The Finale!

I have finally made it to 'Thing 23'. This has taken a whole lot longer than nine weeks but I am very happy with what I have achieved. Every one of these 'Things' was foreign to me before I started. Even the simple things like setting up accounts and blogging were new and a little scary. The most memorable exercises were with Flickr. I will continue to use some of the sites and tools we looked at and this was a great opportunity to learn about them. I would definitely partcipate in another program like this.

Books Online

Thing 22. In Google Books my search for 'quilting' books came up with thousands. I had a closer look at the first few pages, most were snippet view or limited preview. This site could be useful in helping to select a book to purchase or checking the contents of a recommended title.
I went to the 'Find in a library' link out of interest for a couple of books. One book went to the National Library of Australia Trove site and the other to WorldCat.
A subject search 'quilting' only brought up one book in Project Gutenberg. I was only able to view the contents pages online.
I have learnt something about copyright through this task. I was surprised that Animal Farm by George Orwell wasn't available in full text as I understood it to be in the public domain. I have discovered that this work is in the public domain in Australia but still under copyright in other countries. The copyright status of the book I looked at in Project Gutenberg stated that the book wasn't copyrighted in the United States but to check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook. I doubt that anyone would be prevented from downloading the book though.

Podcasts

Thing 21. I had a look at Podcast.com and Podfeed.net as well as Podcast Alley because the link to Podcast.net under the discovery resources didn't work. I found this 'Thing' rather tedious as I had difficulty in finding a podcast of interest. Too many to search through and I feel like I have spent hours looking! The best library related podcast I found was the 'YA Literature Review' on Podcast Alley. I found quite a few other suitable book review podcasts but the last episode was 2007 or earlier and I was trying to find something more recent. I did come across a few interesting things along the way though like the podictionary.

YouTube

Thing 20. YouTube was quite foreign to me as I haven't spent any time looking around the site before. My search for 'Little Red Hen' brought up over 400 videos. The description and length of video was helpful in selecting what I was looking for, a short video of 'The Little Red Hen' story. I had fun looking and came across a great 'Little Red Hen rap' but it was longer than I wanted. The YouTube handbook had a few tips for searching and I found by putting in more keywords I could significantly reduce the number of videos that came up for each search. The words 'Little Red Hen stop motion' brought up only this one! I thought that finding a video seen on a previous visit to YouTube should be easier to locate than having to go through the search process again. I discovered history that shows recently watched videos but they disappear when you quit out of your web browser.

Thing 19: My Choice

From the Web 2.0 Awards shortlist I selected Netvibes from Start Pages. I like the idea of a personalised page that can be accessed online from any computer . There was a lot of information on the site including a tour, frequently asked questions and examples of both private and public pages. I was very impressed. I had a look at Netvibes pages set up by Dublin City Public Libraries and Cranbury Public Library so it could definitely be used in a library setting.

Google Docs

Thing 18. It was good to be able to log in to my google account and not have to set up another account and password. I found Google docs very easy to use although a little slow responding when trying to edit the text. I also uploaded a word document that I had previously typed up from the desktop and added extra text.
Very handy being able to access documents or presentations from any computer. Being able to share documents with selected people eg. library staff could be useful. With regard to school students I wonder if assignments would ever be submitted to teachers and marked using an application like Google docs.

Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki

Thing 17. I didn't do very well with this activity. I've created a log in and proceeded to add my blog to the favourit blogs page. I tried to follow the instructions but it didn't come up as a link so I removed it. I added something to the Favourite Flowers but don't know if I have done it right. The only other entry on the page was added as a comment. I could have done with more examples to follow. I will go back to it later but right now I'm moving on to Thing 18.

Wikis

The discovery resources for Thing 16 were great, especially the slide presentation Wikis: A Beginners, Look. I didn't know anything about Wikis prior to this 'Thing'. I enjoyed looking at the examples and the purpose of each Wiki was quite clear. I particularly liked the idea of the Book Lovers Wiki developed by Princeton Public Library as part of the summer reading club for adults a few years ago. I had a look at some of the book reviews.

Library 2.0

Thing 15. Library boats and Icebergs is an interesting concept for looking at Web 2.0 and Libraries. It is hard to imagine libraries not having a large print collection which is referred to as a 'just in case' print collection in this article. I like the idea that services should be able to be used by patrons without training.
To me Library 2.0 means library services using Web 2.0 thinking and technologies. Changes that sound exciting but would have to happen gradually for me to keep up!

Technorati

Thing 14. Again I wasn't able to access everything in the Discovery Resources, the tip of the month link is no longer available. There were some interesting statistics in the State of the Blogosphere.
I had a good look around the Technorati home page but I wasn't able to do most of the Discovery Exercises. Either I'm blind or the site has been updated! I did a search for "libraries" in blogs and found some interesting library related blogs.

Delicious

Thing 13. The tutorial video was informative and helped in understanding how Delicious can be used. I noticed that the URL is different and wondered if other content may have changed. I wasn't able to access the other two resources so I searched for something similar on the internet and came across the Ultimate guide to delicious social bookmarking http://www.interactiveinsightsgroup.com/blog1/ultimate-guide-to-delicious-social-bookmarking/
I didn't go as far as opening a Delicious account but may do in the future. I can see that it could be useful for researching.

Twitter

For Thing 12 I had a look at Twitter. I went to http://twitter.com and found a Twitter guide at http://www.twitterguide.com.au/ which covers everything from how to get started and Twitter etiquette. I didn't go as far as signing up but I have a bit more of an understanding of what Twitter is all about.

Rollyo

Select Search Engine...YA BooksSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Two weeks later...I'm still on Thing 11. I have created a searchbox (with Kim's help) hopefully linked to my search roll. This is my second attempt, the first one came up with an error 'Your HTML cannot be accepted: closing tag has no matching opening tag: A'. I changed the style to plain so will see what happens when I publish this post.
I'm trying to move on to Thing 12, halfway through the 23 Things!

Rollyo

I created a search roll for Young Adult Books with author sites and other websites aimed at teen readers. Rollyo is a great idea but it was frustratingly slow and often came up with a message 'didn't connect - too many connections'. The process of adding websites was easy.

Library Thing

I started an account with Libary Thing and added nine books. I have three collections; My library, Read but unowned and Wish list. I'm not reading a book at the moment so I couldn't add anything to the Currently reading collection. For the five books I have recently read I added tags and gave them a rating. When I went to add 'Road to Paradise' by Paullina Simons I couldn't find it in Amazon so I added Christchurch City Libraries to the search options. I had a look at other peoples reviews for books in my library and at the various groups. From 'my books' I clicked on a book cover and had a look at the recommendations. I chose four books to add to my wish list.
I would have liked to add a widget to my blog but it isn't possible.

Alien Lion

Alien Lion
Originally uploaded by Muffinlady1

I had fun in Dumpr turning my photos into different images. For this image of the lion I used 'Alien Vision'. It was easy to use and linked directly with Flickr for storing the image. I changed the image to public to be able to add it to my blog. Well that's it for playing with photos. Time to move on to Thing 10.

Flickr Search

Today I was able to find all three photos I tagged with "Nhulunbuy Community Library" when I did a search. Previously only Kim's photo came up. I can finally say that I completed Thing 7!

Thing 8 required me to look at some Flickr Mashups. I found a list of APIs that use Flickr images on http://www.flickrbits.com/. Each one had a description so I had a closer look at the ones I thought sounded interesting. One of those was WackyB Flickr Desktop Slideshow. Semi-transparent images are displayed while the computer screen can still be seen to allow the user to continue working. I imagine it would be very distracting but an interesting idea!
I had fun making a comic strip in Bubblr with photos of soft toy animals. I searched Flickr by user name and I was very pleased to see all the photos I marked as public come up. I wasn't game to hit the publish button after I had make my comic strip for fear that it would end up in the gallery!

Kid's Corner

Kid's Corner
Originally uploaded by Muffinlady1

'Thing 7' has been a bit of a challenge. I started it in June and it is now October! I came to a halt when the first photo I took of the library couldn't be found by searching. Haven't been able to find the problem, even with Kim's help. The tag is "Nhulunbuy Community Library" and it is marked public. I had another go with two different photos but they still can't be found! At least I am getting more practise uploading photos. I'm moving on to 'Thing 8' now.

Flickr

Just Hanging Around is the photo I've chosen. I found this photo under the 'Blue' tag in explore by scrolling through the photos until I came across this one. There were some amazing photos and some very unusual. This one from Immagina is a bit of fun.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/immagina/160305794/