Thing #19

Podcasts. Thanks to Doctor Who audio adventure produced by Big Finish Productions, I have gained a new appreciation for audio formats.

A good friend of mine, Russ, is a DJ, so I have a passing familiarity with talking on the radio/recording my voice for other people to listen. I think it's a fairly good way to communicate with folks. You can infuse your voice with emotion, unlike e-mail. Also, sarcasm, something I'm fond of, can be conveyed over voice snippets. I think I could get used to podcasts. I subscribed to a Doctor Who podcast, and I subscribed to a podcast by some dudes from England ho I met at Gen Con a few years ago.

All of the podcast directories were pretty easy to use. I joined the podcast.com one, and then added my feeds from that to my Google reader.

I tried the Gcast thing. It was pretty cool. I'll post my podcast a bit later. I'm off to diner now!

Thing #18

Youtube. I have a passing familiarity with youtube. It's great when I want a quick snippet of something to make me chuckle, but other than that, it's kind of, I hesitate to use the word 'useless', but it it fits. Youtube is for fun. That's it.

As far as having it be useful in the library, well, yeah, it's useful for finding fun little snippets to chuckle at.

I had trouble embedding a video (I did figure it out), so instead of a video embedded in this post, you'll notice the video bar at the bottom of my blog. I really like the Sesame Street "No Cookies in the Library" thing. Classic.

I suppose I should mention that RPL has posted some stuff on youtube that could be helpful to patrons. We have a video showing how to use our AMH and a couple other videos on some other stuff, so I guess we have used youtube in a way beyond snippets for chuckles. But I feel chuckle snippets are the majority of youtube's usefulness.

Thing #17

It's a shame that the ELM databases aren't really accessible to all Minnesota libraries. It would have been, I think, a good idea to allow all libraries access without any strings, but who am I to question the powers that be.

Anyway, I tried Net Library. It a resource I've used before, but I took a better look at it this time. It's an impressive and well maintained database. I'm shocked at how many full text books are available. It's astounding the amount of information that can be found online at no cost whatsoever.

When John gets to this thing I might have him create an account and we can try the shared folder challenge. I might revisit this a little later on.

Thing #16

The Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator are good tools. The timelines are realistic and the tips are very help. This is the sort of thing that I would have loved had it been around when I was a freshman from college. As it is, I'm not. I could use these tools for my own projects, but the tools are pretty specific to writing projects, and the type of projects I've got on my plate right now don't really fit. When I start school again, I hope I remember these tools. But as I've said before 23 things throws a lot at you, and it can be daunting to try to fold a lot of this stuff into you life. Especially when there's a learning curve nad you already have a system in place.

That said, I am a notorious procrastinator, and these two things may be of particular aid to me in my endeavor to get my library degree. I'm hoping to remember and use these things later. I'll just have to remember to revisit 23 Things in the future.

I don't work with students much here at RPL. Unless they have fines. But if I did, and if those kids were the type of procastinators that I am, I'd recommend these tools. As I mentioned, the tips are good and timeline is realistic.

Good stuff.

Thing #15

Libraries and Gaming. Well, I'm down with the gaming. You may have gathered that from all the Gen Con pictures. I'm old school; I do PNP (that's pen and paper with is the same as table top or TT role playing). I've also delved into the world of the MMORPG (that's massively multi-player online role playing game). I've played City of Heroes, City of Villians, Star Wars: Galaxies and World of Warcraft. I'm still planning WoW (World of Warcraft). There's a guild that's all library folk on one server. I might sign up. Libraryman talks about that here: http://www.libraryman.com/blog/2008/10/29/libraries-and-librarians-world-of-warcraft-guild-update/ . Next time I create a characer I think I'll create one on that server and join. I do a lot of soloing when I play Wow. Mostly because of the times that I'm on. I can't really guarantee that I'll be able to be on at a certain time, which can hinder playing in a roup. Most of the characters I play are in guilds, so I am part of the community and I help people by answering questions and giving advice. I dislike running through the same dungeons with lower level people over and over, so I avoid the common question of "anyone wanna run dm with me?". A friend of mine recently started playing, and my uncle plays, so we might try to get together online a bit. He lives in Colorado now, so it'd be good to get a chance to game with him again.

As far as the games this Thing suggested; I didn't get a chance to try out Second Life, but one of these days I will. I've heard a lot about it and I've even heard it suggested that in the future we'll surf the net via avatars such as the avatars in Second Life. I've heard it suggested that vurtual worlds are a huge possilbity not just for people to get together, but also for advertising and learning. I can see the applications, but I think this sort of thing is in it's infancy right now.

I did try puzzle pirates. It was fun. Not as many bells and whistles as I'm used to, but it was a decent way to kill 20 minutes. I chatted with the other pirates a little and tried sailing. It was a pleasant distraction, but I don't think I'll be trading Azeroth for the world of Puzzle Pirates.

Thing #14

I love Library Thing! I love having my books online. I dig the community of bookish folk commenting on stuff. I just dig the whole thing. I've been using Library thing for oh, 2 years now. I keep track of what I've read, what I want to read, what people have told me to read that I don't have any intention of actually reading, and stuff that I've heard of, would like to read but know I never will. There's a large contingent of Doctor Who book fans and that makes me happy.

Plus, I've used Library Thing to answer reference questions. The tags are great for finding things like Steampunk books or finding books people who like Doctor Who books like, but aren't other Doctor Who books. I saw the Library Thing guy talk at MLA. He was cool. Plus I liked Library Thing for Library's. That seems cool too.

Bottom line: I like this, I use it, it's fun!

Thing #13

Online productivity tools: that's an oxymoron. I have been looking for a good calendar. If 30 boxes synced with my phone, it would be perfect. It does not however. Still there's a chance I'll actually remember that I signed up as in syncs with my Facebook. My Facebook page is really important* to me. I check it probably 5 or six times a year.

I went with both iGoogle page and My Yahoo. Why? Because I already had them. I find both almost completely useless. Almost. I just don't need "my" preference in my face all the time. I'm happy to go out and get my e-mail when I want it as opposed to having a smiley face pop up every time I get a new e-mail. Also, I'm not a big news reader, and the stuff I do care about isn't an option to have on the front of my iGoogle or my My Yahoo page. If I was an Internet junkie, I could see why this stuff would be the hippest hypest, as I'm more of a casual internetter, I just don't find myself gravitating to these tools.

If I was a heavy Internet user these tools good be very useful at home and at work. But I'm not, so they are not.

I do like 30 boxes. Not enough to fold it into my life and spout to all my friends and relations about how much I adore it, but I like it enough that I'll probably use in for at least a week.

I make to do lists ALL THE TIME**, but here's the thing, they need to be quick and portable. As I'm not in the habit of dragging my laptop into Target with me, I find online to do lists unhelpful and cumbersome. A little piece of paper is infinitely more useful to me.

I've tried Lifehacker before and thought it was the bees knees for about a week, then I forgot it existed until now. There's just too much out there. It all gets lost.

I looked at Backpack. All I can say is "No thanks". Perhaps I'm getting full of website and online aps and cool ways to access my information, but as I watched the "How easy it is to make a Backpack page" I found myself rolling my eyes. I think that means it's time to call it quits for the day.

*Italics denote sarcasm

** All caps denotes my being actually serious about this statement. Any statement not in all caps has approximately a 50% chance of being serious.

Thing #12

The Reddit, Mixx, Digg, Newsvine thing is coolish. These site remind me of RSS feeds. Long time readers will remember that I'm not particularly down with RSS. It's just not for me. The same goes for these site. Yeah, it neat that you can vote on articles, and it can be helpful, but it's only helpful if people on the site share interests with you. Sure, I found loads of stuff on gaming on Digg, but not so much on Doctor Who.

As far as being useful, well if you sure tastes with the folks on the site, you'll find the sites immeasurable useful. If not, then not so much.

I did read a few articles because they were on the sites, but any news site I go to I can find an article or 2 to read. Finding stuff to read isn't difficult, finding stuff to read pertaining to my specific interests that I have already read on a site I regularly visit? That a challenge. A challenge that Mixx, Digg, Newsvine and Reddit all failed.

Fun interesting stuff yes, but in a month, I don't think I'll even remember that I created a Dig account.

Thing #11

Delicious is quite cool. I like having my bookmarks wherever I go. Though I have the google tool bar, I haven' really gotten into the bookmark features. For some reason I think I like Delicious more. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you. Well, maybe it's because I don't need to have the tool bar app installed to use it. Or maybe it's just that I like the name more. I like having the button right there on my tool bar. That's help. Delicious seems easy to use and fun.

I can see loads of uses for Delicious. It's fun to see what other people have tagged, and it can lead you to some reasources you weren't aware of. Delicious gets a thumbs up from me.

As far as Furl goes, it seems much the same. I like that it saves a cached copy of the original page. Other than that, it seems pretty much the same as Delicious.