Thing 8--Destination Unclear, But I Know Where I've Been!

At the moment I'm not certain that I'll ever finish the rest of the 23 Things! We upgraded to a new version of our ILS *AND* switched to a new calendar program, both in the same week, and you know that those sorts of things always come with their own issues...plus it's nearly September already!
I have a Flickr account, but haven't uploaded anything yet, so I didn't want to go that route. I decided to use public Flickr photos to describe where I went this summer and am able to "tell" you in seconds with the help of Picturetrail.

What a cool tool this is! Very easy to understand and navigate--heck, it worked the first time for me, so you know it must be easy. :-) This would be a great way to showcase a group of new books, DVDS, or music CDs--actually, anything with html for a cover image available. Or maybe you want to present your reference staff, or announce an upcoming event in the library. Picturetrail is an eye-catching way to do it.

WHERE I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

Thing 7-- Can We Talk?

This is another thing that (for me, at least) mainly requires me to blog, rather than to solve some technological puzzle.

As I look back over my library career, I think email has always been there, tho perhaps not in the earliest days. Heck, I remember when we didn't even have a printer in the technical services department, and we had to walk over to the computer center to pick up anything we had printed out. Obviously privacy was less of a concern back then...

Here at St Olaf College email has long been an accepted, even expected, form of communication; for most people it's as easy to use as the telephone (and unlike the telephone, the software remembers the address you are writing too, so you don't have to). I can't say that it has improved productivity, however, because people receive SO MUCH email. If the telephone rang as often as email arrived, people wouldn't be able to hear themselves think over the racket!
I haven't had the occasion to use online reference tools at all, so I can't speak about it from experience, but I do think that in theory it should be a very valuable tool, particularly for people in remote locations with no librarian or library nearby. I've read about how people in outlying areas make use of virtual doctor visits, appearing on camera and being evaluated by a doctor located often hundreds of miles away, and I think that online reference must be the library equivalent of that. Of course it's not only folks out in the boonies using online reference--I would think this would be popular with anyone who wants a question answered without having to get dressed or get into the car, or even walk across campus. Technology developed for a particular constituency often ends up as an option for everyone. Curb cuts are practically omnipresent on our sidewalks today, and we all use them, not just people with disabilities for whose benefit they were originally developed. I foresee a time, probably soon, when online reference is just one more service libraries provide, no longer newsworthy.

I'm a huge fan of IM and text messaging. I first became familiar with IM when my daughter attended college in Boston. I loved being able to reach her easily even tho she was physically so far away. I never used IM at work, however, preferring email or face-to-face contact, until St Olaf and Carleton merged their catalogs. Then I began to work much more closely with Sue, my Carleton colleague, as we helped iron out merger snafus in the catalog. We found that if we IM'd each other it was much less disrupting than phone calls would have been. We were both usually working in the database anyway, so it was easy to alt-tab over to MSN Messenger and continue typing, asking the other to look at this or that record, or wondering what the problem was now.
We both do a lot of authority work, and keep an IM session open all the time--there are always questions that need answering. Our productivity has gone up, and professionally we are closer, but an unexpected result is that a merger I wasn't enthusiastic about has yielded a good friend, all because she is right there, at the end of my keyboard, so to speak.

I learned SMS, or text messaging, by using it on my cell phone while traveling. That's really the only use I've made of it up to this point--not work-related at all. I think it's a fantastic tool to have, tho, and it certainly saved the day several times when I was traveling this summer--averting a missed rendezvous caused by misreading the calendar, and providing alternate transportation in the case of a botched connection.

I've "attended" a few webinars put on by Minitex (on metadata, Connexion, authority control and possibly others that I can't remember at the moment) and have found them to be very helpful. It saves taking time and spending money to go to someplace off site to learn, and I look forward to participating in more webinars in the future.

One last thing--Meebo. I no longer remember where I learned about it, but I do have an account, tho I don't use it regularly. I wanted to be able to chat from home with Sue, my Carleton colleague, and was unable to make MSN Messenger work on my computer. I can certainly see how this would be useful for libraries using online reference, as they would be able to communicate across a variety of IM platforms.

These many communication tools bring people together from all over the world, and serve to remind us how small that world has become.

Thing 6--Don't Stop Now

Wow, Thing 6 went pretty quickly! I used Image Chef, created my message, and got out of that site--I wasn't there very long, just long enough to realize that I could easily spend hours playing around with words and pictures...




I can see using Image Chef along with Flickr to create attention-getting publicity for the library.

I hope the PR committee knows about these tools!

Thing 5-Stumped? Read the Directions...Again!

Wow, I was THIS close to giving up on the 23 Things--I was just not able to add what I thought was the necessary page element to my blog. Turns out I was trying to do something that wasn't required, at least not yet (and probably never by me). For some reason, when I looked at Spell with Flickr, all suddenly became clear.

But now that I get the point, I think it's a very cool way to customize, using simple images. What a clever way to advertise what's happening "@ Your Library." This is the perfect tool for the age of short attention spans that we live in. It demonstrates to me how a photo can become part of something bigger than itself. Sure, someone could misuse those photos, but the sharing itself is not the problem.

The topic of signage surfaces regularly in my library, usually accompanied by the lament that "no one notices them." Here's a way to change that.

Thing 4-Fun with Flickr

What fun to be able to add photos to my blog! I prefer actual images to avatars any day.

Despite reading several pages of otherwise helpful Flickr information, I ended up adding the photos of my cats one by one rather than uploading them via email. The handout said "Flickr will provide you with a secret email address that should go in the To: line of your email message" but apparently it was very well hidden because I never found it. Perhaps I'll try another time.

Thing 3--Not New for Me!

What do you know! I'm actually ahead of the game with Thing 3--I've been using Bloglines since...since...well, since I began reading blogs. That's what, a year ago at least, isn't it? 6 months? I think it's been at least that long. Long enough that I've even figured out how to add the Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet to my toolbar, and I've used it several times, too. Bloglines is truly a time-saving tool. There is no practical way I could stay on top of my blogs if I had to check each one individually to see if it had been updated.

Thing 2--'Bout Time Too!

Since my last post (= my first post) I have had several weeks of travel, both for work and for pleasure, occasionally even both at the same time! Now I'm faced with some marathon blogging sessions if I'm to finish with the rest of the "class" next month.

Let's see--is it possible that Thing 2 is simply some good old fashioned writing? I had to read the directions a second time, and I even checked with a "classmate" to be sure I'd read them correctly.
I thought about it for awhile, pondering what clever things to say about all this stuff. Then I realized that I'd better forget cleverness, jot down some thoughts and get on with blogging--August is nearly half gone, after all!

Why am I doing this? It's not as tho I have the time to do it. These days there doesn't seem to be time for anything. But this technology is in use now and promises to be part of the future, and I want to be a participant, not a spectator, so I'd better take the time to learn about it. I remember learning to use the Internet about 14-15 years ago. Now I use it all the time, and....wait, could that be where some of my time has gone? Yes, certainly. There is more content to read, and even more to ignore or delete. There is more to do online now: make purchases, pay bills, keep track of bank balances, upload/edit/sort photos, chat, read blogs, and so much more! That's at home, but things have changed at work, too. I have to read my email and work-related blogs and check my calendar. What's really interesting are the other ways I use the Internet at work every day. Most of the resources I consult when I have cataloging questions are online now, from OCLC documentation to the MARC format manuals to foreign library websites that help me determine just what sort of non-English item I'm dealing with. Plus my job itself is changing right now--in addition to the cataloging and authority work I do, I'm learning how to order foreign language materials that we can't obtain through our usual vendors. Having the Internet as a search tool
means that the world is open to me, and I can often locate and purchase requested items much more quickly, items that might never have been found in the past.

I freely admit that I am a novice when it comes to this new generation of Web 2.0 tools, however. That's why I decided to sign up for the 23 Things--to learn, and I plan to have fun doing it.