Thursday, January 8, 2009

Thing 23 -- The End

I have tried to complete "The 23 Things" in a very short amount of time here at home. I have a slight case of information overload, but hey -- it's all good! I know we didn't explore everything out there, but I'm glad for the exposure to what we did look at. I got a new computer here at home. The Google docs saved me from adding yet one more expense to this whole home techno bundle. I won't be purchasing a word processing, spreadsheet, etc. package. Thank you! I do, however, feel that the one hour a week time allowance was not enough. I needed time to work through confusions. I needed more focus than is possible at work to do this. In fact I was so frustrated that when I stopped working on "The 23 Things" for a while, I was ready to delete the blog and forget about it. If I had a home life, children here, whatever, I still probably wouldn't have been able to accomplish it. There's a lot to learn, and it was just what I needed! I intend to continue learning more techno stuff and hopefully, I can get back into some of the various accounts from this class before they disapear and check out some of the things I learned a little more thoroughly. The MP3 player will be a new gadget for me to download, listen and learn. Thank you for the opportunity to take this class. (Even if I am too late for the MP3 player.)

Thing 11 -- Library Thing

This is very impowering. I even included our self-published book, "Patches and Poetry". Cool! Huh? Once again, I certain there is a lot more in the website than I had time to look at. I like to see what other people are reading. There's a 50 Book Challenge book group. Information searchable by authors, genres, titles, subjects. Everything in bookdom! It pulled my titles from Amazon, and I had to use the Library of Congress to get "Patches and Poetry". Once again, So many books -- so little time!

PS This website wasn't available when I tried to do the exercise earlier. So this is out of numerical order.

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

LibraryThing Catalog your books online

Thing 22 -- My DV Library

Omaha Public Library is moving toward the future with lots of confidence. I managed to download "Jack and the Beanstalk", one of those silly old Abbott and Costello movies. I was a little confused about the process of adding permissions and so on before I could download the movie. I think an overview instruction would be helpful. But I got it to work. There's a lot of movies I didn't even try to get to.

I went through one of the TumbleBooks free trial setups. Right now I can't remember the third item. I looked at all of them. Once again I am amazed at the amount of Freebies offerred!

I would be interested to know how much patron use is going on with the downloadable materials. I constantly tell them to get on the website and poke around the databases and all the other offerrings. They usually sort of smile and walk away. I don't know if they are even aware!

Thing 21 -- Podcasts

This is so neat! The programs are available to listen anytime anywhere. Can record and retrieve using the PC or other nifty techno devices. I didn't want to get into the music, iTunes, so I stayed with book discussions and reviews. I managed to set up the RSS feed to my Bloglines. (I guess I have been learning something.)

I do like audio materials for the sake of listening while I knit or crochet. I sometimes make mistakes if I am constantly looking up at a video screen. Audio materials are like having someone read to me or like listening to the radio.

The podcasts would be very convenient to the more techno savy patrons. Especially the wide range of subjects out there. Literally, something for everyone -- when you want it. There is much offerred free of charge.

Thing 20 YouTube

I had to do some fumbling around to accomplish the corgi puppy posting to my blog. The reason I chose this particular video is because the puppy is so cute. This video doesn't have a bunch of bla, bla, bla. . . There's just the background noise that the puppy kind of reacts to, in between dozing it smiles and huffs around. Shows all the qualities of the breed that make them so endearing.

I like to spend time on Youtube, but I sometimes feel like it's a huge wasteland. I have to limit my time there. I do see it as a good way to demonstrate or provide instruction. There is audio as well as video. I was pleased to find a video showing how easy it is to create iron on designs for tee-shirts using a particular HP printer product. The demo was done by two little Brownie scouts. (So easy, a child can do it!) There are many applications for instructing how tos of library land. It would be way helpful to have the video instructions for patrons using library machines. Adding money to their accounts for printing purposes. You can post instructions, most people don't even try to figure it out. (It's just simpler and faster to ask staff for help.) They might watch the video and give it a try.

YouTube - ウェルシュ・コーギー Welsh Corgi

YouTube - ウェルシュ・コーギー Welsh Corgi