Completion

This was a good project and I definitely would participate in a similar one. The Yahoo daily games were fun but it would be easy to get carried away. We’ve started converting our old reference favorites to del.i.cio.us, which should be helpful once we’re finished with that project. I probably won’t listen to much music at work as my listening preferences aren’t really represented in the various services offered. In addition, any kind of headphones or earbuds give me a headache after just a few minutes of use. The streaming movies could come in handy at home if there aren’t any other options. Thanks for all the work that went in to providing this for staff!

Gaming

You saved the best for last, right? A reward for making it through the other assignments? A few years ago I had to have a one-on-one discussion with a staff member who was playing “Bejeweled” at work - times have changed! I tried two of the 5-minute daily games and managed to complete one of them in 4 minutes and the other in 17 seconds, so was still under the 5 minute limit. Then I tried Burger Island Quick Play and thought that our computers had been enhanced with smell-o-vision! When one of the game burgers burned I noticed a burned food smell in the library – turns out someone’s dinner had just burned in the microwave! Talk about a coincidence…anyway, it was fun.

Online applications

I can see how this could be useful, for example by sharing schedules and allowing everyone to view them at the same time. We are currently evaluating librarian schedules and I’ve created several possibilities that I would like the staff to evaluate. I imported them into Google docs and will be able to share them with the staff. However, I didn’t have any luck when I tried to do the same thing on Zoho – I received an error message that “.xls files are currently not allowed” (the proposed schedule was done as an Excel calendar). I then tried to import it from Google docs and got another error message that it couldn’t be imported because the “file should be a zip.” Not to be thwarted, I tried to import a simple Word document to Zoho but, alas, received another error message: “.docx files currently not supported.” Zoho looks great and I might try it with new documents but having to spend time to figure out which format to save existing documents in so that they will import seems too time consuming.

Maps

I was already familiar with Google Earth but needed to install the new version for this assignment. This was fairly easy to do but after clicking on the final “run Google Earth” nothing happened. Well, something happened – I was taken to Google Earth’s Explore, Search and Discover page. However, there isn’t anywhere on this page to explore or search by entering a location. This page has various tours and explanations of Google Earth but there’s no place that explains how to actually do a search! None of the items listed under “New” work, either – there’s a description but no way to use them. I finally got out of this page and clicked on the Google Earth icon on my desktop and was able to search from there. My daughter is going to be staying with a host family this summer while she attends a dance program in Illinois. I was able to look up their address and see an aerial view of their neighborhood – they live on the corner, looks like their house is a bit larger than their neighbors’ but they don’t have a swimming pool. Then I looked up houses for various other Illinois relatives and got good views of their neighborhoods. Next I entered a street address here in Washington but was taken to houses on that street name in other cities in Illinois. When I added Washington to the street address I was “flown” to the correct address here. I also looked for the dancewear store where my daughter purchases pointe shoes (it’s in Kirkland but I can’t ever remember the name of the store). By just entering “dance supplies” and “Kirkland” I was able to find the store (and other dance stores in nearby cities), including a photo (which made it really easy to confirm that it was the right store). However, the pointer on the map was in the wrong location across the street from the store’s actual location. Interestingly enough, the map that results from doing a search at google.com shows the correct location. A good case for getting a “second opinion” before heading down the highway.

Podcasting

I listened to Nancy Keane’s Booktalks Quick and Simple and it is just that – no frills, just book short booktalks on popular teen books. I’ve used the print version of this site for years so it was fun to hear how she delivers the booktalks. It was also interesting to find Medline Plus NLM Director comments available as a podcast – so for those auditory learners there are many possibilities. I could even listen to a podcast for NPR’s “Wait, wait…don’t tell me” comedy program (hmmm . . . on the Saturdays I work?).

Wait, wait from Seattle

Online image generators

This could be fun for designing customized cards, scrapbook pages, etc. but once again, the instructions on many of these sites leave a small but crucial piece of information out. For example, several of the photos I chose wouldn’t upload – I just kept getting an error message. I finally found one that worked (all of the photos, by the way, were taken by the same photographer and saved to the same file) and created a postcard. When I printed the card, the www.FotoTrix.com logo printed on the bottom, which I hadn’t expected. I’m sure they want to advertise their site but it sure took away from the impact of the card. So, I don’t know if there is a way to put the logo on the back of the card or make the font smaller, but I wouldn’t be able to use the card as it printed. Overall assessment: fun but takes too much time to figure out all the details.

OverDrive downloads

Well, this was an interesting (hmmm?) experience as I have helped library customers with this many times but haven’t tried it myself. There are a nice variety of titles in the “always available” group of downloadable books so there’s no longer an excuse for “everything is checked out.” The software that needed to be installed in order to use OverDrive worked properly but took longer than I anticipated. There also seem to be several small things that aren’t fully explained, even though they might not be intuitive for someone who is new to this technology – for example, clicking on “my account” (as suggested in the OverDrive Quick Start Guide) did not bring up the item I had checked out. The only way I could access it was by clicking on the OverDrive console on my desktop. Then, there are no instructions (either on the screen or in the training video) about how to actually get the audio to start (easy enough for most people who are used to just clicking on things to see what happens but not so easy for others who are afraid that they might “break” something). Also, when I went back to the book to see whether the bookmark I had added worked, the console indicated that it had never been played, which it had. The various features included in the console were nice (speed of reading, media markers, etc.) but could be more useful. Media markers, for example would be more useful if they also indicated a page number, in case the listener doesn’t remember the text. Small points aside, this service should continue gaining popularity with library users.

Social bookmarking and del.icio.us

Here’s the link to my del.icio.us account, http://del.icio.us/barand. I tagged some of the sites that were previously in my favorites folders and added a couple new ones. I can see the advantage of this at the reference desk as we are often looking for sites we know were added to the reference favorites but can’t remember which folder they’re in. Without the use of standardized terminology, however, we’ll still probably spend a certain amount of time trying to figure out which tags someone else might have assigned to a site. Tagging sites I like could save time in the future by providing a fast way to get back to a particular site but it might make it too easy not to look for new information on other sites. The user notes could be interesting but seem like one more example of unneccesary chatter on the net.

Wiki wiki fun

Using wikis is one of the most useful tools that has been developed in the 2.0 environment. I loved the  camping trip example and can definitely see how this could help when planning class field trips. Although I do wonder about the “window up/window down” syndrome – it seems that one person could keep moving an item on the wiki and another person could keep moving it back – how would other wiki users know which is correct? “In public libraries, where the technological skills of employees can range from high to non-existent, wikis can allow everyone the ability to develop the website. The resulting website would reflect the imagination and good ideas of the entire organization, not just a select few with the requisite “tech-savvy.” The possibilities for what libraries can do with wikis are endless. At their least, they are spaces for quick and easy collaborative work. At their best, they can become true community resources that can position the library as an online hub of their local community.” (recognize this?) I have found many entries on Wikipedia to be useful starting points when researching a topic, especially about esoteric things that just haven’t been published in print format.

I enjoyed the video of Clay Shirky’s presentation, “Where do they find the time for wikis, blogs, and all that stuff,” especially as this is a question that’s been posed several times on this blog. His take on what occupies the collective time is accurate, I think. But, in response, I’ve never seen an episode of Seinfeld, West Wing, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, or many of the other television dramas that have supposedly defined the last decade (I have seen American Idol perhaps a total of 5 times and So You Think You Can Dance about that number, also). My television viewing amounts to about 1 1/2 hours a week (not per day – per week). My video game playing is nil. My use of home email is (if I’m lucky) maybe 1 hour per week. Someone in the family still needs to work (including 2 hours each day of commuting), go grocery shopping, cook, clean, supervise homework, take care of the pets, assist in filling out financial aid forms and college applications, volunteer in the classroom, chaperone on field trips, drive children to school (and soccer and dance and music lessons), complete required volunteer hours for the soccer club and dance studio, and then attend the soccer games, dance recitals and concerts. It’s like being told by the latest politician, “it will only raise your taxes by the cost of a latte a day” when you’ve never purchased a latte, let alone purchased one a day. Or like hearing advice given on a talk show to tell your children that they will only be able to buy one pair of designer jeans or shoes for the school year when 95% of your children’s apparel already is purchased at the thrift store. My question to Mr. Shirky, therefore, remains the same: Where do they find the time for wikis, blogs, and all that stuff?

Avatars and Second Life

I don’t currently live in Second Life and can’t see doing so any time soon. It could be fun – a chance to completely reinvent myself – virtually accomplish the things on my life list, etc. But I’d still rather try to do them in real life and escape through reading instead of creating an alternative life. Perhaps the human race will evolve to fat blobs with minds and small appendages for keyboarding since there will no longer be a need to ever get out of a chair. I was going to insert my avatar from meez.com but their site is currently not available. I created one (quickly, which was great) at tektek but can’t get it to show up here on the blog (apparently “add an image” is not how it’s done, even though that seems the most likely way to add it.) Adding the url or linking to the image also doesn’t seem to work. For the purposes of this assignment I don’t have time to figure this out today. If I get back to it at some point, I’ll try again.