This thing was tough for me. I can see that many libraries are embracing games as a way to bring in young people, and that games can be educational. However, I don't work in a public library. Frankly, when young people visit us they're either with a school group, working on History Day projects, or doing other research for school. Our main clientele is older, quieter, and fairly serious. That doesn't mix well with games.
I took a brief look at Puzzle Pirates but declined to play. I really don't have the time or interest in navigating the pirate world. The puzzles I enjoy are crosswords, sudoku, trivia quizes, and so on.
My exploration of Second Life at first seemed to be more promising. I'm mostly struggling to live my first life and don't have a lot of time or interest in building a second one. I took the video tour, which was not thrilling for me. I registered and then started to download the software for Second Life and then had Second Thoughts. Do I really want this on my home computer? Will I use it? I stopped and deleted all files. When I tried to get on Second Life it recognized my username Medora Sorbet (very nice, don't you think?), but the password I thought I had used didn't work. I requested help and got an e-mail that was less than helpful. The second time I did that it directed me to call a phone number and mentioned Linden dollars. In the interests in preserving my shrinking but real American dollars and my sanity, I exited the site.
There may be a role for Second Life in libraries. I suppose if that's where a lot of people went, then we could have a presence to answer reference questions as some librarians already do. However, given the special nature of the materials in our library and limited time, I don't think this is the best use of our resources. We're thinking about making a lot of links in Wikipedia topics to our library collections. I think that will give us a bigger bang for our buck or effort.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Thing 14: LibraryThing
I really enjoyed this thing, perhaps because it was more focused that Thing 13 -- fewer sites and tools to explore. I've had the LibraryThing blog among the rss feeds in my Bloglines account but didn't quite get how big and popular LibraryThing was until touring it a bit. As I get older I find that it's difficult sometimes to remember the titles and authors of books I've read. LibraryThing can keep track of them, especially the ones I want to remember.
I set up an account on LibraryThing, completed my profile with some favorite authors and a historical photograph of a woman reading a book. I then added six books, including tags and ratings. I love seeing the covers for so many of the recently published books. Being a visual person, the covers are an important reminder of the books and are an attraction for books read by others that I'd like to explore. I joined two groups, Librarians Who LibraryThing and Minnesota Things. I can see the value for readers in discovering other books and authors to read. I put the LibraryThing search box widget on the blog.
This seemed to be a perfect time to look at Good Reads, a site a retired colleague actively uses. I've sometimes looked at the books she has shared but haven't entered many of my own. Realistically, I'll probably only use one of these sites for my recreational reading and may choose Good Reads because I have a real live friend there. LibraryThing, however, fits libraries better and could be used as a promotional tool and source of images of book covers for new books listing on our intranet and public blogs.
I set up an account on LibraryThing, completed my profile with some favorite authors and a historical photograph of a woman reading a book. I then added six books, including tags and ratings. I love seeing the covers for so many of the recently published books. Being a visual person, the covers are an important reminder of the books and are an attraction for books read by others that I'd like to explore. I joined two groups, Librarians Who LibraryThing and Minnesota Things. I can see the value for readers in discovering other books and authors to read. I put the LibraryThing search box widget on the blog.
This seemed to be a perfect time to look at Good Reads, a site a retired colleague actively uses. I've sometimes looked at the books she has shared but haven't entered many of my own. Realistically, I'll probably only use one of these sites for my recreational reading and may choose Good Reads because I have a real live friend there. LibraryThing, however, fits libraries better and could be used as a promotional tool and source of images of book covers for new books listing on our intranet and public blogs.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thing 13: Productivity Tools
Well, there were certainly a lot of things to look at in this thing. My initial reaction is that I spent quite a bit of time perusing possibile productivity tools. If I use one or more, my productivity could be increased. Meanwhile, it feels like I spent a lot of time looking at many tools I'll probably never use.
For the start page I chose NetVibes, not one of the choices mentioned. I learned about NetVibes from Michael Stephens in his spring 2008 presentation to Minnesota Health Science Libraries. I like the ability to choose and arrange elements, including e-mail, rss feeds, web searches, image searches, local weather, to do lists, and other highly useful tools on one page. I may use it as my start page at home. At work I use our library inhouse page which contains many databases and resources most relevant to my work. During the course of exploring thing 13 I also updated my iGoogle page, too.
While I found some of the calendar pages interesting and full of possibilities, I'm already managing an electronic calendar at work where I keep my meetings, appointments, and desk time up to date as well as a small datebook where I write my personal appointments. Right now it doesn't seem efficient to add another calendar to the mix. I think I might consider Google calendar when I retire. One tool I'm going to try is a list, Remember the Milk. I did get the countdown calendar to work and added it to the blog.
I took a look at Backpack and was impressed with the possiblities. My next step is to identify a project, either at work or at home, that I want to manage and give it a whirl.
For the start page I chose NetVibes, not one of the choices mentioned. I learned about NetVibes from Michael Stephens in his spring 2008 presentation to Minnesota Health Science Libraries. I like the ability to choose and arrange elements, including e-mail, rss feeds, web searches, image searches, local weather, to do lists, and other highly useful tools on one page. I may use it as my start page at home. At work I use our library inhouse page which contains many databases and resources most relevant to my work. During the course of exploring thing 13 I also updated my iGoogle page, too.
While I found some of the calendar pages interesting and full of possibilities, I'm already managing an electronic calendar at work where I keep my meetings, appointments, and desk time up to date as well as a small datebook where I write my personal appointments. Right now it doesn't seem efficient to add another calendar to the mix. I think I might consider Google calendar when I retire. One tool I'm going to try is a list, Remember the Milk. I did get the countdown calendar to work and added it to the blog.
I took a look at Backpack and was impressed with the possiblities. My next step is to identify a project, either at work or at home, that I want to manage and give it a whirl.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Thing 12: Now I Digg and have Reddit
Like my animal friends, I've been having a good time digging in the garden. Time to get back to the 23 things. I spent a bit of time with all four tools and have concluded that they could be very useful to me at home but seem less relevant at work. Much of the emphasis is on the popular and sometimes wierd but interesting stories. My work is much less sensational and newsworthy. Since many researchers who come into our library are interested in genealogy, I thought that genealogy would be a good search term for these tools. One of the things I discovered was that genealogy, heritage, and family history are frequently used as terms for such things as computer programs.
On Digg I got four hits for genealogy. The first and best was an article on Geni.com about Genealogy for Web 2.0. The Second was about Windows Vista inheriting the sins of the father. Don't get me started on Vista.
Reddit yielded more results for my search on genealogy, about 50. Some were relevant to my interests and others not.
Newsvine was the most graphically appealing of the sites and represents what the world is talking about. Unfortunately, those are not the conversations in my library where researchers are focused on very specific topics, most of them in the past.
Mixx includes stories, photos, and videos submitted by users. I enjoyed looking at the popular photos, which were a diversion from work.
In conclusion, I could see spending time on these sites on vacation or in retirement. My acid test for Library 2.0 things is whether it saves me time and enlarges my understanding of my work and our clients' needs or if it wastes time and distracts. These sites fall into the second category.
On Digg I got four hits for genealogy. The first and best was an article on Geni.com about Genealogy for Web 2.0. The Second was about Windows Vista inheriting the sins of the father. Don't get me started on Vista.
Reddit yielded more results for my search on genealogy, about 50. Some were relevant to my interests and others not.
Newsvine was the most graphically appealing of the sites and represents what the world is talking about. Unfortunately, those are not the conversations in my library where researchers are focused on very specific topics, most of them in the past.
Mixx includes stories, photos, and videos submitted by users. I enjoyed looking at the popular photos, which were a diversion from work.
In conclusion, I could see spending time on these sites on vacation or in retirement. My acid test for Library 2.0 things is whether it saves me time and enlarges my understanding of my work and our clients' needs or if it wastes time and distracts. These sites fall into the second category.
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