Week 9 - Thing 23 - Summary

Although I wouldn't reccomend someone go through this at the pace I did, I found this to be an interesting journey of discovery. Left to my own devices, I would probably not explore half the items we looked at. I have a better appreciation of what is out there in the internet and the web.
I was skeptical that there would be anything that I would use personally. However, I found myself getting into bloglines and podcasts. I think that it also opened my eyes to what libraries can really do to reach out to there patrons with these new tools. I still like what Menasha Public Library with widgets and blogs and Del.icio.us. It showed how you can combine a number of these different tools to make yourself attractive to your patron. It is nice to be aware of all these tools that are available and not have a blank look on my face when they are discussed.
I would definitely be interested in participating a program like this in the future. I would hope that I could spread my own experience with it over a longer time frame, which is not the program's fault but how I manage my workload.

Week 7 - Thing 17 - Sandbox

It was fun playing in the sandbox! I added a couple of movies to favorite movie and a web link to a good resource about great films. I also added my blog address to Favorite Blogs. I noticed only three URLs for Frederick. I don't know what may have happened to others. Staff here did register. A mystery? That is what you get when you let others edit!

Week 7 - Thing 16 - Wikis

I feel Wikis can serve a number purposes in a library setting. Princeton's use of it as a community book review location sounds like a great idea to provide patrons with another resource to use in reader's advisory. Even more important is that the resource is the community. I liked St. Joseph's subject guide which integrates a number of community resources,interesting websites with selected library catalog searches and databases. A good way to use a number of different resources with a fairly easy subject layout. Training and internal communications are obvious uses. Taking the message board to a higher level.

Week 6 - Thing 15 - Perspectives

The mountain isn't coming to the library, so the library has to go to the mountain.As much as I am a "hold the item in my hand" kind of guy, I understand that, in this day and age, it is not about my preferences. The focus should always doing the best by our patrons. I believe that this is the focus of both Rick Anderson and Michael Stephens. We need to serve our patrons needs and use the delivery systems that are most relevant to them. We need to make sure that these systems are organized and updated to provide the best information in a constantly changing world. I spent fifteen years in retail, mostly in catalog shworooms. They offered good product at reasonable price by having customers order items which were stored in a warehouse. Everything was organized and relatively efficient. In an age of increasing instant gratification, customers did not want to wait. Whereas, catalog showrooms in many ways pioneered several of the innovations that all retailers use now to satisfy customer needs, they still insisted to focus on a delivery system that did not meet the customers needs. They are gone now. I do not think that is the way that libraries are going as this course indicates. We just need to keep reminding ourselves of our purpose.

Week 6 - Thing 14 - Technorati

It was interesting to see what different approaches showed for Learning 2.0. A search for blog posts brought up 25,615 posts. However, if you went in advanced search and used exact phrase it narrowed it down to 3,838 posts. Searching by tags brought up 21,156 posts, 509 blogs, 20 videos and 319 photos. Good if you are trying to separate out particular items of interest. Blog directory yielded 545 blogs.
I looked at top favorited, searches and blogs. I found it to be mostly tech related or social. I did not find that surprising at all. Boing Boing was about the only thing that sparked any interest. I could see an advantage to using advanced search if I was really interested to find relevant blogs to something I was working on.

Week 6 - Thing 13 - Del.icio.us

Not warming up to all the social network aspects of this site, I wasn't sure how this would be of any good use until I saw the San Mateo and Menasha Library sites (by the way, look at Menasha's whole website for a good use of a lot of the things we have covered). I can see a real use for Del.icio.us in organizing all the many items different librarians run across in their work with patrons. Menasha used a very nice organizational approach, and San Mateo - what a radical thought of using Dewey! If you look at some of the other libraries, you can see that how you organize the tags is key.

Week 8 - Thing 19 - Web 2.0

I dropped in on a few sites, but spent most of my time on Medstory. I found it fairly easy to navigate. I liked that it gave you search suggestions when you were in the Information that Matters section. I felt that it was too commercial though. Most of the information in "Information that Matters" seemed to be short abstracts from Wall Street Journal articles. Great if you are in the library to get the info, but a pain otherwise. The main listings for a topic below this defaults to the web and I could not see that there was any sense of importance to the order of the listings with commercial sites in many cases listed above reputable medical sites. Also, along the side were ads that I felt were not appopriate for a site offering medical advice. You can easily narrow your search, but I would advice people using a great deal of care when evaluating information from this site.

Week 8 - Thing 18 - Zoho

I took a look at both Zoho and Google Docs. Zoho seemed more comfortable for me to work in. It feels a lot like word and I am comfortable with that. I like the portability aspect and the fact that you could actually share your site with someone else.

Week 9 - Thing 22 - Audiobooks

I already have accounts with Netlibrary and Overdrive and am familiar with how they operate. In fact I order some of the material for Overdrive. The advantage with Netlibrary is that you have unlimited access to all titles. Overdrive however is a single use operation except for film and a select list of 50 titles from Blackstone audio. Although it provides a good variety of material that is not on Netlibrary, it does have the problem of many items having hold lists. This is due to the fact that it serves as the audiobook source for most of Maryland. The problem with both sites is that they both have DRM which means that I-pod users can not access the materials on these sites. If the day ever comes that audiobook producers see that people are not likely to be wanting to " bootleg" the free from your library copy of an audiobook, I think we will see a tremendous increase in downloadable audiobook circulation.

Week 9 - Thing 21 - Podcasts

Tried Podcast.net but it kept saying I was missing some plugins. Went to Yahoo and found it easy to search. Loaded a number of book and classical music series to my Bloglines account. I also found it usefull for financial information, provided you take a good look at what the date is on the podcast.
Podcasts would be a good tool for book talks and children's programming.

Week 5 - Thing 12 - Rollyo

I thought this was very interesting and easy to use. I already see this as being a good tool to organize a number of the websites that I currently use in my work by the type of media I am working on at the moment. I have posted my link for my search roll on my main page.

High Def DVD and Library Implications - Part 2

Yes, I am adding something just for the fun of it. Paramount and Dream works have just joined Universal in releasing next generation DVDs in HD DVD only. This pits them against Sony, Disney, 20th Century Fox and MGM which are exclusively Blu-ray. Time-Warner right now is still producing in both formats. What this means is that, where in the past with VHS and Beta, the consumer decided which would survive by picking the format of their choice for a movie, with next generation DVDs it is a matter of which corporate grouping blinks first. Do you buy your next DVD player based on whether you like Shrek more than Cars? Which do you invest in? What happens if Time-Warner decides to go to one format exclusively? I would say the jury is still out on whether to seriously invest in the next generation DVDs from a library standpoint. Of course, everyone could just go out and buy two DVD players. We are, after all, a consumer nation.

week 9 - thing 20 - YouTube

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I chose the video " Medieval Helpdesk" because it helps to put into perspective all that we are doing with this training. Everything is a new experience to be explored by people at one time or another. I learned in placing this on my blog that deleting tags to allow the HTML to be accepted was not the end of the world.
YouTube in itself can be very addicting, From a musical standpoint this is a classical and opera lovers delight. Elgar conducting Elgar! Thousand of hits on Maria Callas. Compare different opera singers in performance of the same song. You don't have to make a long listening commitment like you do with a CD or DVD. As Philip Kennicot states in the September issue of Gramophone, " We listen with curiousity, with a roving, meandering, self-directed interest...It is the world's greatest collection of musical footnotes." For me at least, that is the appeal of YouTube.
For the library, I see this as a possible learning platform and promotion of the library system and it's programs.

Week Five - Thing 11 - Library Thing

Cool site. I can see myself really using this. I liked how libraries used it for randomly displaying new material. Take a look at

Funny Requests from Patrons

from the group Librarians who LibraryThing. Among the usual items are some real gems. You can search my library from my blog homepage.

Week Five - Thing 10 Online Image Generator

This was such a pain. This image transfered fine, but the first one was a bust. It would only copy part of the image of a chocolate bar with av king on it (www.kessel.com). Three people worked on it and no one could figure it out.
I also added an avatar to my blog page. In the spirit of truth in advertising, it is missing a significant amount of hair.

Week 4 - Thing 9 - Explore Merlin

I found Blogline's search tool to be the best for me. Lean mean and to the point. To much glitz on Feedster, and Topix and Syndic8 seemed too slow and did not give me the quality results I wanted.I guess I don't need a lot of blog garbage for what I want.
It was good to be steered back to Merlin, another resource I needed to be reminded of.

Week 4 - Thing 8 - RSS

I already subscribe to Bloglines due to taking a class on it here at FCPL. Like all good tools though, it pays to actually use it. I added some of the suggested links and will follow what is on them to see if they are worthwhile. Many of the links I try to find have to do with media, which is what I deal with every day.
If anyone wants to see the boring stuff I look at , I did create a public bloglines.
www.bloglines.com/public/avking

Week 3 - Thing 6 - Flickr Mash-ups

I have to admit that this was more interesting than I thought. I really like the one called Flickr Color Picker. Some of the colors and textures were really intense. I followed a link to an intriquing mosaic call Stick Figures in Peril, http://www.coverpop.com/pop/flickr_stickfigures/ Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor.

Week 3 - Thing 5 - Explore Flickr

This has been interesting to look at. I liked the links to what other libraries and librarians are doing. The one on artwork was especially interesting. There was one piece that would probably not appear here without comment. This was the site I picked my picture from. I am sure that those who know my sense of humor will appreciate my choice. The title of the picture is "Books are meant to be red".

Week 3 Thing 7 - Technology - HD DVD vs. Blu-ray and implications for libraries

I'm back!! Must find the time to finish. On to the topic at hand.
There are two competing formats for the next generation of DVD. A manufacturers forum that was supposed to prevent this from happening fell apart as Toshiba and Sony decided to go their different ways. This blog is not about which may be better, but the implications of each as to there ability to be included in the media that a library provides. Currently, all earlier CD and DVD formats can be repaired by a resurfacing process that basically sands, buffs and polishes the surface ( a 0.6 mm surface layer) that protects the data layer. This surface layer is the same on the new HD-DVD format allowing the current repair technology to be applied. This means that the product can be repaired again and again and again and play like new. Blu-ray DVD's however have a thinner (0.1 mm) layer to allow the laser to focus better on the data because the track pitch of the laser is set differently so that more data can be stored on the disc. Now comes the fun part.Because the layer is so thin, Blu-ray DVDs have a special hard coating added to protect the surface. It is somewhat scratch resistant and is supposed to make it easier to clean off fingerprints. Notice that it is only scratch resistant. I f you do manage to scratch the surface, and we know how a number of our customers (not all) treat our media, you can not repair the surface. This raises the issue of whether to invest in the newest DVD technology or stick with the current format which newer DVD players with up-conversion can boost the signal so that they look acceptable on HD-TVs. Food for thought.