#12 ROLLYO (Later) -- #13 - Del.icio.us

There is a lot of social networking going on -- many, many ways to keep me connected with others -- for many different reasons. There are my Twitter followers (well, actually my Facebook friends), my photo friends (Flickr), my LibraryThing friends, and now my Folksonomy (tagging) friends. I must admit, my first reaction to Del.icio.us was - I already have lots of bookmarks - all alphabetized and easy to find, why another technology? I dutifully listened to the both the podcast and the tutorial. Light began to dawn. Then, I followed the link to PLCMCL2's account, clicked on "tags", then on "reference" :). I went out and back a few times and discovered that the tags change very quickly. It's necessary to grab that link and save the bookmark. I could see that this could be useful - especially for sharing links with collaborators. I did not set up my own account at this time, but could definitely envision doing so in the future. Do you know I immediately found sites that I didn't know existed and certainly don't want to forget about. I found the comments and think they could be useful. Sharing tags with other librarians can help to keep up with reference resources -- but one does have to wonder how to keep up with the bookmarks?
P.S. I haven't been able to get into ROLLYO. But I will keep trying.

Library Thing (#11)

Learning 2.0: a discovery learning tool for librarians. I confess that I am finding too many personal uses for these tools. I'm sure that almost everyone else already probably knew about this, but I didn't. I am elated. Reading is a favorite pastime for many members of our family. Because my children know that I like to read certain authors, they like to give me gifts of those books. I actually have a rather large collection of Agatha Christie books started probably 35 years ago or so. At times, even I run across a book and wonder - do I have that one. I also enjoy reading Alexander McCall Smith (as well as many others). This is great! I can "catalog" my books, share the link (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Suneydew) with my family, and they will know (and so will I) whether I have a certain book or not. Not only that, but they can do the same, since I also am known to give books as gifts -- and often have to consult with them to see if they have the book, thereby entirely removing the element of surprise. With a group forum for librarians, reviews and recommendations, plus the huge and growing number of cataloged books, the value to the librarian is obvious. Kudos to Tim Spalding for creating this tool.

Image Generator

It has been way too long since I have been here. I actually probably spent too much time with #10 -- online image generators. I can foresee that when I have a minute to breathe again, I will want to spend a little more time with this. There seems to be a tremendous amount of things you can do with this and I have only touched the surface. I am including a few motivational posters -- all family members (except that strange character who has taken my daughter hostage). This particular exercise reminds me of Flickr a great deal. I also noticed that the site where I created these (http://bighugelabs.com), one of the resources provided is "home of fd's Flickr Toys. I found sites where I could for instance, put my head on another body -- don't think that would help. I can think of a lot of ways these types of techniques could be useful for the library. How about READ posters, invitations to a book club, a mosaic of storytime children?

Ramblings

Added more to my Bloglines RSS feeds. Now I can also keep updated on Alzheimer news. I am in a large research study called the WRAP program (Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention) at the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute: http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/wai/wrap/wrap.html As the adult child of a person diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, I take a battery of tests every four years. It's a challenging test and the collective results are always very interesting.

I'm following three other members of the class, having discovered I can find their postings on my "dashboard" after registering as a follower. It's a convenient feature that I am appreciating.

I thought I had already completed 20 hours at my practicum after last Thursday, but discovered it must have been a senior moment. I'll finish the half-way point after this Thursday (10/22). I am learning a lot at the Meriter Medical Library. The time seems to go by so quickly. I'll add one picture of the library here. At some point, I'd like to add one of Robert's poems here.

I had a lot of fun planning the trip to British Columbia. Wish we could really go. . .

More this weekend -- "Things" 10, 11 and 12 coming up.

RSS Feeds

Well, would you look at that?! I knew about RSS feeds. I manage a biochemistry research lab. The researchers use RSS feeds to be notified of articles that pertain to their research. I didn't know what RSS stood for. How non-inquisitive is that? "Really Simple Syndication" sounds a little like "keep it simple stupid". And really, it is simple. I never really thought of having my own personal RSS feed. I had a great deal of fun setting up the Bloglines newsreader account. I added in news feeds, library feeds, my son and daughter-in-law's blog (wonderful grandchildren pictures), dictionary.com's word of the day (love it!), and a number of the Channel 3000 (Madison) feeds. And you know what-- this is going to help. My schedule is a bit overwhelming just now, and I have missed keeping up to date on some things because of it. It's pretty obvious that this great technology would be very helpful to the busy librarian, who has more than a personal need for keeping up to date on all sorts of things, especially library news. I almost feel like saying Whoo Hooo!

Practicum

Have I said how much I am enjoying my practicum at the Meriter Hospital Medical Library? Robert and Sharon have welcomed me and made me feel like I belong. Both Robert, the library director and Sharon, his assistant are very busy helping with literature searches, filling reference requests and being amazing customer service representatives. Robert has built a rapport with an amazing number of people in the entire hospital community. There are always people in the library and in the short two hours I am there on a day, several people will stop by with requests -- or just to chat for a few moments! The goal of the library is to fill requests as quickly as possible -- rarely does a reply not go out the same day. Meriter is part of free-share group that freely shares articles through Docline. Yesterday as I was finishing, Robert said, "just think, perhaps one of those articles will help save someone's life". I hadn't thought of it that way, but it did remind me that what we do as librarians is important!

#7 -- Something technology related

I'm usually a pretty private individual. I don't think Twitter would be a place for me personally. Because of it's apparent popularity, I do think that it probably would have value for the library. It would be great for the library to have "followers" and for those followers to be able to keep up with events at the library, great reads, etc -- in a cool, fun way. But, I was quite upset by the newspaper article this week detailing a woman's decision to Twitter about extremely personal events in her life. Is this where this type of technology invites us to go? I don't want to go there. I also have a question -- is there a difference between Twitter and Facebook?

That being said, I do feel that it is important for the librarians to know about as many things technology related as possible. I really appreciate this introduction to and exploration of available technologies. However, at the rate that they are being introduced, how will I keep up with them?