But wait, there's more!

I just thought I was finished blogging. :)

First of all, yes, I would be interested in participating in a similar exercise in the future. I confess I have not yet explored the link Sarah sent out, but I will! I really will.

The point of this entry was to share a cool experience I just had.
I'm in the computer lab and a patron was trying to access an e-book from her college website. It wouldn't work because something needed to be installed and our trusty Charlie is out sick today. I checked our catalog and we don't have the book, so I remembered something from the recesses of my dusty brain: Google Books. We tried it, the book was there, she was ecstatic and said I was a genius (ha). I love when things work out perfectly!

I honestly wouldn't have thought of Google Books if it weren't for having participated in the 23 Things project.

It seems hard for me to believe that the 23 Things are over already.

Anyway, I think my favorite aspect was reading the blogs of my FRL partners-in-crime. I've really enjoyed that and I'm sad to see it end. One minor note of frustration along those lines, though, is: I can't view older blog entries, because if I try to click the link for 'older posts', I get the 'blocked by the library' speech. This is irritating, because I think I've missed peoples' entries and I want to read them!

My favorite site we've explored is goodreads, and it is definitely one of a number that I've taken away from this entire exercise and will use for a long time to come. Even though I was not a newbie to the land of blogs, YouTube, podcasts and the like, I can honestly say that I've learned many things throughout the past weeks, both from the exercises and from my fellow workmates. I've enjoyed that.

Would I participate again? Sure.

Before I go, in the interest of sharing fun things I've discovered recently, my new favorite is muxtape. It's like mixtape heaven for the online crowd! If you want to listen to my mixtape (or muxtape, whatever) go here.

Thing #22: NetLibrary

Because I'm nothing if not predictable, the first search I did was by author for ... *drum roll* ... Jane Austen. I was very happy to see her big six novels, all unabridged, all able to be downloaded. I think I'll download "Mansfield Park", as it's been a while since I've read it.

I started browsing around under Nonfiction, and was feeling like the selection wasn't the greatest, when I found Bob Dylan's "Chronicles: Volume One" which has been on my to-read list for ages now. Exciting! I added it to my 'favorites'. Speaking of, I like being able to add titles to my favorites to save for later.

I still feel like the selection is on the narrow side, though. Am I just being too picky about free audiobooks? Probably! I found the children's fiction to be especially sparse. On the other hand, there were a fair amount of mystery/suspense titles.

I think patrons would like this site but I really foresee problems with them not knowing how to download, or not knowing how to listen to their selections after downloading, or not knowing how to load them onto their mp3 player, etc.

Okay, so after typing all of the above, I decided to look around the 'help' section. Lo and behold, these books aren't compatible with iPods or Zunes. Oh well, I suppose I won't be listening to "Mansfield Park" or "Chronicles" en route to work after all...

Thing #21: The Pod People

Well, I feel a bit cheaty going into this exercise because I'm already a big fan of podcasts and have been using them for a while now. Right after I got my iPod, my first thought after dreading the tedium of transferring all of my music over to it, was: 'Yay! This American Life podcasts!' Fast forward to now and I'm still very much 'Yay, TAL podcasts!'
Yes, now I can cry in my car to the soothing sounds of Ira Glass' voice at any time I choose!
I don't have to wait until it comes on NPR to get snivelly & weepy!

I think I even added TAL podcasts to my RSS feeds thingy already when we were working on that exercise, so that's done.

I get mine directly from iTunes, personally, but I know that's not the best option for everyone. I'm pretty much a big NPR nerd, but this is especially evident in the podcasts I choose to subscribe to (in addition to TAL), 75% of which are from NPR. Some things don't translate well for me, though, as far as listening to podcasts versus reading books. I downloaded some organic gardening ones but I found that my mind kept drifting and I kept losing my place in what was being said. This is more of an ongoing issue I have with any audiobook, though.

I did peruse podcastalley.com and found some that I might have to try, like some under the 'Food and Drink' category. Instead of weeping in my car to Ira Glass, though, these might make my stomach growl too much...

Thing #20: YouTube

I've been a fan of YouTube for a while now, so it wasn't exactly a hardship to play around on that website!

First of all, a couple of fun things to share:

I love this recording of The Pogues doing one of my favorite, if not my very favorite, songs of theirs: 'Dirty Ol' Town'. This is obviously from back when Shane still had a few teeth left!


While I'm sharing music and music videos, here's one of my favorite videos ever, "Hoppípolla" (Icelandic for "jumping into puddles") by Sigur Rós. I just love the video -- and the song, of course. It's in Icelandic so don't try too hard to make out the lyrics, unless you happen to speak Icelandic, in which case feel free. :)



I found a lot of YouTube videos pertaining to libraries, quite a few of which were tours of various libraries. Most of them were pretty basic and rather dry, but this one made me laugh a little. It's pretty cheesy, but cute.



And now, for something completely different.
Monty Python meets librarians.



A few thoughts on YouTube: one of my biggest pet peeves with the site is the stupid comments left by people. Not all of the comments are asinine, but I'd say a good 90% are, and usually just irritate me. Therefore, I just skip 'em.

I do think there are a lot of fun things on YouTube, but also a lot of drivel and time wasters, of course. It's not a site that I personally spend a lot of time viewing. However, I can see some potential for libraries and FRL in particular -- library tours, upcoming programming, previous programs as advertisement, etc.

What's up, Docs?

Really, my blog is just a place for me to display how full of cringeworthy puns I am...

Thing #18: Google Docs
I think this is a pretty brilliant idea. I'm the queen of emailing myself pertinent documents, and this is cumbersome and leaves much margin for error and confusion. Google Docs my just solve some of my scatterbrained problems. I uploaded a Word document from my files here at work and found it easy to use. My only complaint is that Publisher documents are not supported and 95% of my stuff is in Publisher.

I had to laugh, though, when I was taking the tour and reading some of the ways other people use Docs in their business and personal lives (some great ideas!) when I got to the British fellow who created a shared spreadsheet grocery list with his wife, that they each could access from whatever computer they happened to be at. They also could each edit it, of course. Anyway, he described their grocery list, which was designed to print on one sheet of A4-size paper and with the items categorised in the same order as the layout at the local supermarket. This seemed a far cry from my customary grocery shopping experience: scribbled notes to myself on whatever scrap of paper is available at the time or my hand as notepad, frantically going in circles around the inside of the store forgetting which aisle everything was on, getting distracted by food I was suddenly craving, then noticing fifteen minutes later when I got home that I'd forgotten something crucial, like toilet paper or dark chocolate.
Maybe Google Docs is my shopping list dream come true, too?

How do I think it would be helpful for library and patrons?
Well, for patrons it seems like it would obviously be very appealing to be able to access documents from any computer, any time. No need to cart that pesky flash drive around with you! For staff, I admit it didn't seem quite as must-have to me ... but maybe I'm just overlooking some way it would make our lives easier, in the sense of working together, I mean. For myself, I think it may be a place to store my electronic timesheets, because then I could make changes any time without, again, having to do the juggling act of emailing it to myself because of folder restrictions on the network.

Thing #19
When I looked at the list of Web 2.0 winners, it seemed blindingly obvious what my choice would be. Etsy! I've been a huge Etsy fan for quite a while now -- in fact, the necklace I'm wearing to work today is one I bought from a crafter on that site. It's wonderful, it's fabulous, I can't say enough about the talented craftspeople on Etsy. There's even an option to shop local so you can support your local crafters! My only sadness is that they've removed a feature called 'Suggestions' that I used to love. It would take items or sellers you'd designated as 'Favorites' (great feature, by the way) and would suggest other items based on that. I don't know why it's gone, but gone it is.

Because I can't possibly pick just one, I have to give a brief mention to Pandora. You create personalized radio stations based on the musician(s) of your choice. I've discovered some new music this way, plus it's always interesting to see what artists they compare to ones I love. Sometimes I scratch my head at Pandora's choices, but it's still a site I frequent, usually if I'm at work working on projects and want something to listen to but have no cds with me.

Ketchup.

Thing #13:
I created a Del.icio.us account after I went to the NCLA conference last fall, but it has been sorely neglected ever since then, so of course I totally forgot my username and password. It took many frustrated tries before I gave up and requested to have my information emailed to me … after I spent five minutes trying to figure out which email I used! Whatever. The moral of that story is that basically Del.icio.us isn’t all that useful to me personally. Once again, I prefer my bookmarks, although I can see the value in taking your bookmarks with you if need be, which isn’t so much of an issue for me. When I’m at home, I much prefer bookmarking through the Google Toolbar, which you can access from any computer once you log into Google … any computer with the toolbar downloaded, of course. Therein lies the rub.

As far as Del.icio.us goes, I could see a benefit to linking with other FRL employees, or even within Macon’s Reference staff. It seems a good way to share bookmarks we’ve found that wouldn’t just be Ref Desk computer-centric. The more I think about this, the more valuable I think that would be…
(a completely unrelated sidepoint: I have a hard time separating the word 'Del.icio.us' the way they separate it. I keep wanting to type 'Deli.ci.ous' instead.)

Thing #14:
Google Books interested me. I’ve stumbled across it inadvertently in the past by googling book titles but have never really explored it. I found a sweet little gem called ‘Jane Austen: Her Homes & Her Friends’, written in 1905. I enjoyed browsing through it. I like that Google Books gives you the option to search within the book, as well as skip to ‘Popular passages’, and of course gives links to purchase sites.
I can certainly see how it may be useful to libraries. For example, if a patron was looking for a specific poem or play that we don’t have a copy of, we could search for it here and print it for them. It could also be handy if someone knew of a specific page they needed from a book that was not in our library. I have actually had that happen.

Thing #15:
I’ll be honest. My first thoughts about Web 2.0/Library 2.0 are thoughts of sadness. I love my techie stuff, but I also feel strongly about getting offline and living and not being connected to the Web all the time. One article said: You and your mobile and nonmobile devices — PDA, MP3, laptop, cell phone, camera, PC, TV, etc.— are always online, connected to one another and to the Web. I don’t like the thoughts of this, even though they may be reality. I just feel like somewhere along the way we’re losing the art of human interaction in all of that cyber connectivity.
As far as libraries, I’m very torn. I realize that regardless of how I feel about Web 2.0, etc., the reality is that the role of libraries has changed and I think it’s very important that we keep up with technology-based services and patron demand. And seriously? I can get on board with that … I just hope we don’t lose ourselves in the process.
In my heart of hearts, I’m one of those people who just wants to be surrounded by books all day. Libraries are still very nostalgic* for me, even after having worked in one for three years. I get that our role is changing, but I too miss what libraries used to be. I love technology, but I wish we had as many people come in to find good books as we do people wanting to access MySpace.

*which is seriously amazing, considering the craziness of working in a public library!

Thing #16:
Wikis. Well, I’ve definitely fallen into the Wikipedia nets many times in the past, although I have questioned its reliability. Anyway, I confess to being pretty wiki-ignorant for the most part (wignorant?), but heard wikis mentioned numerous times at the NCLA conference.
In looking at the links on our 23 Things page, I really liked St. Joseph County Public Library’s wiki page. I think it’s a great idea to have a collaborative effort between library employees, like with our Staff Picks books and general information about the library’s policies and upcoming programming that we could add in ourselves. I love that they have the feature to Talk to the Library, either by way of leaving comments or by instant message. Great idea! Also, I think I remember a mention at the conference about using a wiki to communicate between various employees of a specific department in the library, and I also think this would be helpful. For example, if I needed to leave information for Kristina, Erin, Carol or Tracy (or all of them) I could add it to our mutual wiki and they could have access to it or add to it themselves.

As far as faults I find with wikis, I have to say reliability would be tops on my list. Hand in hand with that, though, is editing, like grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. I have to admit that I cringed a couple of times looking at the BookLovers Wiki by the Princeton Public Library. I just can’t help zeroing in on misspellings and suchlike things. Maybe this isn’t so much a fault with wiki as it is me being overly picky? :)

Thing #17:
I added ‘Jane Eyre’ to the list of favorite books and added my blog to the list of favorite blogs. I found it easy and had no troublesome times.

Survey says...

I can't resist a survey! Thanks for letting me steal this from your blog, Tony.

Five things about me that you may or may not have know in no particular order. Copy and paste it for your blog, so we can know more about you.

Five jobs I've had in my life:
1. Ad Designer at The Asheville Citizen-Times
2. Graphic Designer, Cashiers Printing & Graphics
3. Book shelver @ Jackson County Public Library (a lonnnnng time ago)
4. Girl Friday for an accountant
5. Abuse Taker, I mean Front Desk Receptionist, doc's office in Asheville

Five Favorite Movies (here's an assortment of favorites -- I have quite a few)
1. Anne of Green Gables
2. Pride & Prejudice (the A&E version)
3. Moonstruck
4. North & South (BBC film, not the American mini-series)
5. A Room With a View

Five Places I have Lived
1. Naples, FL
2. Waynesville, NC
3. Sylva, NC
4. Asheville, NC
5.

Five Books You Can Read Over and Over
1. 'Jane Eyre'
2. any of the 'Anne of Green Gables' series
3. 'Persuasion'
4. 'Little Women'
5. 'Outlander'

Five things about me you might not know:
1. I'm afraid of Darth Vader.
2. One of my favorite places to people-watch is the Arrivals gate at airports.
3. When other girls had nicknames like Princess, I had a dad who called me Goobercinda and Penelope Punkwad when I was a kid. I love that to this day.
4. I'd wear pajamas to work every day if I could.
5. My brother and I had a puppy named Mr. Mister when we were pre-teens, which I think is hilarious in retrospect. Ah, the 80s.

Five of my favorite foods:
1. Good pizza
2. Greek salad with feta
3. Just-made guacamole
4. Megan's shahi paneer masala
5. Breyer's butter pecan ice cream

Five Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:
1. England
2. Nova Scotia
3. in bed, reading
4. Scotland
5. Ireland

Five Favorite TV Shows(unless you claim to never ever have watched a TV in which you're lying to sound intellectual):
Let me add: Jeff, that Onion article was hysterical. I have so met that person, many times. :)
1. Lost
2. Heroes
3. Top Chef
4. Masterpiece Theatre on PBS
5. Mystery! on PBS

Five CD's I listen to over and over
1. Iron & Wine 'The Creek Drank the Cradle'
2. Belle & Sebastian 'The Life Pursuit'
3. Johnny Cash 'Live from Folsom Prison'
4. Joni Mitchell 'Blue'
5. M. Ward 'Transfiguration of Vincent'

News of the Weird -- I mean, Digg. (#11)

Digg reminded me of reading News of the Weird, but that's probably because, being immediately over-and-underwhelmed by how busy the site was and the story content, I headed for the 'Offbeat' button. First, I looked at ninja cats and dogs hugging babies, then I found a story that I don't think I would've otherwise found: The Man Cave story. Now, I can totally get why these guys want to get away from it all, unlike some of their wives who wanted to know what was so terrible about the man cave-owners' families that they had to retreat to a cave to get away from them. I like my alone time, too. But, I'm afraid these guys lost me at:
- "It has no power, no plumbing, a leak in the roof and it's already been set on fire once."
- "Every time he and his friends go to the cabin, they have to chase hornets, snakes and other varmints out of the building. Once a cow died in the creek behind the cabin and it stank for weeks." Argh. That was the deal-breaker for me.
- "There's no rules, there's no bathroom."

"Half of it is about hanging out with guys, your buddies and the other half is being out where nobody can see you. Nobody can find you. You're way out there -- there's no city lights hiding the stars. The time that you can spend out there getting away from it all, doing what you want to do, that's the reason behind building the thing," he said.
Now that I can understand.

The jury's still out on Digg. I think it could be amusing but I'm not entirely sure I'm diggin' it. (yeah, I know, but we'll probably all use that pun to death -- it kind of hurts not to)

...............................................................

As far as #12, a technology-related thing that I've been interested in this week is the concept of Through the Viewfinder (TTV) photography. It's a really cool technique of taking digital camera photos through the viewfinder of a vintage camera. There is a flickr group devoted to TTV, which I've been enjoying perusing. And lo, there are even ways to fake it in photo editing programs, which makes this Photoshop-lovin' fool really happy...

p.s. mp3 player, please. :)

Goo Dreads. (#10)

I fell in love with Shelfari a while back, thinking I was in book-nerd-organizing heaven. I still like Shelfari, but when I was introduced to Goodreads by That Nice Young Man at JCPL, it gradually grew to replace Shelfari for me. They both have a similar concept, but I find Goodreads to be easier to use (not that either is especially tricky) and I really love the 'Explore' feature. I've filled out many a book order card these days, thanks to that. I've also discovered lots of books to read myself, and the 'Explore' feature jogs my shoddy memory for books I've read in the past but forgot about. For example, I ran across the book Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas and immediately added it to my 'To Read' list.
How could I resist 'An unexpectedly raucous and illuminating memoir set in a Southern California public library'?! Does that sound familiar?

Another valuable lesson Goodreads has taught me: do not quit my job to become a literary critic. My book reviews tend to fizzle out pathetically into a lame handful of sentences about why I did or did not like the book. Even trying to summon up this information is like pulling teeth, because as much as I love reading and books, explaining why I love them in an intelligible fashion seems to elude me.

Attempting to write reviews on Goodreads also makes me wonder how I ever got an 'A' on book reports during my school days...

PACs Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Of the many courtesies to their fellow computer-users that the public could adhere to, surely somewhere high on the list would be: please do not sit at a Reference Area computer, prick your finger and use your glucose monitor, suck on your blood-tipped finger for a few minutes, and then commence typing.

Please.

Things #7,8,9: FlickEr

Hydrangea with raindrops, originally uploaded by tanakawho.

I've been familiar with Flickr for a couple of years now, although for some reason I prefer Picasa ... maybe because Flickr only allows you to have three free sets -- to get more, you pay $25 a year -- whereas Picasa doesn't have this limitation. That's pretty much the only reason I switched, although I must say Flickr has a more easily-searchable (and larger!) database.

For this exercise, I searched for hydrangeas, which are my favorite flowers and which I'm anxiously awaiting the blooming of in my own yard. I found this beauty, so here 'tis. I also have a minor macro-lens addiction, so I was drawn to this photo for that reason as well. I believe to fulfill the licensing requirements of giving credit where credit is due, I should say that a link to the licensing information can be found here.

I enjoyed playing around with some of the mashups. I've always loved the one Flickr has for spelling words with photos, so here's my new prototype for the Ref Desk -- I think we should replace our current sign with this:

What do you think, Karen? Tracy?

Um ... guys?

The final part of this week's challenge was my favorite. I had fun with the image generators, but I liked Dumpr the most. Here are two photos that have been Dump-ified.

My roommate and her boyfriend, lomo-style:

Sven, official Pad-Thai-noodle-taster, in Rubik's cube fashion:

Heck no, rati (Thing #6)

I agree with Jeff that I found Technorati's homepage to be on the busy side. I did enjoy browsing around, but felt kind of overwhelmed by it all.

When searching for blogs relating to 'libraries' or 'librarians', I found some interesting stuff.

• The Annoyed Librarian, for example, has a novel approach to library-related stress, found here. Her wit was at times way too acerbic for me, but I had to laugh at some of it.
• Foxy Librarian reassured me that MCPL is not the only library to experience the phenomenon of poop in the stacks.
• For any of our Fontana bloggers who may still feel intimated by the whole blogging experience, one of the library blogs I found linked to a pretty great tutorial with step-by-step explanations of Blogger features, found here.
• The Well Dressed Librarian is holding a competition for the 100 Most Beautiful Librarians. I'm already scheming about who I want to nominate!
• Finally, speaking of my old pals, RSS feeds, I also stumbled across a small article on them. I can see the benefit of subscribing to Google Reader for our patrons, more so than for whiny, complaining me who wants shiny, pretty websites. Using a public access computer would mean, obviously, that they haven't saved bookmarks, so it would be a simple matter of logging into Google Reader and seeing updates to their favorite sites. I get it, I do.

This just in...

I added the blogs of my fellow Ladies of Ref to my Google Reader and attempted to share it all over on the side column.

I won't beat a dead horse about RSS feeds and my thoughts on them. Suffice it to say, I'll probably be accessing all the FRL blogs via this page instead. Speaking of those blogs, I really am enjoying reading them. I always find it interesting to read the thoughts of people I'm used to speaking with in person -- or to read the thoughts of people I'm not used to speaking with in person, like some of the non-MCPL folks.

Hmm... I really haven't shared any Reference tales. The cutest one that happened within the past couple of weeks didn't even happen to me; I was just a (giggling) bystander when this very elderly-sounding man called, got Erin, and asked her if she could please explain what a Google is. You'll have to ask her for details of her explanation...

Youz and meez

So I jumped on the Meez bandwagon. I have to say, I wish it were as easy as a click of a mouse button to find retro t-strap shoes in real life, but hey. It's fun to shop for cute shoes, even if it's just cyber shopping.

However, my girl seems to spend a lot of time staring blankly at her coffee cup instead of actually drinking her coffee, which is very out of character for me. :) The mug is appropriately huge, though.

7 1/2 Habits

Okay, so I missed the part about listing our personal easiest/hardest of the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners.

For me, the easiest is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I love learning new things.

The hardest is probably beginning with the end in mind, or actually following through on all of those things I feel a burning need to learn about. Like, teaching myself to play the guitar. (Angela Faye, are you reading this? ha) I certainly begin with the end in mind, it's the middle and ending that I actually have trouble with. :)

"No sir, I don't like it."

RSS feeds, that is.
Meh.
That sums up my feelings about them. I miss the web pages! I need pretty web pages to enhance my viewing experience!

p.s. 8 million extra credit points if you can tell me where my title came from...

Google Reader

This morning's project for me has been playing around with Google Reader, which I've never used. There are many blogs/sites that I frequent, but I've never really been interested in RSS feeds so this should be insightful. I'm not sure yet if I'll use Google Reader much or continue using bookmarks instead, but I'll definitely experiment with it. I can see the benefits of having everything organized, but I kind of miss seeing the actual web pages.

What I've subscribed to so far:
- Gluten Free Girl's blog feed (I just love her)
- Pitchfork Media's record reviews
- This American Life podcasts
- Unshelved
- The Shifted Librarian

In the beginning...

This is the first entry in my blog for FRL's '23 Things' project.
I've been blogging for about six years on my own, but this will be a fun experiment also. There are a couple of techie bits mentioned in the project that I've never used, so I am sure it will be a learning experience.

I am uncertain exactly if there will be any tales from the Ref Desk, but I was totally stymied trying to come up with a title that was witty or interesting, or even completely non-witty and uninteresting, just a title at all would be fine.

So there it is.