their opinions about what they read. For the video camera-shy, a podcast would be a cool way to participate.
Here's a sample podcast.
Podcasting as a project or program would draw young people because it's fun. We'd be providing them with a skill they could use later, and we'd be fostering creativity and the sense of self-worth kids get when adults show that they value a young person's opinion.
Backstory
It took me a while to get this to work. I need to work on my skills in the area of "read all the directions slowly and carefully." Which is ironic since that is the kind of thing I say weekly to patrons as I help them understand an online application or how to open an email accout.
Then, the staff PC in NP's lab didn't want to "see" one of the programs I needed to make all the technologies to talk to each other, so my dreams of using it as a peaceful recording studio on a Thursday morning were shattered.
I found these podcasting directions that the Web 2.o Committee suggested helpful.
The part about downlading Audacity and the LAME thing for making MP3s was the tricky part.
Many thanks to Deanna for talking me through this bit. Library Robot's blog entry on podcasting helped, too.
Now my desktop is littered with icons for programs, and I can barely remember which I used and which I didn't. . . . Which week do we study productivity??
A fun way for teens to contribute to the library community is through sharing their opinions about what they read. For the video camera-shy, a podcast would be a cool way to participate.
Here's a sample podcast.
Podcasting as a project or program would draw young people because it's fun. We'd be providing them with a skill they could use later, and we'd be fostering creativity and the sense of self-worth kids get when adults show that they value a young person's opinion.
Backstory
It took me a while to get this to work. I need to work on my skills in the area of "read all the directions slowly and carefully." Which is ironic since that is the kind of thing I say weekly to patrons as I help them understand an online application or how to open an email accout.
Then, the staff PC in NP's lab didn't want to "see" one of the programs I needed to make all the technologies to talk to each other, so my dreams of using it as a peaceful recording studio on a Thursday morning were shattered.
I found these podcasting directions that the Web 2.o Committee suggested helpful.
The part about downlading Audacity and the LAME thing for making MP3s was the tricky part.
Many thanks to Deanna for talking me through this bit. Library Robot's blog entry on podcasting helped, too.
Now my desktop is littered with icons for programs, and I can barely remember which I used and which I didn't. . . . Which week do we study productivity??
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Week 4: Choice / Twitter ... and Digital Literacy
Matt recently shared an article on managing multiple social networks. Author Ben Parr asserts, "People may disagree with me, but I believe you should sign up for the most popular social networks regardless of whether you are going to use them all. This prevents someone else being mistaken for you and protects an account that you may want to use later." (Parr's article on mashable.com) This comment, and indeed most of the article, assumes that your online presence and professional presence are intertwined -- if not one and the same.
I think that when (if) I get the chance to do web2.0 on behalf of HCPL, I'd create yet another user name. After all, I followed Parr's advice and went to Check User Names -- there's a lisalib on myspace, and that's not me. I might not want to be confused with her, certainly not for work. It would make sense to make a generic username tied to the position, not me: NPYA, or something.
I am intrigued by a final tip from Parr: atomkeep, which promises to allow me to update many social sites at once. This way, the twitter site I created could live on for those who would rather follow me that way.
Whenever I hear about a cool resource, or find one on my own, I want to share it. To the extent that teaching digital literacy and online safety is something public librarians should do, I'd love to be able to share Parr's article with patrons. The people who ask ref desk staff for "help with the computer" don't know how to sign up for an e-mail account and attach their resume. The patrons who can do that -- and more -- seldom ask our help. Wouldn't it be great if we could reach the tech-savvy with something like HCPL's Tech Tip of the Week? It could be a blog, with RSS -- and we could write an abstract version that would go out via Twitter? I don't tweet, so that's harder to picture.
Just thinking out loud on this one.
I think that when (if) I get the chance to do web2.0 on behalf of HCPL, I'd create yet another user name. After all, I followed Parr's advice and went to Check User Names -- there's a lisalib on myspace, and that's not me. I might not want to be confused with her, certainly not for work. It would make sense to make a generic username tied to the position, not me: NPYA, or something.
I am intrigued by a final tip from Parr: atomkeep, which promises to allow me to update many social sites at once. This way, the twitter site I created could live on for those who would rather follow me that way.
Whenever I hear about a cool resource, or find one on my own, I want to share it. To the extent that teaching digital literacy and online safety is something public librarians should do, I'd love to be able to share Parr's article with patrons. The people who ask ref desk staff for "help with the computer" don't know how to sign up for an e-mail account and attach their resume. The patrons who can do that -- and more -- seldom ask our help. Wouldn't it be great if we could reach the tech-savvy with something like HCPL's Tech Tip of the Week? It could be a blog, with RSS -- and we could write an abstract version that would go out via Twitter? I don't tweet, so that's harder to picture.
Just thinking out loud on this one.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Week 3: RSS Feeds
It took me a while to believe in RSS. I really didn't think it was so very difficult to click over to my favorite blogs to see if there was a new post. Library school friends swore by theirs for news, but I am not much of a newshound. It may have been peer pressure from my best friend to add a feed to my personal blog (she would not read it if she had to remember to look for it!) that finally got me on board.
Now I check my Bloglines feed daily to keep up on:
- books, via Guys Lit Wire and the Hip Librarians Book Blog.
- technology trends with Wired.
- library trends with Library Stuff.
I also get a feed from the Census Bureau and another from the Librarians' Internet Index that give me ideas for displays and (for the latter only) make me aware of cool new online sources.
CHPL could really benefit from push technologies like feeds or social networks. I learn about cultural events around town that way, and I am certain many of our patrons do, too. Imagine a tech-savvy mom checking her feeds in the morning and noting, "Oh good, the storytime break is over, let's go, kids!" If our high school-aged kids could access social networks in the library as well as at home, the events feature of Facebook and MySpace would put our name and our activities in front of their faces. And I am sure readers of all ages would enjoy a feed telling them about newly arrived books in their areas of interest.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Week 2: Blogs
For Week Two of CHPLearning, we take on blogs. I have been blogging with Blogger since February 2003, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. I told scary tales of substitute teaching, logged library school adventures, and I share stories about my life and Richmond with far-flung friends. (Well, until I joined Facebook - that's my main stay-in-touch tool, now, and I use my personal blog mostly for longer stories.) I also have a LiveJournal account, and my best friend set up a WordPress blog for me, but I definitely like Blogger best. In the six years I have been using it, it has become more intuitive. I used to use a fair bit of html, but now it's all buttons and widgets. Still, I am glad for the tiny bit of html I learned in library school because it helps me tinker with blogs and other web 2.0y things.
This week's CHPLearning entry prodded me to visit Technocrati and Google's blog search. I knew about them, but hadn't had the need to use them. I can't quite picture a patron asking "how can I find a blog about such-and-such," but you never know.
Speaking of patrons, early in my CHPL career, a patron asked how he could share pictures of his old car with other car collectors and I helped him set up a blog. I thought it would be a great solution and coached him along. For a week or two, I checked back on that URL: he hadn't updated it. Did he forget his password? Was it the wrong solution for his need? I learned Flickr right after that, so I could help any future patrons with a need like that, but patrons never ask us for that level of support. Most folks need to learn how to attach a resume to an email or figure out how to do an online job application. Is it because people who want to blog will just play with it or ask their friend who blogs how to do it? Is it because library staff aren't perceived as knowledgeable about such "advanced" things? Let's keep it from being the latter!
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