Week 4/Thing 9

Continuing on from the last post, I added "Shifted Librarians" to my Bloglines aggregator and it's really interesting. The best part was how it got me to related links and I signed up for three more feeds, including urban legends through Snopes (which I had heard about but not really checked out) and also Slate which I try to read now and then. I was so woefully ignorant of this technology that i looked up rss history on wikipedia to find out when it became so available and useful. Turns out it is fairly new--2005-2006. I will definitely use Bloglines or a similar thing in my daily life and I feel it is an absolute necessity in anyone's professional life. Everybody now has to keep up with the latest work-related info as well as the latest updates in leisure time activities, plane fares, purchases, etc. In my library I will be customizing my personal desk computer with my own feeds, and will poll my public patrons about their interests also. I'm thinking that news feeds would be popular. I am defintley going to investigate how our patrons can take maximum advantage of RSS.

Week 4/Thing 8

Okay, I have just got to pull myself away from this exercise and move on. I found this week's thing fascinating and spent lots of time on all the aggregators. I finally get what rss means and operates after having seen it forever, but never really taking advantage of it. Again, the amount of updated info is awesome and explains why I took so long sifting through all my interests. I began subscribing to a wide array of feeds, including my local newspaper, Office Depot , Library Journal just by subscribing to the rss on those sites. But I think the way to go is through an aggregator (I used Bloglines ad I loved its ease of use) and started clicking through the top 1000 feeds, but soon got sidetracked since I want to read everything. I set up a list of 6 feeds through Bloglines. But I also liked the Google Reader's news bundle and set up a few feeds through that . After reading the post about Sage, I'd like to get back to that and set it up later.

Week 3/Thing 7

In addition to all the other 23 things stuff this week, many of us also participated in a digtial library training course hosted by Overdrive to teach about the new ListenUp Vermont audiobook initiative. I can't say enough about how great this service wil be for our patrons. But as this post relates to a technology issue, I want to comment about how the training which combines online web sharing(all 10 of us from all over the state sitting at our computers could view the same power point pres) and telephone conferencing ( so we could hear each other and ask questions of Ann our trainer-presenter.) There were a very few glitches such as a hum on one of the phones and you did have to make sure that your computer was updated, but it went very well. I've never participated in this type of training before and I was impressed. YOu don't need any new expensive equipment and it certainly saves on travel costs! Kudos to Stephanie Chase (who sat in on the training) for making this prgram work and setting up the trainign sessions.

Week 3/Thing 6

I had heard about flickr but never explored it and had a great time with all the fun stuff one can do. (I spent much more than my 15 minutes on this section, too!)I created a flickr free account and uploaded a pic of one of our shelves and tagged it accordingly. I was a little disappointed that it did not show up right away in the "vermontlibrarieslearn" group, but the help feature assured me that my pic would show up soon. I like the options for different groups on flickr. I have also had a super time creating movie posters from the mashup option and that's something that I will definitely use at our library.

Week 2/Thing 4 Blog Experimentation

I'm out of sequence here -- but would like to use this post to experiment with at least one of the customizing tools from the tool bar. I'll add some random stuff and see what happens.

1)Adding images is great-- to the left is an old (1910) postcard from a collection my mother has. We're trying to organize them for sale by taking photos.

2) Threw in a link to UVM--my son's school.

http://www.uvm.edu/

Week 3/Thing 5 (twice) View from Scopello ( Sicily )

View from Scopello ( Sicily ), originally uploaded by angie_real Angela Lobefaro.

Here's another excellent use of Flickr--look at places to plan a trip. I'm researching a family trip to Italy and we plan on going to Sicily. I loved this image.

Week 3/Thing 5 Flickr Test Post

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. I decided to create a Flick account--so far, so good.

Week 2/Thing 3: Blogs are fun!

Setting up this blog reminded me of how much fun blogs are-- both writing and reading, as well as being very useful. One of my classes at Simmons required blogging on about 100 YA books throughout the course. I really loved learning about my classmates' reading choices and opinions. I've been visiting as many of our 23 Things participants' blogs as possible and commenting (since it's great to get comments.)
That said, I've also remembered how many hours I spent at the computer the last time I had a blog site to keep current. I think it's important for librarians to try to keep a balance between work-related computer hours and home and family time.

Week 1/Thing 2: Pointers From Lifelong Learners

I loved the life-long learners manifesto, but as comprehensive as it was, one element was not emphasized enough -- "Get over looking or feeling (choose 1) a. stupid , b.hopelessly old-fashioned, c. computer phobic, d) change-resistant. " You could also add intellectually lazy, mired in the past, nostalgic for the good old days, too comfortable with the status quo, etc.
A commitment to life-long learning, as well as being uplifting, empowering and good fun, also includes varying degrees of confusion, negative self-assessment and frustration. It challenges one to leave the comfort zone to do something new and think in another way.
My brother and I just got my eighty-four- year- old mother a computer to send email and search Ebay. Now that's lifelong learning!

Week One/Thing One: About This Program

I'm delighted that this program is so highly relevant to what I see my patrons of all ages doing. The self-paced aspect is also a lifesaver for me. And, yes, I will probably do most of the assignments at home on my own computer at odd hours! Thanks for this great learning opportunity.