Beyond Method #12

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I think that I enjoyed the travel sites and information the most. Some of the other exercises were fairly familiar to me or just beyond my comprehension at the time but the travel info always interests me. Okay, I'm a map freak and always happy to learn new skills with Google maps.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Wow, I'm not sure that I have any specific lifelong learning goals. I didn't see that anywhere. I suppose that my goal is to try to stay as up to date as possible without becoming bogged down in minutiae. I make an effort to familiarize myself with new technology but tend to use the technology that is actually useful for my lifestyle.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I can't think of any surprises right off the top of my head.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I think the format is excellent. I just think it's a little daunting to feel like you have to complete the entire course. Perhaps it would feel easier if you got to pick the modules you complete and get credit based on completed modules. Of course that would be way more work for you guys. No easy answers.

And last but not least…
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
I would definitely participate again. Always trying to keep up!

Beyond Method #11

Early this year our library staff did a lot research into using online surveys with the result that we chose Zoomerang and purchased the mid-level product for one year. We did a fairly extensive online survey early in 2011 in preparation for updating our long range plan. We will probably try some additional online surveys and attempt to have at least one per year. Some library staff have added short questions to their blog posts.

Beyond Method #10

I have participated in numerous webinars online including several from the State Libary. I have used WebEx and Gotomeeting and I think Adobe Connect. I have used Skype but only once though I have used Facetime on the iphone quite a lot.

I find online meetings very easy though I'm not quite ready to show my face!

I also use Logmein remotely to take over my computer at work and also my mom's computer to help her with problems. This always feels kind of similar to the Webinar type classes that I've taken in the past.

I just recevied this morning a tiny camera for my office computer. I assume that this will be used for skype. Here we go...

Beyond Method #7 thru #9

Unfortunately while I did read through, watch the videos, and explore the various tools mentioned I was unable to find the time to actually create slideshows or teaching modules. I hope to be able to do these things in the future and appreciate the introduction to the various presentation, screen capture and digital presentation tools.

Beyond Method #6

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm

I looked at Great Expectations by Charles Dickens too look up at Project Gutenberg. I did not find the text particularly easy to read but if I actually wanted to spend the time reading it I would just increase the size of the text and then it would have been okay. The choices were actually pretty amazing and it was easy to distinguish what would work on a Kindle because it said "Kindle without images." Should I have occasion to use an ereader I would certainly try Project Gutenberg for titles. I actually would like to read Great Expectations again since it's been 42 years since I studied it in sophomore English. I do believe that patrons would be interested in Project Gutenberg and will steer them in that direction should the need arise.

My ebook story!
Last March my husband and I went on a trip to Rome and Sweden. My daughter had gotten a Nook during the Christmas steal-a-gift so she passed it along to me to use on the trip. I blithely downloaded two very large Fantasy titles from Barnes and Noble. I keep thinking, "This is great, I can take two 1000 page tomes with me on an airplane and it barely takes up any space at all." The trip over went great. Reading in the hotel room went great. Thursday morning we left our hotel for the Rome airport to fly to Stockholm. All checked in and with a long wait I'm ready to read. The Nook was showing a half charge when I turned it off the night before so I knew everything was okay. I was silently congratulating myself again on having an ereader and then...I tried to turn it on. Nothing. No lights, no indication at all that it was on or off... So, of course, I had to have a book and promptly went to the airport bookstore and bought the most expensive paperback suspense novel I've ever purchased. When we arrived at the hotel room in Gotenberg that evening I plugged in the Nook and it did need charging and worked after that. I will never travel without a backup book again! And quite honestly I haven't used the Nook since. I just can't make myself pay for books when I'm surrounded by them all day.

Beyond Method #5

Within the last month or so one of the library book club members implemented a group on Goodreads for the club and invited members to join. I signed up then for Good reads and have been trying to keep track of what I have read and am reading. I've been interested in having a list of books I've read for a while now so Goodreads seemed to be a viable option. I had already looked at LibraryThing and Shelfari and while I find them interesting for me they aren't particularly useful. At this time our library is using NextReads for collection development and I find this tool to be particularly helpful. Most staff use it very successfully to find titles that patrons can just remember a few details about. It's also great for finding missing titles in series. While I am interested in becoming knowledgeable about the tools available for social tagging, I find that I am not that interested in being "social" about the things that I read. An interesting conundrum. That being said I was interested in BookLight and will explore that resource further when my registration is confirmed.

Beyond Method #4

Interesting segment on job searching which is something I have not had occasion to deal with much as I do not work reference very often. I hope that my reference staff are familiar with these resources and I know they have attended training on this subject. As a part of the strategic plan that we are developing we do have sections on job skills and are considering utilizing some of the suggestions in the video. Perhaps I will sign up for Linkedin. Who knows? Perhaps I will be looking for another job some day...

Lake House map - trying again

View Lake House in a larger map

Beyond Method #3

Well, I was finally able to embed my map on the blog. It wasn't the embedding that was difficult it was figuring out how to actually get the "embed" link to show up in google maps. I have to say, it looked much easier in the video than it actually was. I think that they are constantly making changes to google products so even when I look up Help! on the Internet some of the instructions seem to be out of date. Couple that with the face that the Internet at the library this afternoon is as slow as molasses and it hasn't been a fun day! I do think we should consider adding a location map to the library home page which was something that I hadn't even considered so perhaps that will be a next step. The tutorial was much more helpful.

Map of Friendswood Public Library

View Friendswood Public Library in a larger map

Beyond Method #2

I am late to begin this so perhaps that is my problem but I had very little luck with igoogle. I can't even find an igoogle link on the google page or on my gmail or anywhere else. I can go to an igoogle page and it is defaulting to my information but it was fairly difficult to figure out how to customize the page further. I finally figured out how to delete but so far when I click on "Add stuff.." nothing happens. Maybe it's just a bad Internet day at work.

Because... I looked at the pages from the two libraries that are using netvibes and each page took so long to load that it was pretty much unusable.

I can see some small advantage in having a personalized home page for staff but not if it is so slow to load.

I will work on the igoogle page at home this evening to see if it goes more smoothly...

Method 7

Wow, I just realized that it's been almost nine months since I've been able to get back to this. It must have been a very busy year. I enjoyed the section on social networks and tagging but part of me felt like it was kind of old news. I think that I must have already seen the CommonCraft video and read the article. I will definitely look into setting up a delicious account because I very much like the idea of being able to access my bookmarks from anywhere. I think this would work very well for Christmas shopping! Mainly because I'm always spotting something at work or at home that I think would be a great gift for someone. I'm not sure at this time that I see any advantage for me in sharing bookmarks. The teacher example was great and I can see that it would be very useful for collaborative research.

Method 6

I've visited youtube many times to search for videos and to look at videos that are referenced by friends or professional articles. I enjoy youtube but didn't particularly enjoy browsing the sites. It's too time intensive for the payback. I like looking for something specific.

That's why I chose the video about the elephant and the dog. I had actually searched youtube for it yesterday because of the children's book connection. I was actually very excited to learn how to embed a video in my blog but I must confess that I had to ask the cataloger to help me because I couldn't figure it out. But now I know...so I learned something new today. Always a good thing!

Best Friends

Here is a video that made the rounds on the Internet several months ago. Yesterday we received a children's book entitled Tarra & Bella : the elephant and dog who became best friends.

So I had searched for the video on youtube to show another library employee. Here it is:

Method 5 - Take Two

The most interesting thing about this Method was the discussion of the legality of posting library photos on flikr. My library does have a flikr website and it's been great for highlighting events and activities at the library. Our policy has been that we will take down a picture if requested. We don't identify anyone by name. I will be circulating the Michael Stevens article to other library staff members and we will discuss the posting of a privacy policy and disclaimer at future events.

I apparently had signed up for flikr quite a while ago but had no memory of doing so. I had uploaded 4 pictures. I will look into uploading some of my pictures from my home computer during the Christmas holidays. I do have some personal concerns about losing "memories" though since I share all my pictures with my husband, he has them on a thumb drive and also on Apple TV so I'm probably okay. In fact, sometimes I think the ability to save so many pictures results in photo overload. When I actually print a picture now I will only print one that I love. The photos on my computer are pretty much anything I took. I do go in and delete them on occasion but it's still way too many pictures. Looking at the slideshow on Apple TV really brought this home to me. I'm constantly saying to my husband, "You really need to delete some of those pictures." It can be really boring.

Method 5

My inadequate attempt at taking pictures of the snow at the library

Method 4

http://www.earlyword.com/feed/

http://galvestondailynews.com/rss-feed.lasso?section=news

http://feeds.feedburner.com/awfullibrarybooks

I've actually been using Google Reader for quite a while now and I really love it. I'm always trying to convince other people to use it. I have about 16 subscriptions now and quite honesly that's about all I can manage. If I miss checking it for a couple of days I may have 100s of items. This is mainly because I subscribe to a Houston Chronicle feed which has lots of headlines every day. The library related feeds are not nearly as prolific. I picked 3 of the feeds to highlight above.

The first feed is Early Word which is spectacular for Collection Development. I should never be surprised by a best seller again!

The second feed is the Galveston Daily News which since my library is in Galveston County is an important souce of local information.

And the third feed is Awful Library Books which is just plain fun and reminds me daily of the importance of keeping an up to date collection!

Method 3

I found the readings about cloud computing to be very interesting. I was particularly interested in the Google Docs applications. I had heard about this application from a library employee but had never taken the time to investigate. I love the idea of being able access documents from any computer, especially since I tend to carry my laptop from home with me on business trips. I can access my work computer using logmein but it is often very slow. I had found my self emailing documents to my home email address so I could access information while at TLA Annual Assembly. The only drawback for me is that accessing the Google Docs still requires Internet access. The times when I might need to access documents are often times when I don't have Internet access. That's an entire other issue!

Method 1 & Method 2 comments

The two videos were very good but the first one was a little too long.

The second video moved very quickly which kind of highlights the problems someone of my generation may have with the Web 2.0 etc.

I found the article by Stephen Abram to be almost out of date. It’s been almost 18 months since it was published much less written and I wonder how he would update it. With things moving so quickly, some of his thoughts seem almost antiquated.

I am always interested in exploring the value of new technologies for libraries and we have tried several here at our library. Our staff blog seemed like a really great idea for communication between weekly staff meetings. Unfortunately I am not seeing its uses come to fruition. Perhaps it’s because so few staff members actually sit at a computer all day, check their email, etc. The majority of the staff is out there interacting with the public or shelving materials. I could see more use for the staff blog in either a smaller or larger library. A large library system with more professional librarians might find the staff blog very useful as a communication tool. A smaller library with very little staff and some staff who might never even encounter other staff members because of part-time hours would surely find the staff blog to be useful. We’re not discontinuing it, it just hasn’t reached my expectations for usability.

Some of the other concepts haven’t panned out either. TLA tried using a wiki for collaboration between the program committee for the last two conferences. They also are trying to use a wiki for their “Transforming Libraries” initiative. All the TLA divisions, round tables, etc. have web pages, list servs, etc. They just don’t seem to be used all that much.

I have a Facebook page and a twitter account. I find them mostly boring. The only new technology that I’ve found to be truly useful recently is my Google Reader. I love Google Reader!!! It’s so great to have one spot to go to for professional and community news!!

What are your thoughts regarding Web 2.0 and Library 2.0? What do the terms mean to you? To your library? Or libraries in general?

My thoughts?? Can’t ignore Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. Be open to trying new things. Continue to search for relevant applications that will serve my community, staff, self. Try to gauge interest and expectations from community. Don’t dismiss suggestions “out of hand.”